The Story of Seville

by Walter M. Gallichan

At Valladolid, Charles I. engaged and killed a bull in the public arena. Succeeding kings and the flower of the nobility yearned to graduate in the art of bull-fighting. The sons of hidalgos resorted to the slaughter-houses of the towns to practise with cloak and sword the feints and passes of the matador. A valorous bull-fighter won his way to women's hearts and to the favour of princes. In 1617 the Pope issued a Bull announcing that the Virgin was conceived immaculately and was as pure as her divine offspring. The announcement threw Seville into a frenzy of delight. Archbishop de Castro gave a splendid service in the beautiful Cathedral. Guns boomed from the ramparts of the city, and all the church bells clanged and pealed. In the bull ring, Don Melchor de Alcázar, a friend of Velazquez, arranged a special display. The Don, with his dwarf and four immense negroes, gave a remarkable show of their daring to a host of spectators.

Upon the day that Fernando VII. abolished the University of Seville, he established an academy of bull-fighting in the city. The building was constructed with a small ring for the practice of students in the art of tauromachia, and contained stables, bedrooms, and other apartments. From that time Seville was regarded as the classic home of bull-fighting, and many of the most valiant fighters were trained in that city. Then arose the professional matador, or espada, the swordsman who faces the bull single-handed, when it has been worried and incensed by the picadores and the banderilleros.

Two of the first paid matadores were the brothers Juan and Pedro Palomo. They were succeeded by Martiñez Billon, Francisco Romero and his son Juan, and José Delgado Candido, who was killed on the 24th of June 1771. The original Plaza de Toros of Seville was constructed in 1763, and from that date until the end of the century several bull rings were built in Andalusia and Castile.

'Andalusia,' write the authors of Wild Spain 'has always been, and still remains, the province where the love of the bull and all that pertains to him is most keenly cherished, and where the modern bull fight may to-day be seen in its highest perfection and development. It provides the best bull-fighters and the most valued strains of the fighting bull. It may be added that the Andalusian nobility were the last of their order to discontinue their historic pursuit; and when, during the darker days of this sport, the Royal order of the Maestranza de Sevilla was created by Philip V., it was conceded in the statutes that members of the order could hold two corridas with the long lance annually outside the city walls. Three gentlemen subsequently received titles of exalted nobility of this order in respect of brilliant performances with the lance.' José Candido, usually known as Pepe Hillo, brought about a great revival of the corrida after the Bourbons had sought to discountenance the sport of the nobility. Pepe Hillo is the title of a drama concerned with the valiant exploits of the celebrated master among matadores. Hillo, though he was said to be illiterate, drew up the rules of the sport, and even to-day he is regarded as one of the highest authorities upon the art of the bull fight.

According to Mr. Leonard Williams, Francisco Romero, of Ronda, in Andalusia, was 'the first great exponent of the modern toreo.' Romero was put to shoemaking, but he abandoned that homely trade for the profession of bull-fighter, acting first as a page to the knights who encountered the bulls. It was Romero who introduced the pass of fluttering the cloak, or red cloth, in the face of the bull, and then, at the fitting opportunity, thrusting the sword into the creature's neck. Most of the reputed matadores are of Sevillian birth. In the days of Romero and his son, Juan, who died at the age of one hundred and two, there lived the famous Sevillian toreros, the brothers Palomo, Manuel Bellón, Lorenzo Manuel, Joaquin Rodriguez, and Pepe Hillo, or Illo.

Among the Andalusian schools of bull-fighting Ronda was renowned for daring, and Seville for coolness. The intrepidity of the Sevillian bull-fighters was remarkable. The salto del trascuerno, or jump across the head of the bull, was one of their favourite feats. Mr. Williams tells us that the most redoubtable of all the toreros of Seville was one Martin Barcaiztegui, called Martincho, a cowherd of Guipuzcoa. Martincho was a pupil of the famous José Leguregui, and his bravery excelled that of his trainer. 'His favourite accomplishment was to mount upon a table, when his legs were closely fettered with massive irons. The whole was then set opposite the toril. The bull, emerging, sighted the table, covered with a crimson cloth, and charged it, when Martincho would leap along his back from head to tail, and alight in perfect safety. The table, one presumes, went flying into splinters. On a certain occasion, at Zaragoza, Martincho, seated in a chair, killed a bull by a single thrust, using his hat as a muleta.'

Martincho died in 1800, having survived the dangers of the arena. He lived for a time with the artist Goya, who has drawn his friend in several of his bull-fighting pictures. Costillares and Pepe Hillo were also celebrated for their reckless daring in the bull-fighting exhibitions of Seville. These heroes retired from the ring before Godoy influenced Maria Luisa to suppress the corrida. For three years there was no bull-fighting in Spain. Upon the revival of the sport under Joseph Bonaparte, Pedro Romero was appointed chief instructor of Ferdinand's academy of tauromachia at Seville. This matador died at Ronda in 1839. During his public career, he killed no less than 5,600 bulls.

Bull-fighting of the Present.

Montes now comes into prominence among the famous toreros of Andalusia. Francisco Montes fought for the first time at Madrid in 1832. He attracted the notice of Candido, of the academy of bull-fighters at Seville, and he was accepted as a pupil and granted a pension of six reales per day. Montes introduced the modern style in the art of the torero. He wrote a treatise on bull-fighting, entitled: El arte de torear á pie y á caballo. 'Considered to be the torero's very bible for the infallible wisdom of its precepts.'

The matador of to-day is the idol of the populace; but he is not so honoured by persons of noble birth as in the earlier times of bull-fighting. Luis Mazzantini is perhaps the greatest living torero. Guerrita has retired. Antonio Fuentes and Reverte are accomplished bull-fighters. Montes died of injuries received in the ring, in the year 1850, at the age of forty-six.