An Architect's Note-Book in Spain Part 9

TOLEDO.

ENTRANCE ARCHWAY OF THE ZOCODOVER.

ALTHOUGH as appears from the steps shown in my sketch rising up through this archway, which is known as that of the Zocodover, or more properly Zocodober, which means in Arabic, according to Cean Bermudez, "a place upon a lower level," the archway is situated upon _an ascent_, it by no means follows that there may not be a higher plane to which it may still be a _descent._ Such is the case in the Zocodover of Toledo, which is really the "Place" of the city in the usual French, or the "Piazza" in the Italian, sense. It is reached from without the walls by the steps shown, and is yet literally the "lower Place" when compared with the platform of the Alcazar or "Royal Residence." Of great strength, it must in its time have been the scene of terrible struggles, and blood shedding, as it dates from the days when Moors ruled in the North of Spain, and had to be wrested from the descendants of its builders only by many a tussle between the upholders of the Crescent and the Cross. On the inside of the city to the market place it has been modified, and Italianised, but to the thousands who pa.s.s up it daily from the lower parts of the outskirts, it wears its original Oriental aspect.

Ford gives to the word "Zocodover" quite another meaning and derivation.

He explains it as "the square market." Whether he or Bermudez may be right, I know not, but, certain it is that either meaning may be aptly fitted to describe the spot to which our gateway leads--a spot of no comfortable memories--since it still reeks with the cruelties of genuine Spanish diversions, "Autos da Fe," and "Fiestas de Toros."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 40

TOLEDO

TALLER DEL MORO

MDW 1869]

PLATE XL.

_TOLEDO_.

INTERIOR OF THE "TALLER DEL MORO."

FROM the spring of the year 712, when Tarik, with his renegade Jews and Berbers, wrested the city from its Gothic rulers, to the spring of the year 1085, when Alfonso VI.--the Emperor as he styled himself after having won his laurels--reconquered the city for the Christians, Toledo remained altogether an Oriental city. As such, it was inhabited by Berbers, strict Mahommedans and Jews, the last named being occasionally tolerated and occasionally persecuted as they had been by the Goths, and subsequently were by the Castilian Christians. The duration of this tenure of power has to be borne in mind continually, in the endeavour to a.s.sign dates to the Moorish monuments of this city, of which there are a great number. It is of course true that long after the date of Alfonso's conquest the Moorish artificers worked for the Christians, but such was their constant condition of subjection that it is not to be credited that any one of them could have been allowed to live in the wealth and luxury, in which the inhabitants of such a Moorish house, as that known as the "Taller del Moro," a beautiful fragment of which forms the subject of the fortieth sketch, must have lived. I can, therefore, have no hesitation in repudiating for the date of its origin, as late a period as 1350, which has been a.s.signed to it. On the other hand, I am no less confident that Senor Escosura, who has written of it as of "between the ninth and tenth centuries," is also in error. What I believe is, that this elegant set of chambers was really one of the latest works in the city immediately preceding its capture by Alfonso, in 1085. The style of its work is certainly later than any of that executed under the Khalifate of Corduba while in the hands of the Ummeyah family. It belongs, I believe, to the school of the Almohades, and reflects some of the novelties in complicated geometry introduced by the Arabs of Damascus, in advance of the Ummeyahs. They held to earlier types, as may be seen in all the works at Corduba, including even those ascribed to the author of the splendid Mih-rab or sanctuary, the Sultan Al-Hakem II., who completed the "cubba," or Cupola of the Mih-rab (the most complicated piece of design in all Cordova) in the year A.D., 965.

All that is left at present of this once sumptuous mansion consists of a central chamber, (fifty-four feet long by twenty-three feet wide), approached from a court-yard, the usual Moorish Alf.a.gia, (no doubt, by the doorway shown on the right hand side of my sketch), and of two chambers, one at each end of the central one. Traces of colour and gilding have almost entirely disappeared, but the stucco ornamentation, where not wilfully or heedlessly destroyed, retains all its original sharpness and beauty. I found the "Taller del Moro" in full use, or rather abuse, as a carpenter's workshop.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 41

TOLEDO

LA MAGDALENA

MDW 1869]

PLATE XLI.

