Old Continental Towns

by Walter M. Gallichan

An oratory adjoins the chapel. The court of the mosque is elaborately embellished, and has graceful columns and arches.

Several of the towers are provided with chambers, and those of Las Infantas were occupied by the princesses of the Moorish rulers. This tower was erected in the time of Mohammed VII. Within, Las Infantas Tower is delightfully decorated. The interior of the Torre de la Cautiva is even more brilliantly adorned.

The Generalife, the “Palace of Recreation,” or, as other authorities have it, “the Garden of the Architects,” was originally an observation tower, and was used afterwards by the sultans as a villa. This summer residence is separated from the Alhambra by a gorge, and approached by a path through a garden. The Acequia Court is one of the most beautiful of the patios in the buildings comprising the Alhambra. A gallery surrounds it, supported by tall pillars and arches, most richly ornamented. We look between the slender columns upon a lovely Oriental garden, with a series of fountains playing in jets. The gardens of the Generalife are delightful; the trees are luxuriant from the moisture of the soil, and the flowers grow in riotous profusion. Here the very trees are aged, for the cypresses were planted in the days of the sultans. There is an expansive and impressive view from the belvedere adjoining.

Unfortunately most of the internal beauties of the Generalife have suffered decay, and the brush of the whitewasher has coated the walls. But the cypress court, the curious gardens, the fountains, and the beautiful arches and pillars must be seen.

The Darro that flows beneath the hill of the Alhambra contains gold, and it is said that when Charles V. came with his empress, the inhabitants presented him with a crown made from the precious grains collected from the bed of the stream. A little silver has been found in the Genil into which the Darro flows.

Looking back at the magnificent Alhambra on its proud summit, we can imagine the distress of the Moors when their city was captured by the army of Fernando. We leave this monument behind, and, as we descend to the Cathedral, our thought turns to the period of Christian domination, and of the triumph of the old faith of Spain.

The first architect was Diego de Siloe, and the work was continued by his pupils, and by the renowned Alonso Cano, who designed the west front. As a specimen of Renaissance work, the Cathedral of Granada is one of the most splendid churches of Spain. The dome is vast and magnificent, there are five naves and many side chapels, all containing splendid works of art. Over the principal doorway are relief carvings, dating from the eighteenth century. But a finer portal is that of Del Perdon, where we shall see some of Siloe’s characteristic decoration.

Alonso Cano, painter and sculptor, was buried in the choir. This artist was a native of the city, and the only great painter that Granada produced. Before his day, the artists of Spain painted with an intensity of religious seriousness, to the end of leading men to worship God and the Virgin. Their work was sombre and dramatic. Alonso Cano struck a secular note; he had a relish of the life of this world, and his fervent temperament found expression in depicting love episodes, and portraying the women of his day in the guise of saints and madonnas. His “Virgin and Child,” in the Saville Cathedral, expresses his emotional art. Cano has been called “the least Spanish of all the painters of Spain.”

He was born in 1601, and the register of the Church of St Ildefonso records his baptism. In his sixty-sixth year he died. As a lad he studied painting in Seville, in the studio of Pacheco, at the time when Velazquez was a student, and afterwards he learned the methods of Juan del Castillo. He was patronised by Philip IV., and he painted many pictures for the cathedrals of his country, among others at Madrid, Toledo, and Granada. Alonso Cano was made a priest, and afterwards a prebendary of Granada, where an apartment was assigned to him in the cathedral.

In the Capella Mayor the frescoes of the cupola are by Cano, depicting episodes in the life of the Virgin. The paintings are joyous in temper, and brilliant in colouring. “The Purisima,” one of his most finished statues, is in the sacristy, and among other examples of his carving are the wooden painted figures of “Adam and Eve”; and “The Virgin and Child with St Anna” is most probably the work of Cano. “St Paul,” in the Chapel of our Lady of Carmen, is also one of his pieces. The pictures in Granada from Cano’s brush are in the Capella Mayor, the Church of the Trinity, the altar of San Miguel, and in the Chapel of Jesus Nazareno. His carved work is seen in the lectern of the choir, the west façade, and the doors of the sacristy.