Chapter 7 No.7

The Literary Associations of the City

'Among no other people did the spirit and character of the middle age, in its most beautiful and dignified form, so long continue and survive in manners, ways of thinking, intellectual culture, and works of imagination and poetry, as among the Spaniards.'-Schlegel, Philosophy of History.

WE have noted that in the Visigoth and Moorish periods Seville was a centre of literature and the arts. The Christians had their St. Isidore, a famed historian and theological writer, and the Moriscoes acclaimed the sagacious El Begi, 'whose knowledge was a marvel.' Many Moorish scribes laboured in the city before San Fernando regained it for the Spaniards; but very few of their names have lived through the stress of turbulent times, when every man was for fighting, and art and letters languished.

When we reach the fifteenth century, we find that certain enterprising German printers set up presses in Seville, and that books, such as Diego de Valera's Cronica de Espa?a, were printed and published.

The printing press gradually destroyed the wonderful art of the illuminated missal, in which the monks excelled, and letterpress began to supersede manuscript. In the Cathedral Library of Seville is the great Bible of Pedro de Pampeluna, in two volumes. It was transcribed for Alfonso the Learned, and the work is perhaps unmatched. Rich illuminations abound in the pages, testifying to the skill and the patience of the artist.

But this industry, followed with such zeal by the clergy, was soon lost. With the advent of machinery more books were produced, and they came into the hands of the people, who in the pre-printing days were unable to purchase the costly volumes of manuscript.

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 Do?a Catalina de Ribera. A descendant, Don Fadrique, who had travelled in Palestine, added the so-called Pr?torium, and probably named the mansion after Pontius Pilate. There are unlettered persons in Seville who will assure you that Pilate lived in the house.

The third Duke of Alcalá, Fernando Enriquez de Ribera, established a great library here, and the Casa Pilatos was the rendezvous of a polished coterie. The Duke collected pictures, procured Roman relics from Italica, and had cabinets of coins and medals, and cases containing manuscripts. He was an amateur painter, a patron of the fine arts, and the encourager of struggling genius. Pedro de Madrazo, in his Sevilla y Cadiz, states that 'the Casa Pilatos is an august representation of the architectural genius of the sixteenth century; memorable for the reunions of Pacheco, Céspedes, the Herreras, Góngora, Jauregui, Baltasar de Alcázar, Rioja, Juan de Arguizo, and Cervantes.'

Other writers describe the architecture of the palace as pseudo-Moorish. It is indeed a mixture of Gothic, Moorish, and Renaissance designs, adorned with azulejos, the decorations being Mudéjar for the greater part. Pacheco, the friend of the Duke de Alcalá, painted the salon.

Mr. M. Digby Wyatt, in his valuable work, An Architect's Note Book in Spain, describes the Casa Pilatos as possessing two special 'points of architectural value,' i.e., 'the entirely Moresque character of the stucco work at a comparatively late date, and the profuse use of azulejos or coloured tiles. It is ... in and about the splendid staircase that this charming tile lining, of the use of which we have here of late years commenced a very satisfactory revival, asserts its value as a beautiful mode of introducing clean and permanent polychromatic decoration.'

In the principal garden there are remains from Italica. The orange, lemon and jasmine grow profusely in this sunny, sheltered corner of the city. Here the cultured Duke Fernando Enriquez de Ribera discoursed with his illustrious guests, when the stars twinkled and the air was sweet with the odour of the jasmine and rose. No doubt Francisco Pacheco brought his pupil Velazquez to the symposia. We can picture Cervantes relating the story of his imprisonment in Algiers, or diverting the company with anecdotes of the thieves and sharpers of Seville, whose exploits are recorded in his novel of Rinconete y Cortadillo. Góngora, the poet, whose affectations and 'Gongorisms' offended George Henry Lewes, probably read his verses to a critical audience in the salon. Wit vied with wit, scholar discussed with scholar, and artists discoursed upon the new methods of painting. This was the intellectual centre of Seville, where kindred souls uttered their deepest thoughts, assured of sympathy and of comprehension. When the courtly owner of the palace died, his library, his treasures and curiosities were removed to Madrid, and Sevillian men of letters and painters lost a true friend.

