XXI
“ELIJAH SLEEPING”
(Statue in wood, by Alonso Cano)

I have said that the decoration of these ceilings is sometimes floral, sometimes geometrical, sometimes a combination of the two.[37] Sometimes the wood is plain, or sometimes silvered, gilt, or painted. Sometimes it is employed alone, or sometimes variegated and inlaid with plaster points and patches. By far the commonest motive is the lazo—an ornamental scheme composed of infinite strips that turn, and twist, and intersect, describing in their mazy passage many polygons. One of these polygons determines, in a way, the scheme of the entire ceiling, which is denominated as consisting of “a lazo of eight,” “of ten,” “of twelve,” etc., from this particular. The most attractive and most frequent is the scheme “of eight.” Among the decorative details used to brighten and enhance the lazo proper are mocarabes or wooden lacery for relieving cubes and joists or surfaces, and rácimos or “clusters”; that is, hollow or solid wooden cones or prisms, disposed along the side and centre panels of the ceiling like (in Arenas' ingenious phrase) the buttons on a jacket, and contributing to the massive aspect of the whole. These clusters, too, were sometimes in the stalactite and sometimes in a simpler form, and show, both in the quantity and richness of their ornament, a limitless diversity.

XXII
SAINT BRUNO
(By Alonso Cano. Cartuja of Granada)

Magnificent Spanish-Moorish, Spanish, and Mudejar ceilings still exist in Spain. Such are the marvellous domed ceiling in the Hall of Comares (or of Ambassadors) in the Alhambra, those of the Castle of the Aljafería at Zaragoza and of the archbishop's palace at Alcalá de Henares, the Arab alfarge ceilings in the churches of San Francisco and Santiago of Guadix, that of the Hall of Cortes in the Audiencia of Valencia, that of the Sala Capitular of Toledo Cathedral, that of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit of the Cathedral of Cuenca (considered by many to be the finest artesonado ceiling in all Spain), or those of the churches of Jesus Crucificado, El Carmen, and San Pablo at Cordova. The ceiling of the Sala de la Barca, in the Moorish palace of the Alhambra, was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1890, but a good photograph had previously been taken, and I reproduce it here (Plate [viii].). One of the later artesonado ceilings is at Cordova, in the parish church of Santiago. Covered with a bóveda or vault of cane, it is in excellent preservation, and was made in 1635 by the master-carpenter Alonso Muñoz de los Ríos, who received for his labour fourteen thousand reales.[38] The artesonado ceilings which Diego Lopez de Arenas tells us in his treatise that he made for the church, the choir, and the sobreescalera of the monastery of Santa Paula at Seville, as well as a ceiling which he made for the church of Mairena, are all extant to-day. Other remarkable examples of this craft are the ceilings of the rooms constructed to the order of, and which were actually occupied by, Charles the Fifth, within the precincts of the old Alhambra. Upon these half-Italian, half-Morisco ceilings and their frieze we read the words, “Plus Oultre”; and the inscription, “Imperator Cæsar Karolus V. Hispaniarum rex semper augustus pius fœlix invictissimus.” In one of the same apartments, known as the “chamber of the fruits,” the ceiling has octagonal artesones of superb effect, though even richer is that of what is called the Second Sala de las Frutas, conspicuously influenced by Italian art, and believed by Gómez Moreno to have been designed by Pedro Machuca and executed by Juan de Plasencia.

XXIII
SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST
(San Juan de Dios, Granada)

Marvellous in conjunction with the thousand lighted lamps which served to manifest its beauties, must have been the primitive ceiling (as-sicafes) of the mosque of Cordova, of which an Arab poet sang; “Look at the gold on it, like the kindled flame, or like the lightning-stroke that darts across the heavens.”[39] Our notices of this ceiling, barbarously hacked to pieces by Christian architects, are neither numerous nor clear. We are told, however, that it was nearly finished in the reign of Abd-er-Rhaman the First, and terminated altogether by his son Hixem. New ceilings were added on the enlarging of the mosque by Abd-er-Rhaman the Second, while fresh additions were made by Al-Hakem the Second and Al-Manzor. Ambrosio de Morales gives a quaint description of the earliest, or an early, ceiling of this temple. “The roof of the whole church, made of wood painted and adorned in divers ways, is of incredible richness, as will be seen from what I am about to say. It is of larch throughout, odorous, resembling pine, which is not found in any part but Barbary,[40] whence it is brought by sea. And every time that a part of this temple was thrown down for new constructions to be added, the wood removed was sold for many thousand ducats for making guitars and other delicate objects. The ceiling was built across the church upon the nineteen naves thereof, and over it, covered likewise with wood, the roofs, nineteen in number also, each with its ridge atop, drooping to one and other side.”[41]