_TOLEDO_.

TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF LA MAGDALENA.

TOLEDO is, or rather has been, a city of peculiar devotion. Its Christian mediaeval architecture Mr. Street has fully ill.u.s.trated, but he has pa.s.sed hurriedly over some of the remains of that peculiar mixed style in which Christians usually gave the order, and Moors did the work. I have, accordingly, sketched two Christiano-Moorish campaniles which he has not given, and one which he has, but from a different point of view.

The steeple of La Magdalena is, I fancy, of two periods, the construction from the ground to the base of the belfry being of one cla.s.s, and the belfry itself of another. It has all the appearance of having been the old tower of a mosque previous to the conquest of Toledo by King Alfonso, and of having been subsequently taken down to a certain level, and the belfry chamber and bells added, on the christianising of the structure.

It is built almost entirely of brick, and although simple to the extent of rudeness, its ma.s.s yet groups well with the long roof lines of the convents by which it is as it were hemmed in.

As the student wanders through these old streets of Toledo, rendered so picturesque by remnants of old Moorish use and ceremony, his mind is naturally attracted to the days when the "mezquita" took the place of the church, and was thronged by the wors.h.i.+ppers of the "One G.o.d and Mahomet his Prophet," by day and by night. The description given of the comparatively modern Moors in the account of Commodore Stewart's emba.s.sy to the Emperor of Morocco, in the year 1721, seems to carry us back to the days when Toledo, and many other cities of Spain, owned no other faith than that defined by the Koran. "The Moors," says the writer,[25]

"seem not (as we do) to observe the day for business, and the night for sleep, but sleep and wake often in the four-and-twenty hours, going to church by night as well as day, for which purpose their Talbs call from the top of the mosques, (or places of wors.h.i.+p) having no bells, every three hours throughout the city. In going to church they observe no gravity, nor mind their dress; but as soon as the Talb begins to bellow from the steeple, the carpenter throws down his axe, the shoemaker his awl, the tailor his shears, and away they all run like so many fellows at football; when they come into church, they repeat the first chapter of the _Alcoran_ standing, after which they look up, and lift up their hands as much above their heads as they can, and as their hands are leisurely coming down again, drop on their knees with their faces towards the _Kebla_, (as they call it) or East and by South; then touching the ground with their foreheads twice, sit a little while on their heels muttering a few words, and rise up again. This they repeat two or three times, after which, looking on each shoulder, (I suppose to their guardian angels) they say, _Selemo Alikoon (i.e.,) Peace be with you_; and have done. When there are many at prayers together, you would think they were so many gally-slaves a rowing, by the motion they make on their knees."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 42

TOLEDO

TOWER OF SAN PEDRO MARTIRE

MDW 1869]

PLATE XLII.

_TOLEDO_.

MOORISH TOWER OF SAN PEDRO MARTIRE.

PLATE Forty-two presents us with another type of Christiano-Moorish Campanile from that given by the last sketch. In this case the usual fas.h.i.+on of the mediaeval church builders of dividing the total height of the tower into several compartments, pierced with largish openings on more than one floor, has been followed. The regular Arabian praying-tower is generally simply the inclosure of a staircase, with a gallery, or open chamber, only at the summit, from which "the faithful"

are duly summoned by the Imaum to their devotions. The conversion of one or more stories into belfries, however, indicates (where the work is clearly that of a Mahommedan artificer), that he has been working only for the performance of the behests of a Christian, as in the case of the Tower of San Pedro Martire at Toledo. The Church itself exhibits only a clumsy and overgrown Palladian style of a thoroughly commonplace description, gloomy and uninteresting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 43

TOLEDO

SANT' JAGO DEL LA VEGA

MDW 1869]

PLATE XLIII.

_TOLEDO_.

TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF SANT' IAGO DE LA VEGA.

THIS Church appeared to me to retain more of the primitive "Mezquita,"