In 1588, Miguel de Servantes Saavedra, otherwise Cervantes, lived in the city. In his twenty-first year, while at Madrid, he had written a pastoral poem called Filena, some sonnets and canzonets. A few years later he obtained a position as chamberlain to Cardinal Julio Aquaviva at Rome; but he was not long in Italy. The love of adventure inspired him to enlist in the expedition force sent by Philip II. against Selim the Grand Turk. At the famous battle of Lepanto the young soldier received a wound in the left hand, which necessitated amputation. The surgeons bungled, and Cervantes lost the use of his arm. Still, he continued to serve as a private soldier in the ranks.

In 1575, Cervantes was aboard a galley called the Sun, and when journeying from Naples to Spain, he and the entire crew were captured, and borne to Algiers as prisoners. For five years he lay in a dungeon until a sum was paid in ransom. Upon returning to his native land, he joined his mother and sister at Madrid, and there he led a studious life for three years. His fighting days were at an end. He had seen strange things in foreign lands, and greatly enriched his store of experience of life. Henceforward he gave of his knowledge of the world, and toiled as a writer of poetry, dramas and marvellous romances. His struggle with fortune was severe. He wrote thirty comedies without gaining recognition. At this time he married Do?a Catalina de Solazar y Palacios y Vozmediano.

In Seville there lived two relatives of the soldier-dramatist. They were merchants, with a large business, and it is said that they offered Cervantes employment. Mr. J. Fitz-Maurice Kelly tells us that the author obtained a post in the Real Audencia in Seville, probably that of tax-gatherer. Cervantes himself relates that 'he found something better to do than writing comedies.' Whether he sat on a stool in the mercantile office of his relations, or travelled as a tax-collector in Andalasia, is perhaps not quite certain. At anyrate, the dramatist continued to produce plays. He sought an appointment as Accountant-General of the new kingdom of Granada, or as Governor of Secomusco in Guatemala, or as Paymaster of the galleys at Cartagena, or as Corregidor in La Paz. His application was unnoticed, and it was not until 1808 that the document was unearthed. It is a story of hardship, neglect and disappointment. The soldier who had lost an arm in combat with his country's foes, the genius whose name was to reach the far ends of the civilised world, was forced to go begging for situations, which were refused to him. He still plied his pen for poor returns in the way of money. For Rodrigo Osorio he agreed to write six comedies at fifty ducats each. The price was not to be paid unless each play was 'one of the best ever presented in Spain.' Was there ever a more arbitrary contract? It is doubtful whether Cervantes received anything for this work. Then came the quarrel between the Church and the Stage. Playwrights and actors were banned, and four months before the death of Philip II. all the theatres were closed.

The clouds lifted slightly. In 1595 'Miguel Cervantes Saavedra of Seville' won the prize offered by the Dominicans of Zaragoza for a series of poems in honour of St. Hyacinthus. He appears to have earned his living at this period as a tax-gatherer. Sometimes he was to be found at Pacheco's house, and at the Casa Pilatos. Cervantes discerned the genius of Herrera, and the two poets became friends. A sonnet in praise of Herrera was written by Cervantes.

Fresh trouble beset the unfortunate author. 'About this period Cervantes fell into the first of his money troubles,' writes Mr. Watts, in his Miguel de Cervantes, 'in connection with his office. Having to remit a sum of 7,400 reals from Seville to Madrid, he entrusted it to the hands of one Simon Freire, as his agent. Freire became bankrupt, and fled from Spain. This involved Cervantes in a debt to the crown, for which, being unable to pay, he was thrown into prison. Having reduced the amount by what he recovered from the bankrupt estate of Freire to 2,600 reals, Cervantes was released after a detention of three months. Neither then, nor at any time afterwards-although the affair hung over him to trouble him for many years-was there any charge implicating his own personal rectitude.'

Cervantes' pictures of the seamy side of Sevillian life were drawn vividly in his picaresco novels. The tales contain phrases in Germania, or thieves' argot, showing that the author closely observed his types of low life. It was not until he had reached his fifty-seventh year that he finished the first part of Don Quixote de la Mancha. The great romance was partly written during Cervantes' imprisonment in La Mancha. There are three versions of the circumstances that brought about his confinement. One account is that Cervantes made himself unpopular as a tax-gatherer. But could that be made a felony or misdemeanour meriting gaol? Another story relates how he became a factory-owner, and polluted the Guadiana with waste matter; while a third report ascribes his punishment to the offence of uttering satires upon a lady.

