Alcázar

“ Perched high up, hanging apparently on mighty rocks, the Alcázar broods grimly over the gorge below. Still further up and beyond, rises the mass of the Cathedral, towers, domes and pinnacles. Three hundred and thirty feet high, the great tower rears itself like a sentinel, a landmark for many miles. Round the base cluster the houses of the town like chickens seeking shelter under the wings of a mother hen. No place in all Spain appealed to me so much. No town was so replete with subjects for my brush, and nowhere else did I feel the romance of this marvellous country as in Segovia. ”

“ The Alcazar, or ancient palace of the Moorish kings, is very fine and quite worthy of its reputation, but it does not surprise any one who has seen the Alhambra at Granada. You meet the same small white marble columns, the painted and gilt capitals, the heart-shaped arcades, the panels with mottoes from the Koran entwined with arabesques, the doors of larch and cedar wood, the stalactite cupolas, and the fountains ornamented with carving, which may vary in appearance, but of whose endless details and minute delicacy no description [271] can convey an idea. ”

“ Next in importance to the Cathedral is the comparatively new building of the Alcázar. Standing high up on the crags, below which the Eresma and Clamores meet, it occupies an unrivalled position. A fine view of this truly Castilian fortress is obtained from the beautiful walk which encircles the city on the further bank of each stream. Above the tall poplars and thick scrub rise its turrets and spires. The massive walls go sheer up from the rock on which their foundations rest. The huge embattled tower and drawbridge assist the feeling of strength ”

“ Alcázar was happy again. He did not even speak to her of the anguish he had suffered but a moment ago; on other occasions when he had made such a confession it had only led to double pain, for Clementina would answer him in a tone of light banter which wounded him to the heart. They watched the wonderful, blazing cathedral till it was burnt out; the gentle pressure of her hand, the scent—always the same—which hung about her sweet person were too much for the young man, who was predisposed to be overcome by the proof of affection his beloved had just given him. ”

“ Don Enrique had only time to escape by night from the Alcazar in disguise, with his most faithful adherents; his showy but inefficient army, comprised, as Albuquerque had reminded him, of so many heterogeneous elements, ill-paid and ill-fed, melted away before the disciplined troops of his brother, and Blanche, poor Blanche, was seized in the Alcazar and sent far away from all hope of succour into Andalusia to the castle of Xeres. ”

“ Turn where you will, your eye is delighted by an ornate façade, a carved gateway with its small reticent entrance door, a window with balcony and cross-bars, and everywhere there is the horseshoe arch with its beautiful curve. The old Alcazar is standing, though occupied as a Spanish arsenal, and on the height opposite is the ruin of a fine Moorish castle. ”

“ But in passing this square entrance, whose form recalls Egypt, and which began to be used when the horseshoe arch was no longer in vogue, we find ourselves in the chief courtyard of the alcazar, which makes a slight detour in order not to be overlooked from the street, and which offers an extravagant assemblage of lines without departing from exactness. ”

“ This edifice rises upon a height overlooking the city, so that one sees its walls and towers from every point above the level of the streets, and the foreigner finds it a sure landmark amid the confusion and labyrinths of the city. I climbed the height by a broad winding street, like that one which runs from the plain up to the city, and found myself in front of the Alcazar. It is an immense square palace, at whose corners rise four great towers that give it the formidable appearance of a fortress. ”

“ The Alcázar, which is poised upon the extremity of the precipice, was gutted by fire some forty years ago, and is consequently largely a restoration; but it harmonises so admirably with the lines of nature that one hardly realises that it has not grown of its own accord. It has always been a royal stronghold, but never played any very important part in the{250} tumultuous drama of Spanish history; our friend the enemy, with commendable discretion, having commonly preferred to gather his laurels from some less inaccessible bough. ”

“ Alfonso the Wise was one of the great Segovian rulers and builders. He strengthened her bastions, added a good deal to the walls of her illustrious fortress, and in 1108 gave the city her first charter. A few years later Segovia was elevated to a bishopric.
Long before the earliest cathedral church, the Alcazar was the most conspicuous feature in the landscape, and it still holds the second place. Erected on the steep rocks at the extreme eastern end of the almond-shaped hill, it stands like a chieftain at the head of his warriors, always ready for battle, and first to meet any onslaught. ”

