NOT only is Malaga endowed with an "eternal summer" by its lovely climate, there being actually no "winter of its discontent," but it has also enjoyed historically a splendid and long summer of prosperity, its present state being comparatively autumnal. This "golden age" existed under the Moors for many centuries preceding the dreadful siege laid to the city by the Catholic kings, which ended on the 18th of August, 1487. It has never altogether recovered from the christianising influences then brought to bear upon it, though the charms of its position and climate prevented its being altogether deserted at any time. They indeed produced an after-crop of splendour, in the shape of fine residences of powerful nobility, enriched many of them by the spoils of the Moors, and yet more by the silver of America and the great profits of the foreign trade, to say nothing of the smuggling carried on in its port. Of such our sketch presents a specimen, more Italian in its character than would be likely to be met with in Spain, in any other locality than a "Port de Mer." The great establishment of the Genoese merchants, the "Casa de los Genoveses," may have exercised a powerful local influence upon the arts and especially the architecture of Malaga, as that of our "Merchants of the Steleyard" did upon those of London.
In the distance is seen one of the cupola-covered towers of the vast Cathedral—most promising and picturesque from a distance, but unsatisfactory in its incompleteness, when visited by the Ecclesiologist.
PLATE LXIV.
MALAGA.
OLD WINDOW OF THE OSPEDALE DE SANTO TOMÉ.
THIS pretty window of, as I believe, the early part of the sixteenth century is evidently of Mudejar design with little of the Moorish element left in it, excepting the obvious Orientalism of the workman. Take away the engrailed intrados of the arch, and the little dove-tailed break in the line of the archivolt, and all that is Moorish in the design would disappear; but still the particular mode of combining the brick and tile work would be left to show the disinclination of the Moor to quit or alter his old technical habits as an operative.
This window is associated in my memory with some sad scenes of suffering. It is situated, as it were, on the road to a sort of wicket or buttery-hatch, at which aid is given daily to cripples out of the funds of the great Hospital of Santo Tomé. At an early hour these poor creatures, the halt, maimed, diseased, and blind, take up their stations against the wall, and gradually creep onwards towards the spot at which the distribution takes place. The "Ay de mis" and "Por l'amor de Dios," echo in a dismal strain, interrupted only by a few especially ferocious oaths as one a little stronger or more active than the rest struggles forwards to cheat the others of their turn. The whole scene would have made an admirable subject for Callot's needle, Hurtado de Mendoza's pen, or Van Obstal's chisel. Lazarillo de Tormes and his blind "Amo" sat before me; and one could clearly recognise what it must have cost noblemen, like D. Miguel de Manana[A] and his "cofrades" of the vast Hospital of the "Caridad" at Seville (the great rival no doubt to the Malagan Hospital), to carry on their works of mercy in the midst of a dirt and squalor which should be seen to be realised.