Old Continental Towns

by Walter M. Gallichan

The Gate of Pardon which gives entrance to the Court of Oranges has a horseshoe arch, surmounted by three smaller arches, and which are decorated with paintings of no value. This gateway is not Moorish, but a later addition built by the Christians in imitation of the gate at Seville Cathedral.

The Court of Oranges was used by the Moslems for ablution before entering the mosque. It is a wide space, with palms, orange-trees, and fountains, and a colonnade. It is the most beautiful spot in Cordova, cool and gracefully shaded, and when the orange-trees are in flower a fragrance pervades the place. Once there were nineteen beautiful gateways leading into the court, and these were uniform with the nineteen aisles. The famous fountain of Abderahman stands in the centre of the court. Here all day the women of Cordova are gathered. They come one by one, or in groups together. Each carries her red-brown pitcher for water. It is the meeting-place where the day’s gossip is exchanged. Always there is the sound of laughter and gay chattering. All the Cordovese appear to be happy.

We enter the mosque by the Puerta de las Palmas; the eyes are dazed by the endless columns and profusion of arches, numbering nearly nine hundred. Nowhere are there such columns and arches as these. Every stone has its history. Marble, porphyry, and jasper are the material, and the arches are painted red and white. The effect is indescribable. I believe that there are not two columns alike in point of decorative detail. Some of the arches are of horseshoe shape, and some are round. But symmetry is retained; the whole interior gives a delightful impression of grace and elegance.

Look up at the wondrous ceiling. Its wealth of colour is dazzling. When the thousands of lamps were lit, the ceiling shone with gold and brilliant colours. In some parts the ceilings of the mosque are embellished with paintings, and a number of cufic inscriptions are seen among the decorative designs.

De Amicis, writing of the Mosque of Cordova, says: “Imagine a forest, fancy yourself in the densest part of it, and that you can see nothing but the trunks of trees. So in this mosque, on whatever side you look, the eye loses itself among the columns. It is a forest of marble, whose confines one cannot discover. You follow with your eye, one by one, the very long rows of columns that interlace at every step with numberless other rows, and you reach a semi-obscure background, in which other columns seem to be gleaming. There are nineteen aisles, which extend from north to south, traversed by thirty-three others, supported, among them all by more than nine hundred columns of prophyry, jasper, breccia, and marbles of every colour.”

The walls and ceiling of parts of the building are in marvellous preservation. They gleam with an infinite opulence of colour; they are elaborately embellished with almost every conceivable form of arabesques, bas-reliefs, and Moorish designs, painted in wonderful hues and rich in gilt.

The Mihrâb is the prime glory of the building. It was first erected and adorned by Abderahman I., and a second prayer-recess was constructed by the second Abderaham. The third Mihrâb dates from 961, and was erected in the time of the Caliph Hakam II. It is one of the finest specimens of Moorish art extant. Here the Koran was kept, and the most solemn rites were performed in the days of the great caliphs.

The cupola of this superb sanctuary is carved in the shape of a pine-apple, decorated with shell-like ornaments, and painted lavishly in gold, blue, and red. There are delicate pillars of marble, with gold capitals. The niches of the dome are beautifully painted, and the chief arch is decorated with mosaics. Over the arch is an inscription in gold on a ground of blue.

The slender pillars and graceful double arches of the entrance to the vestibule of the Mihrâb are examples of Moorish architecture in its finest manifestation. Very gorgeous and intricate is the design of the façade of the Mihrâb. The portal is a horseshoe arch, handsomely ornamented, and above runs a tier of smaller horseshoe arches. This is surmounted by other arches, gracefully interlaced, and adorned with a profusion of mosaics and decorations in colour.

When the mosque was converted into a Christian cathedral under the name of Santa Maria, the side aisles were divided into about forty chapels. The variety of the architectural styles in this great building range from the Moorish to the baroque and the plateresque. Charles V. was partly responsible for the choir, which gives a strange note of discord to the harmony of the Moorish temple. But the emperor lamented having granted leave to the Chapter to build the Coro, for upon seeing the structure, he exclaimed: “You have built what you or others might have built anywhere, but you have destroyed something that was unique in the world.” To construct the choir, a part of the beautiful Morisco ceiling was destroyed, and commonplace vaulting took its place.