“ The present Alcázar, which dominates the city, was first built by the Cid’s sovereign, Alfonso, while the Moorish palace stood on the site of the monastery of St Augustine. In the parish of San Martin was the Alcázar of the infante Fadique, Sancho the Brave’s uncle, within a magnificent view of the river and the Vega, its walls running as far as the Puerta del Cambron. It fell into the hands of Maria de Molina, Sancho’s widow, and she gave the property to Gonzalo Ruiz de Toledo, lord of Orgaz, tutor of King Alonso and the infanta Beatrix. ”

“ She never did. She's as much like our harbor craft as one o' them big, yallow-eyed, bare-necked buzzards is to one o' these here little sand-peeps. But she was a handsome vessel. Them live-oak ribs'll outlast your time, if you was to live to be old.”
The two faces looked up at the hulk of the Alcázar,—the blanched, wave-worn messenger sent by the tropic seas into the far North with a tale that the living had never dared to tell, and that had perished on the lips of the dead. Its shadow, spreading broad upon the beach, made the gathering twilight deeper. ”

“ The Alcazar is a Moorish palace of great beauty, with walls and ceilings all covered with intricate patterns of carving and bright colours, so that it was{37} like coming to live in a palace of the Arabian Nights. The inner courtyards are Oriental, cooled by fountains. The garden around the palace is Oriental, in tiny squares and flower-beds, with short paths, and no place for one to run. And around the garden the high wall is Oriental, a true harem wall, over which one could not see. In all the rooms of the palace there is not one door ”

“ In the lovely gardens of the Alcázar the sun draws a deliciously mingled scent from the box-hedges, myrtles and oranges.
Occasionally—still in unclouded weather—the wind is cold and piercing and all go muffled to the eyes, the men in their capas, the women with long shawls. In the Patio de los Naranjos, beneath the trees laden with oranges, the wind sweeps across the pavement of rough bricks, intergrown with grass and the duller green of mosses, and rattles the fallen leaves in lines and circles. Far above, the great Giralda tower stands pink and creamy grey in the clear winter sky. ”

“ All that succeeding generations have constructed in the alcazar has contributed to deprive it of its Mohammedan character. Transformed into a lordly mansion of more modern epochs, one no longer sees there the voluptuous saloons of the harem, nor the silent spaces reserved for prayer, nor the baths, nor the fountains, nor the strong ramparts, supporting the galleries, which, by circular paths, communicated with the rich sleeping apartments, situated in the square towers. It is not that Arab art is in a different form here to that seen in other parts of Spain ”

“ Such are the answers you obtain at first: but, by exhibiting the all-powerful tiny piece of silver, or, in extreme cases, the glittering duro, you always end by effecting an entrance.
The Alcazar, which was built upon the ruins of the old Moorish palace, is now a perfect ruin itself. It might be mistaken for one of those marvellous architectural dreams which Piranese used to embody in his magnificent etchings; it is the work of Covarubias, an artist little known, but far superior to the heavy, dull Herrera, who enjoys a far higher reputation than he deserves. ”

“ At Toulouse and in other cities, through which he had passed, life had been far more busy, active, and gay than in quiet Madrid, where everything went on as if people were on their way to church, where a cheerful face was rarely seen, and men and women knew of no sight more beautiful and attractive, than seeing poor Jews and heretics burned.
Ulrich did not need the city; the Alcazar was a world in itself, and offered him everything he desired. ”

“ Not to see or to be seen by Alcázar from his observatory, she ceased to go out on foot. The young man kept his word; she saw no sign of him.
But, why she knew not, his visage constantly rose before her eyes; he was perpetually in her thoughts. Was it aversion that she felt? Or resentment? Clementina could not honestly say that it was. There was nothing in his face or behaviour to make him odious to her. Was it, on the contrary, that his person had impressed her too favourably? Not at all. She met every day other men of more attractive manners and of more amusing conversation. ”

