The canons were chanting the Office when we entered, and looked like bishops in their flowing purple robes. The service ended with a procession around the church, the clergy in magnificent copes, heavy with ancient embroidery in gold. The people were all devout. No careless ways, as in many places where religion sits lightly on the people, but an earnestness and devotion that were impressive. The attitudes of the clergy were fine, without being studied; the grouping of the people picturesque. The ladies all wore the Spanish mantilla, and, when not kneeling, sat, in true Oriental style, on the matting that covered portions of the marble pavement. Lights were burning on nearly all the altars like constellations
of stars all along the dim aisles. The grandeur of the edifice, the numerous works of Christian art, the august rites of the Catholic Church, and the devotion of the people all seemed in harmony. Few churches leave such an impression on the mind.
In the first chapel at the left, where stands the baptismal font, is Murillo’s celebrated “Vision of St. Anthony,” a portion of which was cut out by an adroit thief a few years ago, and carried to the United States, but is now replaced. It is so large that, with a “Baptism of our Saviour” above it by the same master, it fills the whole side of the chapel up to the very arch. It seemed to be the object of general attraction. Group after group came to look at it before leaving the church, and it is worthy of its popularity and fame, though Mr. Ford says it has always been overrated. Théophile Gautier is more enthusiastic. He says:
“Never was the magic of painting carried so far. The rapt saint is kneeling in the middle of his cell, all the poor details of which are rendered with the vigorous realism characteristic of the Spanish school. Through the half-open door is seen one of those long, spacious cloisters so favorable to reverie. The upper part of the picture, bathed in a soft, transparent, vaporous light, is filled with a circle of angels of truly ideal beauty, playing on musical instruments. Amid them, drawn by the power of prayer, the Infant Jesus descends from cloud to cloud to place himself in the arms of the saintly man, whose head is bathed in the streaming radiance, and who seems ready to fall into an ecstasy of holy rapture. We place this divine picture above the St. Elizabeth of Hungary cleansing the teigneux, to be seen at the Royal Academy of Madrid; above the ‘Moses’; above all the Virgins and all the paintings of the Infant Jesus by this master, however beautiful, however pure they be. He who has not seen the ‘St. Anthony of Padua’ does not know
the highest excellence of the painter of Seville. It is like those who imagine they know Rubens and have never seen the ‘Magdalen’ at Antwerp.”
We passed chapel after chapel with paintings, statues, and tombs, till we came to the Capilla Real, where lies the body of St. Ferdinand in a silver urn, with an inscription in four languages by his son, Alfonso the Wise, who seems to have had a taste for writing epitaphs. He composed that of the Cid.
St. Ferdinand was the contemporary and cousin-german of St. Louis of France, who gave him the Virgen de los Reyes that hangs in this chapel, and, like him, added the virtues of a saint to the glories of a warrior. He had such a tender love for his subjects that he was unwilling to tax them, and feared the curse of one poor old woman more than a whole army of Moors. He took Cordova, and dedicated the mosque of the foul Prophet to the purest of Virgins. He conquered Murcia in 1245; Jaen in 1246; Seville in 1248; but he remained humble amid all his glory, and exclaimed with tears on his death-bed: “O my Lord! thou hast suffered so much for the love of me; but I, wretched man that I am! what have I done out of love for thee?” He died like a criminal, with a cord around his neck and a crucifix in his hands, and so venerated by foes as well as friends that, when he was buried, Mohammed Ebn Alahmar, the founder of the Alhambra, sent a hundred Moorish knights to bear lighted tapers around his bier—a tribute of respect he continued to pay him on every anniversary of his death. And to this day, when the body of St. Ferdinand, which is in a remarkable state of preservation, is
exposed to veneration, the troops present arms as they pass, and the flag is lowered before the conqueror of Seville.
The arms of the city represent St. Ferdinand on his throne, with St. Leander and Isidore, the patrons of Seville, at his side. Below is the curious device—No 8 Do—a rebus of royal invention, to be seen on the pavement of the beautiful chapter-house. When Don Sancho rebelled against his father, Alfonso the Wise, most of the cities joined in the revolt. But Seville remained loyal, and the king gave it this device as the emblem of its fidelity. The figure 8, which represents a knot or skein—madeja in Spanish—between the words No and Do, reads: No madeja do, or No m’ha dejado, which, being interpreted, is: She has not abandoned me.
St. Ferdinand’s effigy is rightfully graven on the city arms; for it was he who wrested Seville from Mahound and restored it to Christ, to use the expression on the Puerta de la Carne: