Charles V., as well as his great contemporary and rival, Francis I., was a munificent protector of art. He brought from Italy and Antwerp some of the most perfect products of their immortal masters. He was the friend and patron of Titian, and when, weary of the world and its vanities, he retired to the lonely monastery of Yuste to spend in devout contemplation the evening of his days, the most precious solace of his solitude was that noble canvas of the great Venetian, where Charles and Philip are borne, in penitential guise and garb, on luminous clouds into the visible glory of the Most High.
These two great kings made a good use of their unbounded opportunities. Spain became illuminated with the glowing canvases of the incom-
AN HOUR WITH THE PAINTERS 147
parable Italians. The opening up of the New World beyond seas, the meteoric career of European and African conquest in which the emperor had won so much land and glory, had given an awakening shock to the intelligent youth of Spain, and sent them forth in every avenue of enterprise. This jealously patriotic race, which had remained locked up by the mountains and the seas for centuries, started suddenly out, seeking adventures over the earth. The mind of Spain seemed suddenly to have brightened and developed like that of her great king, who, in his first tourney at Val-ladolid, wrote with proud sluggishness Nondum--not yet--on his maiden shield, and a few years later in his young maturity adopted the legend of arrogant hope and promise,--Plus Ultra. There were seen two emigrations of the young men of Spain, eastward and westward. The latter went for gold and material conquest into the American wilds; and the former, led by the sacred love of art, to that land of beauty and wonder, then, now, and always the spiritual shrine of all peoples,--Italy.
A brilliant young army went out from Spain on this new crusade of the beautiful. From the plains
148 CASTILIAN DAYS
of Castile and the hills of Navarre went, among others, Berruguete, Becerra, and the marvellous deaf-mute Navarrete. The luxurious city of Valentía sent Juan de Juanes and Ribalta. Luis de Vargas went out from Seville, and from Cordova the scholar, artist, and thinker, Paul of Céspedes. The schools of Rome and Venice and Florence were thronged with eager pilgrims, speaking an alien Latin and filled with a childlike wonder and appreciation.
In that stirring age the emigration was not all in one direction. Many distinguished foreigners came down to Spain, to profit by the new love of art in the Peninsula. It was Philip of Burgundy who carved, with Berruguete, those miracles of skill and patience we admire to-day in the choir of Toledo. Peter of Champagne painted at Seville the grand altar-piece that so comforted the eyes and the soul of Murillo. The wild Greek bedouin, George Theotocopouli, built the Mozarabic chapel and filled the walls of convents with his weird ghost-faces. Moor, or Moro, came from the Low Countries, and the Carducci brothers from Italy, to seek their fortunes in Madrid. Torrigiani, after breaking Michael Angelo's nose in Florence, fled