In 1605 Don Quixote was published, in a quarto volume, by Juan de la Cuesta of Madrid. Within seven months the book had reached its fourth edition. W. H. Prescott, in his essay on 'Cervantes,' states that two editions were issued in Madrid, one in Valencia, and one in Lisbon. Yet the author was not relieved of the burden of poverty. Fame sounded his name far and wide. But he had sold the copyright of his romance. And although his reputation was established beyond all doubt, he does not appear to have been in a position to obtain worthier remuneration for his labours. What is perhaps more strange, the leading incidents of his life were scarcely known in Spain when his first biographer, Mayans y Siscar, essayed a history of the great writer's career. Seven towns claimed him as a native when Tonson, in London, issued the first English edition in 1738.

'If Cervantes, like his great contemporary, Shakespeare, has left few authentic details of his existence,' writes Prescott, 'the deficiency has been diligently supplied in both cases by speculation and conjecture.'

In 1616 Cervantes fell sick of a dropsy. He was then in the sixty-ninth year of his age. After a brief illness, the genius expired, receiving the extreme unction as a devout Catholic.

In the Calle de Santa Clara in Seville is the Casa de los Marqueses de Castromonte, a house mentioned by Cervantes in his novel, La Espa?ola Inglesa ('The Spanish-English Lady'). This novela relates the adventures of a Cadiz maiden, who was carried to England by one of the Earl of Essex's captains in 1596.

We must now quit the stately Casa Pilatos, with its great literary traditions, and briefly note a few more of the writers who are associated with Seville. One of these is the novelist Cecilia Boehl von Faber, of German descent, who wrote under the nom de plume of Fernán Caballero. This gifted authoress wrote several novels of social life in Spain, in which she did not flinch from attacking faulty institutions. She had even the courage to condemn the national pastime of bull-fighting, an institution that very few Spaniards have ventured to call in question. Fernán Caballero lived in the street that bears her pen-name, and a tablet will be found upon the house which she occupied.

Mateo Aleman, author of Guzman de Alfarache, who is sometimes ranked next to Cervantes, lived in the parish of San Nicolas. Alberto Lista, the poet, also resided in Seville.

Lord Byron was here in August 1809. In a letter he writes:-

'We lodged in the house of two Spanish unmarried ladies, who possess six houses in Seville, and gave me a curious specimen of Spanish manners. They are women of character, and the eldest a fine woman, the youngest pretty, but not so good a figure as Donna Josepha. The freedom of manner, which is general here, astonished me not a little; and in the course of further observation, I find that reserve is not the characteristic of the Spanish belles, who are, in general, very handsome, with large black eyes, and very fine forms.' ...

The elder of the two ladies presented Byron with a tress of her hair, measuring about three feet in length, and begged a lock of his lordship's hair in return.

I have already mentioned Blanco White, who was born in Seville, and wrote Letters from Spain, in the name of Leucadio Doblado. His reminiscences should be read for the pictures of Sevillian society, in the early part of this century. White's Life, by J. H. Thorn, was published in London, in 1845.

Théophile Gautier spent some time in the city, and related his impressions in his Voyage en Espagne, which is the most ably written of all books upon Spanish places and people. The author of Mademoiselle de Maupin excels in his descriptions of Seville, its monuments, paintings, and its life and character. He praises the charms of Sevillian do?as, declaring that they 'quite deserve the reputation for beauty which they enjoy.'

The eccentric George Borrow came to Seville to distribute the Scriptures, as an agent of the Bible Society. His experiences with the clerical authorities of the city are recounted in The Bible in Spain. It is not strange that the priests of 'the Spanish Rome' resented the intrusion of the English Protestant missionary, and it was fortunate for Borrow that the Inquisition days were of the past. Otherwise, he would have suffered in the manner of the hapless Lutherans of Ponce de León's time. As it was, the heretical colporteur had seventy-six copies of the New Testament confiscated. The books had been placed in the keeping of a bookseller. Borrow was never timid. He went straight to the ecclesiastical governor, and asked why the Testaments had been seized. The dignitary's reply was that the books were 'corrupting,' and he soundly reproved the audacious Protestant for venturing to disseminate such dangerous literature in orthodox Seville.

