The bridge is narrow and extremely high above the river, as here the thunderous rush of water down the rocky gorge comes often with the menace of flood, and beside this splendid central arch that gave rise to the legend Tenorio’s arch, 140 feet wide and 95 above the water level, most lofty and grand, there are four smaller arches. At either end, like the Alcántara Bridge, there is a tower and gateway, with Moorish arches and battlements, and vaulted arches for the passengers; inscriptions and reliefs abound, a statue of St Julian by Monegro and of Alfonso VII. the Emperor. Across the southern hills, among their bare scented folds, beyond silent gorge and wild waterway, lie the famous Cigarrales, the villas, the gardens, the orchards, where the apricots grow as they grow nowhere else. Tirso de Molina sings their charms, and the aubergines of the Cigarrales were famous even in the days of Guzman de Alfarache. Here towards evening the townsfolk wander out to taste the air of the hills and revel in cool leafage, and the walk back in the gathering shade, when the town is getting ready its feeble electric illumination, and the stars are out, and the streets are dim and silent. Then more than ever will Toledo appear to you as something too beautiful for reality, the imagined city of wild romantic legend, an intangible evocation that surely the morning lights must disperse, that the reality of day must vulgarise. It is not in the nature of modern eyes to gaze with security upon a picture so mysteriously strange, so solemnly sad in its grandeur, so complete a surprise.
To-day there are three gates in the outer walls of Toledo, the Puerta Visagra, the Puerta del Cambron and the Puerta Nueva. Entering the city by the Bridge of San Martin, you front the gate of the Cambron here, so called from the brambles that grew about that small, charming, pinnacled edifice, built upon the spot of Wamba’s old gate in Alfonso VI.’s time, and was then completely Moorish in style. In 1576 it was restored and took on its present half renaissance, half classical aspect, with its four towers, its centre court and columns. Berruguete’s lovely statue of St Leocadia used to stand in the niche above the lines in her honour from the Mozarabe ritual sculptured below:
In Nostra civis inclita
Tu es patrona vernul[ae]
Ab urbis hujus termino
Procul reptile tedium.
Gutierrez Tello, we know, was ordered by Philip II., iniquitous Vandal, to break up all the beautiful Moorish inscriptions on the bridges and gates, but one of these inscriptions still remains on the fragment of a column; the finest have disappeared. This was one: “There is but one God on earth, and Mohamad is his messenger. All the faithful who believe in our prophet, Mohamad, and continue to kiss the hands and feet of Murabito Muley abda Alcadar every day, will be without stain, will not be blind, nor deaf, nor lame, nor wounded; and receiving his benediction, when the time of his death comes, will only be three days ill, and dying, will go with open eyes to Paradise forgiven of all sins.” Who would not willingly kiss the hands and feet of Murabito Muley every day in return for such promises? There was another interesting inscription to the same Muley on an old gateway: “Prayer and peace over our Lord and Prophet Mohamad. All the faithful, when they went to lie down in their beds, mentioning the Alfaqui Murabito Abdala, and recommending themselves to him, will enter no battle out of which they will not come victorious, and in whatever battle against Christians they may stain their lances with Christian blood, dying that same day, will go alive and whole with eyes open to Paradise, and his descendants will remain till the fourth generation forgiven.” Evidently a man to have on one’s side in the struggle for existence and in the hope of joys to come in a better world. Small wonder Ponz called Toledo the city of magnificent inscriptions. You are greeted everywhere with grandiloquent or heroic utterances.
The old Puerta Visagra is now blocked up. Through it Alphonso VI. entered Toledo. The work is entirely Moorish, of the first period, heavy and simple, with the triple arches so delightfully curved in horseshoe shape, and the upper crenelated apertures. The meaning of the name is still disputed. Some give it a Latin origin, signifying Via-Sacra, others an Arabian origin, Bab, gate, and Shara, meadow, as it leads into the stony fields without, in the Vega. This seems to be the more probable one, since the Puerta Visagra distinctly dates from the time of the Moors. The new gate faces the highroad of Estremadura, and was built under Charles Quint, 1550. It forms two edifices, joined by a large square courtyard with high turreted walls on either side. The outer arch and tower are magnificent; the whole is impressive. On the south front is the shield with the arms of Spain, and the Emperor’s eagles, in sculptured granite, with a Latin inscription below. There is another front behind the vaulted entrance, with two graceful square towers, adorned with balconies and elegant capitals narrowing to a pyramidal point, roofed with white and green tiles, which make an odd and not-unpleasing note against the brown rampart running upward. These gleaming azulejo tower-roofs dominate the plain, and, seen from above, the effect of this little dash of brightness amidst all these brown tones of earth and stone is indescribably gay. Within, on the doorway, is the inscription of the Senate’s dedication of the gate to Charles Quint, and beyond the patio, in a niche in the central arch, is an exceedingly fine statue of St Eugenio, either by Berruguete or Monegro. Both these artists were engaged by Toledo to make statues for the gates and bridges, and confusion now rests upon all the statues except that of St Leocadia (now in the Hermitage of the Cristo de la Vega), which is assuredly a Berruguete, and perhaps the most exquisite thing he has ever done. Monegro’s work will be sufficiently appreciated by the fact of this confusion. Here, again, are finely sculptured, in large relief, the arms of the Emperor, and a life-size angel guards the city with unsheathed sword. This statue and the shield were originally gilt, but time has worn the gilt away; in either tower-front, on both sides of the shield, are two statues of Gothic kings. But a mere description of the details of this splendid gate can really give no impression of its general effect. If there were not the Puerta del Sol—one of the world’s masterpieces—so near, one would be tempted to call it the finest on earth.
But to write of the Puerta del Sol—Moorish gem against a Spanish sky, miracle of loveliness upon a rough and naked rampart! A thing of bewildering beauty, even among crowded enchantments! It is to pick one’s way through superlatives and points of exclamation, and call in vain on the goddess of sobriety to subdue our tendency to excess and incoherence. Put this matchless gate in the middle of the desert of Sahara: it would then be worth while making the frightful voyage alone to look at it. However far you may have journeyed, you would still be forever thankful to have seen such a masterpiece—incontestably a work of supreme art, perhaps the rarest thing of the world. Is there a flaw in it? Mine were not the eyes to detect it. I could only look on and worship. The last evening of my stay in Toledo, I went out to make my farewell visits by dusk to the town, accompanied by my friend, the Spanish painter. Into that lovely walk I gathered too many impressions to disengage them, but I still see the Puerta del Sol in the blue twilight, with a big star—like a lamp—trembling on the edge of it, in the fluid luminosity of a fading sunset. “Una preciocedad,” murmured my Spanish friend, familiar with its witchery for more than fifteen years; and we stood there for a half hour in dead silence, making our prayer of thanks to the strong, great hands, the commanding genius, that wrought for our delight, so long ago, a work which defies the banality of description.