The Story of Seville

by Walter M. Gallichan

'The Archbishop's object,' wrote Lebrixa in an Apologia, 'was to deter me from writing. He wished to extinguish the knowledge of the two languages on which our religion depends; and I was condemned for impiety, because, being no divine but a mere grammarian, I presumed to treat of theological subjects. If a person endeavour to restore the purity of the sacred text, and points out the mistakes which have vitiated it, unless he will retract his opinions, he must be loaded with infamy, excommunicated and doomed to an ignominious punishment!'

'Is it not enough that I submit my judgment to the will of Christ in the Scriptures? Must I also reject as false what is as clear and evident as the light of truth itself? What tyranny! to hinder a man, under the most cruel pains, from saying what he thinks, though he express himself with the utmost respect for religion! to forbid him to write in his closet or in the solitude of a prison! to speak to himself, or even to think! On what subject shall we employ our thoughts, if we are prohibited from directing them to those sacred oracles which have been the delight of the pious in every age, and on which they have meditated by day and by night.'

Lebrixa here eloquently announces the right of the layman to translate the Scriptures and to expound religion. He claims that liberty of inquiry and of speech which belongs to every man. His case is typical of the vast difficulties that encompassed all thinkers of his age.

Science and letters were not only hindered by the Church. Some of the kings of Spain were hostile towards learning, while others were apathetic. Carlos IV. instructed his Prime Minister to inform the heads of universities that 'what His Majesty wanted was not philosophers, but loyal subjects.' It was no uncommon custom of the inquisitors to enter private libraries, and to carry away such books as they considered heretical or dangerous.

In Seville, therefore, as elsewhere throughout Spain, institutions tended to crush out the genius of authors, and to discourage philosophy and science. We cannot wonder that Emilia Pardo Bazan, a modern Spanish writer, should say: 'Perhaps our public is indifferent to literature, especially to printed literature, for what is represented on the stage produces more impression.' It has also been said that the upper classes of Madrid would rather spend their money on fireworks or on oranges than on a book.

But Spain possesses to-day four or five gifted novelists, who give their readers true pictures of modern life and manners. Valdes and Galdos are social influences. Their books are eagerly read and discussed by the young intellectual spirits in whose earnestness lies the hope of Spain.

CHAPTER VIII
The Artists of Seville
By C. Gasquoine Hartley

'Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative.'—Walter Pater.

'THE art of Spain was, at the outset, wholly borrowed, and from various sources: we see heterogeneous, borrowed elements assimilated sometimes in a greater or less degree, frequently flung together in illogical confusion, seldom, if ever, fused into a new harmonious whole by that inner welding fire which is genius; and we see in the sixteenth century a foreign influence received and borne as a yoke, because no living generative force was there to throw it off; and finally we meet this strange freak of nature—a soil without artistic initiative bringing forth the greatest initiator in modern art—Diego Velazquez.'

These words, which form a portion of the address delivered by the late Lord Leighton to the students of the Royal Academy Schools, in the year 1889, epitomise the salient points in the artistic history of Seville. An almost impenetrable gloom shadows the early records of her art. Only one work remains to testify to the skill of her artists, during the thirteenth century. This is a rare old Bible, written on vellum and richly illuminated. It was transcribed for Alfonso, the Wise, by Pedro de Pampeluna, in the thirteenth century, and its numerous miniatures represent the pristine efforts of the Sevillian school of painting.