The Story of Seville

by Walter M. Gallichan

At this time also secular dramas began to take the place of mystery plays. The theatre has remained one of the favourite recreations of the Spanish people, and on the modern stage serious plays, dealing with social problems, are often produced. Among the playwrights of Spain the name of Lope de Rueda is held in reverence, for it was he who opened the way for them. 'The real father of the Spanish theatre' was a native of Seville, and by trade a goldsmith. From 1560 to 1590, the dramas of Lope de Rueda were performed in Seville. Cervantes may have been influenced by this pioneer of dramatic art, for, as a youth, he saw Lope de Rueda act.

In his zenith, the player's stage consisted of half-a-dozen planks, laid upon four benches. There was no scenery. Old blankets served as curtain and 'back sheet.' Between the acts a few singers sang without any instrumental accompaniment. With such primitive paraphernalia this Thespian travelled about with his company of mummers, writing his own dramas, and acting in them. He died about the year 1567.

Contemporary with Lope de Rueda and Cervantes was Domingo de Bercerra, who was born in the city in 1535. During the campaign with the Turks, he was seized by Moorish pirates and taken prisoner with Cervantes to Algiers. De Bercerra is known for his translation of Giovanni della Casa's Il Galateo. Hieronimo Carranza, who wrote Philosophia y destreza de las Armas, and Juan de la Cueva, writer of plays and poems, lived in Seville at this time.

We now enter upon an era memorable in the literary annals of the city. This is the period when Seville could boast of her scholars, poets, dramatists and historians, and lay claim to distinction as possessing the most cultured circle of writers and artists in the whole of Spain. Fernando de Herrera, born in 1534, in Seville, holds a high position among Spanish poets. His Canción á Lepanto, a poem in celebration of the victory of Lepanto, 'deserves,' says Mr. Butler Clarke, 'to be placed side by side with the first eclogue of Garcilaso as one of the noblest monuments of the Spanish tongue.'

Rodrigo Caro, the historian, and one of the Sevillian authors, says in his Illustrious Men, Natives of Seville, that Herrera 'understood Latin perfectly, and wrote several epigrams in that language, which might rival the most famous ancient authors in thought and expression. He possessed a moderate knowledge of Greek.' The prose writings of 'the divine Herrera' are marked with the same beauty as his poetry. He wrote a great general history of his country, up to the reign of Carlos V., and earned from Lope de Vega the title of 'the Learned.'

We learn that Fernando de Herrera was a tall man, with a handsome countenance, thick curling hair, and a beard. The love of his life appears to have been 'spiritual'; he was enamoured of Eliodora, Countess of Gelves. This adoration was of the nature of that manifested by Dante for Beatrice. The poet calls his divinity 'Love,' 'Sun,' and 'Star,' but there is an unreality in his odes to the Countess. We read, too, that Herrera was well read in philosophy, and expert in mathematics.

At this time there were two resorts in Seville for authors, artists, and men of culture. One was the house of the refined and versatile Pacheco, Canon of the Cathedral; the other was the Casa Pilatos, the mansion of the Duques de Alcalá. In the circle of Francisco Pacheco we shall find all the notable painters and poets of Seville; Céspedes, Cervantes, and Velazquez, who married Pacheco's daughter, were frequenters of the Canon's hospitable house. It was Pacheco who collected and published Herrera's poems, under the patronage of the Condé d'Olivarez, and to him we owe the preservation of some wonderful fragments of a poem on the art of painting, composed by Pablo de Céspedes. These selections were quoted by Pacheco in his treatise on art, and one of the finest passages is that of counsel to an artist in painting a horse. Except for these portions, nothing remains of the poem of Céspedes, which was a work of high merit, written in the purest form of the Castilian language. The author was a man of conspicuous ability. He painted, wrote, carved statuary, and designed buildings.

The genial Pacheco is perhaps better known as a writer upon painting, and a maker of Latin verse, than as an artist with the brush. His great book on art, Arte de la Pintura, was published in 1649. It is anecdotal, technical and historical, and displays the credulity of the writer in regard to the miraculous. He had the honour of training Velazquez, his future son-in-law, and the satisfaction of discovering the power of his young pupil.

We will now take our way to the Casa Pilatos, which stands in the plaza of that name. Passing under a gateway, we enter a court. On the right is a very beautiful ironwork door in the Mudéjar form. An attendant opens it, and we pass into an inner patio, surrounded by busts, portions of antique sculpture, and two statues of Athena. In the centre is a fountain. The casa was designed by Moorish artists, early in the sixteenth century, for Don Pedro Enriquez, and his wife Doña Catalina de Ribera. A descendant, Don Fadrique, who had travelled in Palestine, added the so-called Prætorium, and probably named the mansion after Pontius Pilate. There are unlettered persons in Seville who will assure you that Pilate lived in the house.