There they rest on two alabaster tombs, a marvel of exquisite workmanship, erected to their memory by their grandson, Charles V.
A frigid smile yet lingers on the queen’s marble lips as she turns her head lovingly towards Ferdinand, who, as in life, looks straight out, determined and warlike as he ever was. Both wear their crowns.
Beside them, on another monument, is their daughter Juana la loca (mad), her fickle Burgundian at her side. Their countenances are averted, their position as uneasy as was their life. Troubled lines wander over Juana’s form, and the comely head of Philip sinks on a marble pillow in selfish rest.
The four coffins lie in a narrow cell beneath; “a small place,” said their grandson, Charles V., “for so much greatness.”
A lofty Gothic portal separates the Capilla Real from the cathedral by a reja, or iron gates, elaborately worked.
No gilded canopy obscures the figures from the light, so royal is their simplicity, and when the radiance of the eastern sun lights up the vaulted ceiling, knitted into broad bands into bosses, leaves, and borders, and pictures, golden retablos and sculptured saints stand out on the subdued splendour of the walls, the effect is as a scene of actual history, enacted in what was once the great mosque of the Moors, conquered by the arms of these dead sovereigns (Los Reyes Catolicos) and converted into this Christian sepulchre, as a triumph to last as long as the world stands.
A Selection from the
Catalogue of
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Complete Catalogue sent
on application
Old
Court Life in France
By Frances Elliot
Author of “Old Court Life in Spain,” etc.
Two Volumes, Octavo. With 60 Photogravure and Other
Illustrations, Net $5.00. Carriage 50 cents