George Borrow does not write in flattering terms of the Andalusians. He says: 'I lived in the greatest retirement during the whole time that I passed at Seville, spending the greater part of each day in study, or in that half-dreamy state of inactivity which is the natural effect of the influence of a warm climate. There was little in the character of the people around to induce me to enter much into society. The higher class of the Andalusians are probably upon the whole the most vain and foolish of human beings.' ...

Such was Borrow's opinion of the society of Seville. He appeared to be quite as contemptuous of the frivolous rich class as he was of most scholars and literary men. Fashionable London was never able to 'lionise' Bohemian Borrow. He loved 'the wind on the heath,' the song of the waves on the Norfolk coast, the purple sierras of Spain, and the company of those children of nature, the Kaulos of Britain and the Zincalis of Castile. Elsewhere, however, in his writings, George Borrow speaks highly of the Spaniards in general. It was the pretensions of 'respectability,' whether in Spain or England, that called forth his pungent sarcasms.

We must not forget that a famous prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Wiseman, was born at Seville, in 1802.

It is perhaps not out of place in this chapter to allude to the attraction that Seville has possessed for three great musical composers. Mozart laid the scene of his Don Juan and Figaro in the city. Bizet's Carmen is concerned with Seville; and most famous of all in local interest is Rossini's Barber. Rossini's opera is still popular in Spain. I saw it acted by an excellent company at Córdova, in May 1902.

The dispersal of the cultured circle of Casa Pilatos would seem to mark the hour of the beginning of the decline of literature and the arts in Seville. We may feel astonishment that the writers of the Inquisition times were able to publish any works save those of theology, church history, or devotion. But we must remember that Pacheco was a cleric, that Góngora was a priest, and that Rioja held a post in the Holy Office. Antonio, the bibliographer, was a canon of the Cathedral, and Cervantes was a staunch Catholic. These authors were safe; they were either priests of the Church or sworn defenders of the faith.

Philosophers, scientific writers, and heterodox thinkers were unable to survive their environment. New thought was stamped out as soon as it was uttered, and it was seldom indeed that bold spirits dared to express innovating opinion. The greatest writer could scarcely subsist upon the earnings of his pen. He was forced, as in the case of Cervantes, Calderon, and Lope de Vega, among many other authors, to enter the army. The choice lay between the military and the ecclesiastic professions. Outside of these no man possessed a status.

With the decline of literature in Spain, the teaching that science is an evil spread everywhere. In the seventeenth century, on the authority of Spanish historians, the arts had fallen into decay. At the same time the trade of Seville greatly suffered. The city was reaping the harvest of trouble sown by the Inquisition, with its disastrous proscriptions of scientific inquiry, and its taboos upon learning and the arts. Not only were Bibles burnt publicly in Seville and elsewhere, but secular books, treating upon many subjects, were thrown to the flames, in the height of the Inquisition fanaticism. At the end of the fifteenth century six thousand volumes were thus destroyed at Salamanca. Such wanton acts contributed to the causes that brought the downfall of Spain. When Córdova, Granada and Seville were under the Saracen rule, the conquered Christians were protected in their religious rights, and there was no restraint upon knowledge. These cities possessed excellent schools and huge libraries. The Arabic and Spanish languages were both spoken, and there was an Arabian translation of the Bible. Unfortunately, the Christians failed to profit by this example of rational tolerance when they again came into power.

Classical learning was fostered in Seville by Antonio de Lebrixa, who lectured in the University, about 1473. Lebrixa had studied for ten years in Italy. He was opposed by the Sevillian clergy, who claimed sole authority in instruction; but fortunately Lebrixa found favour with influential persons, and so contrived to save himself from persecution. Queen Isabella had lessons from the learned Lebrixa, who may be called the Erasmus of Spain. But the royal tutor narrowly escaped the awful punishments of the Holy Tribunal, under Deza, Archbishop of Seville, and successor of Torquemada. The Inquisitor-General commanded the manuscripts of Lebrixa to be seized, and accused him of heresy for making corrections on the text of the Vulgate, and for his exposition of passages of Scripture.

'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.