We go first to the Cathedral, to hear the high mass, and pay our respects to the remains of Ferdinand and Isabella, which rest there. Driving through beautiful ornamental grounds out of the Alhambra gate, down a steep hill in the old Moorish looking city, we find the cathedral, like that of Malaga, greatly ornamented, (in the Greco-Roman style,) built in 1529. Within the sanctuary are eleven pictures by Alonzo Caño, and two of his most celebrated pieces of sculpture—the heads of Adam and Eve carved in cork. Caño was a native of Granada, and is buried in the Cathedral Bocanegra. Another of the celebrated artists of Spain was also a native here, and the cathedral has several of his pictures. But everything connected with the church sinks into insignificance when one enters into the royal chapel, where all that can perish of the great Ferdinand and Isabella lies (a small space for so much greatness, as Charles V. said.) In a crypt, below the chapel, in plain leaden coffins, with but the simple initial of each king and queen upon them, are the coffins of Ferdinand and Isabella and their daughter Joanna, with her husband Philip I. (the handsome)—the last—that very coffin which the poor crazed Joanna carried about with her for forty-seven years, embraced with such frantic grief, and would never be parted from. Nothing was so affecting as the sight of this—not even the remembrance of all Isabella's glories and goodness! So does an instance of heart devotion touch one more than even the sight of greatness. Above the vault are the four beautiful alabaster monuments, made by order of Charles V. to the memory of his father and mother and his grandparents. Ferdinand and Isabella, with their statues, lie side by side; and poor Joanne la Folle looks lovely and placid (all her jealousies over) beside the husband she adored, as if at last sure that she could not be divided from him. Isabella died at Medina del Campo, (near Segovia, about thirty miles from Madrid,) but desired to be buried here in the bright jewel which she had won as well for her crown as for her God. Her body was taken to Granada in December, journeying over trackless moors amidst storms and torrents, of which the faithful and learned Peter Martyr gives account, who accompanied his beloved mistress to her last home.
The inscription which runs around the cornice tells: "This chapel was founded by their most Catholic Majesties, Don Fernando and Doña Isabel, king and queen of las Españas of Naples, of Sicily—of Jerusalem—who conquered this kingdom, and brought it back to our faith; who acquired the Canary Islands and Indies, as well as the cities of Oran, Tripoli, and Bugia; who crushed heresy, expelled the Moors and Jews from their realms, and reformed religion. The queen died Tuesday, November 26, 1504; the king died January 23, 1516. The building was completed in 1517."
The bassi relievi on the altar in this chapel are very interesting, from the scenes they represent—Ferdinand and Isabella receiving the keys of Granada from Boabdil, etc. At each end of the altar are figures of the king and queen in the costume of the day, the banner of Castile behind the king. In the sacristy is the crown of Isabella, the sword of Ferdinand, the casket in which she gave the jewels to Columbus, some vestments embroidered by her own hand, and the tabernacle used on the altar where they heard mass, on which is a picture of the adoration of the Magi, by that wonderful old painter Hemling of Bruges. Lord Bacon has said of Isabella: "In all her relations of queen or woman, she was an honor to her sex, and the corner-stone of the greatness of Spain—one of the most faultless characters in history—the purest sovereign by whom the female sceptre was ever wielded."
We hear mass in the chapel of the Sagrario, a beautiful church in itself. It was on one of its three doors that the Spanish knight Hernan Perez del Pulgar (during the siege of Granada) nailed the words, "Ave Maria;" to accomplish which feat, he entered the town at dusk, and left it unharmed—nay, even amidst the plaudits of the Arabs, who appreciated the deed. He is buried in one of the chapels called "Del Pulgar."
From the Cathedral we visit the "Cartuja," once a wealthy Carthusian convent, built upon grounds given to the monks by Gonzales de Cordova—"El gran Capitan." In the refectory is shown a cross, painted on the wall by Cotan, which so well imitates wood that the very birds fly to it, and try to perch there. The church has a beautiful statue of St. Bruno upon the altar; and a larger one in the chapel of the Sagrario, by Alonzo Caño, is especially fine. The sacristy is rich in marbles from the Sierra Nevada, and the doors and other wood-work of the church and chapel are made of the most curious and beautiful inlaid work—tortoise-shell, ebony, silver, and mother of pearl—all done by one monk, who took forty-two years to accomplish it; and after so adorning this chapel, behold! the monks are driven from it.
In the church are several lovely pictures—a head of our Lord by Murillo; a copy, by Alonzo Caño, of the Viergo del Rosario in the Madrid gallery, and a copy of one of the "Conceptions" of Murillo —that one with the fair flowing hair, so very lovely.
Returning home, we have our first view of the snow mountains, (Sierra Nevada.) How strange and how charming to be beneath a tropical sun, and with all the beautiful vegetation of Africa and the Indies, with people all eastern in dress and manners, and see above one snow-capped mountains like the glaciers of Switzerland! Owing to the proximity of these glaciers, the heat is never intolerable here, and yet the winters are so mild they seldom need fire in their sitting-rooms or parlors.
October 12.
To-day is made memorable by our first visit to the Alhambra. Situated on a high hill, on either side of which flows the Darro and the Genil, this space, which occupies several hundred acres, was formerly surrounded by walls and towers, and contained within it the palaces and villas of the Kalifs of Granada; and so numerous were these that it was called a city, Medina Alhambra. Of all these, there now remains but that portion of the Alhambra known as the summer-palace, (the winter-palace having been torn down by Charles V. to make room for a palace which he never finished.) Besides this summer-palace, there is the "Generalife," (a summer-palace built—later than the Alhambra—in 1319;) the remains of the Alcazabar, (fortress,) the Torre de la Vega, where the bell strikes the hours in the same manner as in the Moorish days, to signify upon whom devolves the duty of irrigating the "vega," the beautiful and fertile plain below; the tower of the captive; tower of the princesses; the tower of the "Siete Suetos," (seven stories;) and the Torres Bermujas, (Red Towers.) The last named are outside the Alhambra walls, but are on the same hill, and claim to belong to an older date than even the Moors or the Goths—supposed to be of Phoenician origin. The walls are entered by several gates, some Arabic, and others more modern. From these gates, you wander among stately avenues of trees, with flowers and shrubs and charming paths, through which now and then is seen a glimpse of the yellow towers, or some picturesque ruin, altogether a scene of enchanting beauty. And when upon one of the "miradors" (look-outs) or terraces which crown these towers and palaces, there lies the Moorish city at your feet, the grand snow mountains on the east, the beautiful vega stretching to the mountains on the west, down which marched the conquering Christians; and on the south lies that mountain so poetically called "the last sigh of the Moor," from which Boabdil looked his last upon the kingdom he was leaving for ever, and where his mother made him the famous reproach which has passed into history, that he did well to weep as a woman over that kingdom he could not defend as a man.