“ Then Yahia, the grandson of Alimaymon, set forth with all his company from Sera, and all the people of Valencia, high and low, went out to meet him with great rejoicings. And Aboeza adorned the Alcazar right nobly, that Yahia and his women and they of his company might lodge within. The most honourable of his knights took up their lodging in the town, and the cross-bow men and others of low degree lodged round about the Alcazar, and in certain dwellings which were between it and the Mosque, and Alvar Fañez and the Christians who were with him, in the village which was called Ruzaf. ”

“ Later on Isabel and Fernando embellished the royal Alcázar, which was guarded by a thousand castillian hidalgoes, and Carlos V. built the great staircase, one of the most regal of the world, while a superb salon, richly wrought in{133} arabesque, was the introduction of the Constable of Castillo, Alvaro de Luna, at an earlier period. All these glories are departed, negligently burnt. The first subject to occupy the Alcázar in state was the Cid, Ruiz Diaz, whom Alfonso named first governor of Toledo after its capture from the Moors. ”

“ Nor is the fairness of the earth less than the brightness of the sky—intensely blue, not a cloud visible; and although the Alcazar{96} stands in the midst of a noisy city, the silence and solitude are complete.
Everything in this apartment is disposed for the king. He is greatly changed. A mortal illness has seized him, and he has barely escaped with his life. As he moves feebly along the marble floor, he is supported on either side by Don Juan de Mañara and Garcia de Padilla, then sinks exhausted upon a pile of eastern cushions prepared for him on an estrado. ”

“ ALCÁZAR DE SAN JUAN, or Alcázar, a town of Spain, in the province of Ciudad Real, in the plain of La Mancha, at the junction of the Madrid-Manzanares and Madrid-Albacete railways. Pop. (1900) 11,499. Owing to its position on two important railways, Alcázar has a flourishing transit-trade in the wines of Estremadura and Andalusia; the soda and alkali of La Mancha are used in the manufacture of soap ”

“ Then the aisles of the mosque are filled with believers, who with white vestments and in festal attire come together to worship. In a few moments, throughout the length and breadth of the edifice, one sees only kneeling people. The caliph enters by the secret way which leads from the Alcazar to the temple, and seats himself in his elevated station. A reader of the Koran reads a sura from the low desk of the pulpit.
The voice of the muezzin sounds again, calling men to mid-day prayer. All the faithful rise and murmur their prayers, bowing as they do so. ”

“ On Christmas night, 1734, the Royal Palace of the Alcazar was on fire, and the building and all its treasures were utterly destroyed. This disaster afforded Philip V. the opportunity to display his powers as a master builder. He had already created the Palace of San Ildefonso at La Granja, he had rebuilt the palace at Aranjuez, he had tinkered at the Alcazar at Seville. ”

“ Early in 1645, Murillo returned to Seville. Velasquez offered to give him letters of introduction to eminent artists in Rome, but he preferred to go back to his native city. Probably he longed for the old Cathedral, with La Giralda, the Alcazar, the Moorish palaces, and the Guadalquivir.
The Alcazar, says Hare, in his "Wanderings in Spain," begun in 1181, was in great part rebuilt by Pedro the Cruel, 1353-64. "The history of this strange monarch gives the Alcazar its chief interest. Hither he fled with his mother as a child from his father, Alonzo XI., and his mistress, Leonora de Guzman. ”

“ The Spaniards are justly proud of the noble simplicity and grand style of Covarrubbias, which has none of the coldness and heaviness of Herrera's; and this is one of the rare cases in which they have made, of late years, a really splendid and not over-loaded restoration. Upon the whole, the Alcazar at Toledo is one of the few buildings existing in Spain which reflects, particularly in its grand Cortile, the "magnificenze" of the Italian Renaissance, in their completest form. ”

“ The Alcazar, I think, disappoints most foreigners. The architectural and decorative work of the Spanish Moors and their descendants pleases people quite inexperienced in the arts by its mere prettiness, its brilliance, its originality, and its colour ”