CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA
The tombs of the Catholic Kings, of Philip and of Queen Juana.
Inside the reja, a few steps above the tombs, rises Philip Vigarny's, or Borgoña's, elaborate reredos. To the Protestant sense this is gaudy and theatrical, a strikingly garish note in the solemnity and grandeur of the chapel. To the right and left of its base are, however, most interesting carvings, among them the kneeling statues of Ferdinand and Isabella. Behind the former is his victorious banner of Castile. The figures are vitally interesting as contemporaneous portraits of the monarchs, aiming to reproduce with fidelity their features and every detail of their dress. There is also a series of bas-reliefs portraying incidents in the siege of Granada,—the Cardinal on a prancing charger, behind him a forest of lances, the lurid, flaming sky throwing out in sharp silhouette the pierced walls and rent battlements. The Moors, very much like dogs shrinking from a beating, are being dragged to the baptismal font;—the gesticulating prelates hold aloft in one hand the cross and in the other, the sword, for the tunicked figures to make their choice. The scene has been described by Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, who tells us "that in one day no less than three thousand persons received baptism at the hands of the Primate, who sprinkled them with the hyssop of collective regeneration."
Again, in another, the cringing Boabdil is presenting the keys of the city to the "three kings." Isabella is on a white genet, and Mendoza, like the old pictures of Wolsey, on a trapped mule. Ferdinand is there in all his magnificence; the knights, the halberdiers and {263}horsemen, all the details of the dramatic moment, full of the greatest imaginable historic and antiquarian interest, perpetuated by one who was probably an eye-witness of the scene.
At the foot of the altar, in the centre of the chapel, stand the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella and of Philip and Joan. They are as gorgeous specimens of sepulchral monuments as the reja is of an ecclesiastical iron screen. Both sarcophagi are executed in the softest flushed alabaster; that of Ferdinand and Isabella by the Florentine Dominico Fancelli; that of their daughter and her son by the Barcelonian Bartolomé Ordenez, "The Eagle of Relief," who carved his blocks at Carrara. The tomb of poor crazy Jane, and the unworthy, handsome husband whom she doted on to the extent of carrying his body with her throughout the doleful wronged insanity of her later years, is somewhat more elevated than that of the Catholic Kings, though its general design is very similar. Philip of Austria sleeps vested with the Order of the Golden Fleece.
Isabella's celebrated will begins with her desire that her body may be taken to Granada and there laid to rest in the Franciscan monastery of Santa Isabella in the Alhambra, with a simple tomb and inscription: "but should the King, my lord, prefer a sepulchre in some other place, then my will is that my body be there transported, and laid where he can be placed by my side, that the union we have enjoyed in this world, and which through the mercy of God may be hoped for again when our souls are in heaven, may be symbolized by our bodies being side by side on earth." The humble burying-ground designated by Isabella, and{264} where she was first laid to rest with the simple rites she desired, was, however, no fitting place for the grandparents of Imperial Charles. Here, in the Cathedral's principal chapel, he had them laid in the year 1525.
The sarcophagus consists of three stages, containing the ornamental motives so characteristic of the best sculpture of the Italian Renaissance. No other form of statuary brought out their skill and genius so fully as a sepulchral monument. Medallions, statues, niches, saints, angels, griffins and garlands are all woven into a magnificent base to receive the recumbent effigies. Apostles and bas-reliefs of scenes from the life of Christ surround the base, while winged griffins break the angles. Above are the four Doctors of the Church, the arms of the Catholic Kings and the proud and simple epitaph, "Mahometicē sectē prostratores et hereticē pervicaciē extinctores: Fernandus Aragonium et Helisabetha Castellē, vir et uxor unanimes, catholici appelati, marmoreo clauduntur tumulo."[22] In tranquil crowned dignity above lie Ferdinand in his mantle of knighthood, his sword clasped over his armored breast, and Isabella with the cross of her country's patron saint. The recumbent figures are extremely fine; the faces, which are portraits, convey all we know of their prototypes' characteristics. Ferdinand's proud, pursed lips whisper his selfish arrogance, his iron will, and the greatness and fulfillment of his dreams. The hard, masterful jaw confirms the character given him by the shrewd French cynic as one of the most thorough egotists who ever sat on a throne, as well as that of his {265}English son-in-law, who knew enough to call him "the wisest king that ever ruled Spain."
Beside Ferdinand sleeps his lion-hearted consort. It is her lofty soul which broods over the sepulchre and heightens the feeling of reverence already inspired by reja and sarcophagus. She is still the brightest star that ever rose in the Spanish firmament and shone in clear radiance above even the lights of Ximenez, of Columbus, or the Great Captain. Her smile is now as cold and her look as placid as moonlight sleeping on snow.
Noble, tender-hearted and true, dauntless, self-sacrificing and faithful, she rose supreme in every relation of life and the great crisis of her people's history. "In all her revelations of Queen or Woman," said Lord Bacon, "she was an honour to her sex, and the corner stone of the greatness of Spain."
Standing before her tomb, on the battlefield of her victorious armies, the clear perspective and calm judgment of four centuries still declare her "of rare qualities,—sweet gentleness, meekness, saint-like, wife-like government, the Queen of earthly queens."{266}