Cardinal Despuig has left many memorials which will ever secure for him an honourable place in the island’s history. He devoted both time, money, and a cultivated taste to enriching the country seat of his nephew, the Count of Montenegro, as well as his palace in Palma, with the most precious literary and artistic productions of Italy and Spain.
The country seat of Raxa is a place of enchantment at the foot of the mountains, approached from Palma through miles of almond-groves in full blossom during February. In Moorish times it was called Araxa, and was granted by King Jayme I. to the Count of Ampurias, becoming the property of the family of Despuig in 1620. Raxa is a large house of three storeys, built round a courtyard, with an ancient elm-tree in the centre. The rooms are exceedingly numerous, and all the furniture is of a date at least 150 years ago. There are many beautiful Florentine cabinets, some good pictures, and fayence. The dining-room has a carved oak ceiling in squares, with an old fayence plate let into each. One room is full of valuable Vatican engravings, another of paintings of Rome as it was 150 years ago. One side of the house has balconies, with arcades, looking on the garden and over a lovely view. The great glory of Raxa is the museum of Roman sculpture. Cardinal Despuig acquired a site near Albano, where once had stood the superb temple to Egeria, built by the Emperor Domitian. Between 1787 and 1796 the Cardinal conducted excavations which brought to light many statues, busts, altars, and other remains, which he sent to Majorca to adorn his nephew’s country seat. There is a very fine statue of Trajan, others of Caligula, Hercules, a gladiator, &c. A full descriptive list is given in Bover’s ‘Noticias Historico-topograficas.’[24] Opposite to the door of the museum is that of the chapel, where there is a picture of Jesus and the Woman of Samaria.
There is a charming garden, with fountains, in front of the house, and orange-groves beyond. Behind there are garden terraces up the mountain side, and two very large tanks. A long flight of steps, with statues on either side and water flowing down in masonry channels, leads up to loftier terraces with flower-beds and groves of cypress, pine-trees, and laurustinus. It is like fairyland; and from a summer-house there are views of the sea of almond-blossoms extending to Palma on one side, and of the pine-clad mountains and serrated peaks on the other.
Many of the treasures collected by the Cardinal are in the Montenegro palace in the city of Palma. This palace, in the street of the same name, has a courtyard with palm-trees, whence a wide stone staircase leads to a gallery, where is the front door. The rooms are large and lofty, richly furnished, and warmed by braseros. At the back of the house there is a good-sized garden with palm-trees and an evergreen oak. In this palace are more of the treasures collected by the Cardinal. The famous portolano of Valseca has already been fully described. At the top of the house is the magnificent library, arranged in subjects. One of the most valuable books is a manuscript ‘Nobiliario’ of the Aragonese nobility of the fifteenth century, with coats of arms beautifully painted. Here, too, is the original manuscript of Alemany’s history. The poetical and historical works are the most numerous, including fine editions of ‘Don Quijote.’ The room is of great length, and at the end was the cabinet of coins, Roman Consular and Imperial, Spanish-Arabian, Gothic, and Aragonese kings. According to Bover, the finest collection of Majorcan coins is in the cabinet of the Count of Ayamans.
Cardinal Despuig, who was an intimate friend of Pope Pius VI., died at Lucca on May 2, 1813, leaving to his country a thousand memorials which will give his name an honoured place in the Balearic fasti. His nephew, for whom all these collections were made, died in the same year. This Count’s son, Ramon, fifth Count of Montenegro, was Captain-General of Majorca, and died in 1848. The present Count, to whose great courtesy our knowledge of Raxa and the Cardinal’s treasures is due, is a grandson of the Captain-General, and is the seventh Count of Montenegro.
Majorca boasts other country houses almost as beautiful, though not quite so interesting as Raxa. Alfavia has already been described, and Canet, the home of the Torrellas, has been mentioned. Another charming country seat is La Granja de Esporla, the home of the Fortuñy family. It is in a valley, with mountain-spurs on either side and abundant supplies of water. The house is built round a courtyard, one side having a wide stone passage on the upper storey, with open colonnades. Over the archway into the courtyard there is a stone coat of arms of Fortuñy (argent five pellets, two, two, and one; quartering Gual, Despuig, and Zaforteza). There is a very large stone-paved hall, hung with pictures, which opens on to a narrow garden leading to terraces up the mountain-side, fountains, and artificial grottos. In front there is a long pergola of roses, orange and lemon groves, and a splendid old yew-tree. The mountains are clothed with ilex as well as pine-trees.
There are great advantages in the chief people of the island living in their country houses during the summer and having personal intercourse with their people. It encourages enterprise. Thus at Esporlas there are extensive cloth-factories, and at Canet, under the patronage of the Torrellas, there is a fayence-manufactory, producing vases with very beautiful designs.
CHAPTER XVII
The Marquis of Romana and the patriot Jovellanos.
The romance of Majorcan history seemed to have come to an end with young Jayme IV. and his sister; but it was renewed in the career of the Marquis of Romana, the most distinguished of later Majorcans.
Like many other noble families of the Peninsula, the Caros derive their coat-armour from an incident in the memorable battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.[25] Juan Caro accompanied En Jayme in the conquest of Majorca. His descendants were in the conquest of Almeria, the wars of Flanders, the battle of Los Gelves, the sea-fight of Lepanto, and many other combats against the enemies of Spain. They held estates in Orihuela, Elche, Crevillente, and Novelda, and the feudal castle of Maza, as well as extensive property in Majorca. Don José Caro was created Marquis of La Romana and Viscount of Benaesa in 1739 for his great services during the War of Succession. Don Pedro Caro, the third Marquis, was born at Palma in 1761, and lost his father, a very distinguished naval officer, when he was only fourteen. The third Marquis entered the navy, rising to the rank of captain of a frigate, but exchanged into the army in order to serve under his uncle, General Ventura Caro, in the first war with revolutionary France. He had risen to the rank of lieutenant-general when Mr. Hookham Frere came to Madrid as Ambassador from England in 1803. They at once became great friends, the Marquis being of immense use to the English diplomatist in explaining to him the state of parties at the Spanish Court. Southey says of Romana that he was ‘a man whose happy nature had resisted all the evil and debilitating influences of the age and rank in which he was born. He possessed a rare union of frankness and prudence, while he read with unerring intuition the characters of others. Spain has never produced a man more excellently brave, more dutifully devoted to his country, more free from the taint of selfishness, more truly noble.’