Isabella was but twenty-three years of age at the time of her marriage with Charles. She was, however, no child. Her intelligence was quick. The Princess was short, spare in body, with a clear white skin. The wedding was celebrated in Seville, in March 1526. For the honeymoon the Emperor and his bride visited Córdova and Granada.
Charles liked the seclusion of his palace in Seville. 'Not greedy of territory, but most greedy of peace and quiet,' was the description of the monarch by Marcantonio Contarini, in 1536. He was strongly attached to his wife; he was fond of children, and kept pet animals, 'including a parrot and two Indian cats.' The Emperor was interested in gardening, and he introduced the carnation into Spain. At table he was a glutton, and unable to exercise self-control over his greedy appetite. It was said that Charles five times drained a flagon, containing nearly a quart of Rhenish wine, during a single meal. We need not be surprised that he suffered from severe attacks of gout. Yet he would not forego the pleasures of the table, and when his physician warned him that beer was injurious to his constitution, the Emperor refused to give up drinking it.
In dress Charles was economical. He went to Italy in a shabby suit, hoping by his example to check the tendency to extravagance displayed by his courtiers and the nobles of Spain. His servants were sometimes in tattered clothes.
'A fine taste for art seemed inborn in Charles,' writes Mr. Armstrong. 'Before he ever set foot in Italy he had summoned Italian architects and sculptors to build the splendid Renaissance palace at Granada, which was destined to remain unfinished.... Music was a passion from boyhood. The Emperor's choir was the best in Europe. To his choristers he was most generous, for when their voices broke he would educate them for three years, and afterwards, if they recovered voice, he would give them the preference for places in his chapel.'
CHAPTER VII
The Literary Associations of the City
'Among no other people did the spirit and character of the middle age, in its most beautiful and dignified form, so long continue and survive in manners, ways of thinking, intellectual culture, and works of imagination and poetry, as among the Spaniards.'—Schlegel, Philosophy of History.
WE have noted that in the Visigoth and Moorish periods Seville was a centre of literature and the arts. The Christians had their St. Isidore, a famed historian and theological writer, and the Moriscoes acclaimed the sagacious El Begi, 'whose knowledge was a marvel.' Many Moorish scribes laboured in the city before San Fernando regained it for the Spaniards; but very few of their names have lived through the stress of turbulent times, when every man was for fighting, and art and letters languished.
When we reach the fifteenth century, we find that certain enterprising German printers set up presses in Seville, and that books, such as Diego de Valera's Cronica de España, were printed and published.
The printing press gradually destroyed the wonderful art of the illuminated missal, in which the monks excelled, and letterpress began to supersede manuscript. In the Cathedral Library of Seville is the great Bible of Pedro de Pampeluna, in two volumes. It was transcribed for Alfonso the Learned, and the work is perhaps unmatched. Rich illuminations abound in the pages, testifying to the skill and the patience of the artist.
But this industry, followed with such zeal by the clergy, was soon lost. With the advent of machinery more books were produced, and they came into the hands of the people, who in the pre-printing days were unable to purchase the costly volumes of manuscript.