Spanish Arms and Armour / Being a Historical and Descriptive Account of the Royal Armoury of Madrid

by Albert Frederick Calvert

TOLEDO

A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE “CITY OF GENERATIONS,” WITH OVER 480 ILLUSTRATIONS

The origin of Imperial Toledo, “the crown of Spain, the light of the world, free from the time of the mighty Goths,” is lost in the impenetrable mists of antiquity. Mighty, unchangeable, invincible, the city has been described by Wörmann as “a gigantic open-air museum of the architectural history of early Spain, arranged upon a lofty and conspicuous table of rock.”

But while some writers have declared that Toledo is a theatre with the actors gone and only the scenery left, the author does not share the opinion. He believes that the power and virility upon which Spain built up her greatness is reasserting itself. The machinery of the theatre of Toledo is rusty, the pulleys are jammed from long disuse, but the curtain is rising steadily if slowly, and already can be heard the tuning-up of fiddles in its ancient orchestra.

In this belief the author of this volume has not only set forth the story of Toledo’s former greatness, but has endeavoured to place before his readers a panorama of the city as it appears to-day, and to show cause for his faith in the greatness of the Toledo of the future.

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MOSLEM RULE IN SPAIN, TOGETHER WITH A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE CONSTRUCTION, THE ARCHITECTURE, AND THE DECORATION OF THE MOORISH PALACE, WITH OVER 450 ILLUSTRATIONS

This volume is the third and abridged edition of a work which the author was inspired to undertake by the surpassing loveliness of the Alhambra, and by his disappointment in the discovery that no such thing as an even moderately adequate illustrated souvenir of “this glorious sanctuary of Spain” was obtainable. Keenly conscious of the want himself, he essayed to supply it, and the result is a volume that has been acclaimed with enthusiasm alike by critics, artists, architects, and archæologists.

In his preface to the first edition, Mr. Calvert wrote: “The Alhambra may be likened to an exquisite opera which can only be appreciated to the full when one is under the spell of its magic influence. But as the witchery of an inspired score can be recalled by the sound of an air whistled in the street, so—it is my hope—the pale ghost of the Moorish fairy-land may live again in the memories of travellers through the medium of this pictorial epitome.”