Many other artists and writers have worked in Madrid, and the Spanish capital is still a well known center of culture.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 31
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
ALCÁZAR AT SEVILLE, SPAIN
SPAIN AND GIBRALTAR
Alcázar at Seville
THREE
Tranquilly amid its gardens that glow with roses and orange blossoms, the Alcázar of Seville, palace of the old Castilian kings, stands now as it stood in the days of the Moors. Here and there a ceiling, a stairway, or a colonnade, damaged by fire or earthquake, has been repaired according to architectural ideas of more modern times; but in the main those Moorish kings who built it could sleep, if they were there today, in their own rooms undisturbed by any feeling of strangeness.
The site on which the Alcázar was built is probably the oldest in Seville. The palace replaces an old Gothic castle, which had been erected on the foundations of a Roman villa. Uncertain traditions and the imagination of historical writers have pictured the houses of shepherds on the same spot before history began.