Cathedral Cities of Spain

by W. W. Collins

Seville's quays are the busiest part of the city, and the constant dredging of the river permits of vessels of four thousand tons making this a port of call.

Next to the Prado in Madrid, the Museum of Seville is more full of interest than any other. It is here that Murillo is seen at his best. The building was at one time the Convento de la Mercede founded by San Ferdinand. The exhibits in the archæological portion nearly all come from that ruin, the wonderful city of Italica. Among the best of Murillo's work are St. Thomas de Villa Nueva Distributing Alms, Saint Felix of Cantalicio and a Saint Anthony of Padua. A large collection of Zurbaran's works also hangs in the gallery, but his big composition of the Apotheosis of Saint Anthony, is not so good as his single-figure subjects, and none of these approach in quality the fine Monk in the possession of the Bankes family at Kingston Lacy in Dorset.

Seville is the home of bull-fights. The first ever recorded took place in 1405, in the Plaza del Triunfo, in honour of the birth of a son to Henry II. of Castile. The world of Fashion takes the air every evening in the beautiful Paseo de las Delicias. The humbler members of society throng the walks watching their wealthier sisters drive down its fine avenues—this daily drive being the only exercise the ladies of Seville permit themselves to take.

It is a pretty sight to watch the carriages coming home as twilight begins, and the last rays of the sun light up the Torre del Oro. Built by the Almohades this Moorish octagon stood at the river extremity of Moslem Seville. The golden yellow of the stone no doubt gave it the name of "Borju-d-dahab," "the tower of gold," which has stuck to it under Christian rule. But "how are the mighty fallen," and one of the glories of the Moor debased. It is now an office used by clerks of the Port, and, instead of the dignified tread of the sentinel, resounds to the scribble of pens.

CORDOVA

IT is hard to realise that the Cordova of to-day was, under the rule of the Moor, a city famous all the world over and second only to the great Damascus. Long before the Moor's beneficent advent, in the far-off days of Carthage, Cordova was known as "the gem of the south." Its position on the mighty Guadalquiver, backed by mountains on the north, always seems to have attracted the best of those who conquered. In the time of the Romans, Marcellus peopled it with poor Patricians from Rome, and Cordova became Colonia Patricia, the capital of Hispania Ulterior. But it was left to the Infidel to make it what is now so difficult to realise—the first city in Western Europe.

The zenith of its fame was reached during the tenth century, when the mighty Abderrhaman III., ruler of the Omayyades reigned, and did not begin to decrease until the death of Almanzor at the beginning of the next century. If we are to believe the historian Almakkari, Cordova contained at one time a million inhabitants, for whose worship were provided three hundred Mosques, and for whose ablutions nine hundred baths were no more than was necessary. (The arch-destroyer of all things Infidel, Philip II., demolished these.) It was the centre of art and literature, students from all parts flocked hither, its wealth increased and its fame spread, riches and their concomitant luxury made it the most famous place in Western Europe. Nothing could exceed the grace and elegance of its life, the courtly manners of its people, nor the magnificence of its buildings.

From the years 711 to 1295, when Ferdinand drove him out, the cultivated Moslem reigned in this his second Mecca. And now?—under Christian rule it has dwindled down to what one finds it to-day—a quiet, partly ruinous town. Of all its great buildings nothing remains to remind one of the past but the ruins of the Alcázar—now a prison, a portion of its walls, and the much mutilated Mesquita—the Cathedral.