cushions, ornamented with their coronets and armorial bearings. The walls of the chapel are covered with gigantic coats of arms, while figures placed upon the entablature hold stone staves for supporting banners and standards. The retablo (which is the name given to the architectural façade before the altar) is sculptured, painted, gilt, and covered with a profusion of arabesques, varied by columns; it represents the Circumcision of our Saviour, with figures the size of life. To the right, on the same side as the portrait of Doña Mencia de Mendoza, Countess of Haro, is a small Gothic altar, coloured, gilt, carved, and embellished with an infinity of little figures, so light in appearance, and so graceful in form, that any one might mistake them for the work of Antonin Moine. On this altar there is a Christ, carved in jet. The high altar is ornamented with silver rays and crystal suns, which produce a singularly brilliant flickering effect. Carved on the roof is a rose of incredible delicacy.
Enclosed in the wainscoting of the sacristy, near the chapel, is a Magdalen, said to be by Leonardo da Vinci. The mildness of the brown half-tints, merging into the light by imperceptible gradations, the lightness of touch remarkable in the hair, and the perfect rounding of the arms, render this supposition extremely probable. In this chapel, also, is preserved the ivory diptych that the constable used to take with him to the army, and before which he was accustomed to recite his prayers. The Capilla del Condestable belongs to the Duke de Frias. Cast a glance, as you pass, on that statue of Saint Bruno, in coloured wood, – it is by Pereida, a Portuguese sculptor, – and on that epitaph, which is that of Villegas, the translator of Dante.
A magnificent and most finely-built staircase, with splendidly-sculptured monsters, kept us for some minutes riveted with admiration. I am ignorant whither it leads, or into what room the small door at its extremity opens, but it is worthy of the most splendid palace. The high altar in the chapel of the Duke d'Abrantes is one of the most singular productions of the imagination which it is possible to behold. It represents the genealogical tree of Jesus Christ. This strange idea is carried out in the following manner: – The patriarch Abraham is lying at the bottom of the composition, and in his fertile breast are placed the spreading roots of an immense tree, each branch of which bears an ancestor of Jesus, and is subdivided into as many branches as that ancestor had descendants. The summit is occupied by the Virgin Mary on a throne of clouds, while the sun, the moon, and a multitude of gold and silver stars, shine through the foliage. It is impossible to think without a shudder at the immense amount of patience which must have been required to cut out all these leaves, chisel all these folds, and make all these personages stand out so prominently. This retablo, carved in the manner we have described, is as high as the façade of a house, that is to say, at least thirty feet, if we include the three stories, the second of which represents the crowning of the Virgin, and the third the Crucifixion, with St. John and the Virgin. The sculptor is Rodrigo del Haya, who lived in the middle of the sixteenth century.
The Chapel of Santa Tecla is the strangest structure imaginable. The object both of architect and sculptor seems to have been to crowd as many ornaments as possible into the least space, and they have completely succeeded; for I defy the greatest advocate of ornament to find space enough in the whole chapel for a single rose or a single flower more. It is the most wonderful and most charming specimen of the richest description of bad taste. It is one mass of twisted spiral columns, surrounded by vine-shoots, of endless volutes, of cherubim's heads and shoulders with a pair of wings sticking out like the ends of a neck-tie, of large masses of clouds, of flames rising from censers and blown about by the wind, of rays spread out in the shape of a fan, and of endive-plants in full bloom and most luxuriant growth, all gilt and painted in natural colours with the pencil of a miniature-painter. The flower-work of the drapery is imitated thread for thread, and point for point, with frightful accuracy. Santa Tecla, who is tied to the stake with the flames rising around her on all sides, and a number of Saracens in extravagant costumes exciting them, is represented as raising towards Heaven her beautiful enamel eyes, and holding in her flesh-coloured hand a large holly-branch, twisted after the usual Spanish fashion. The roof is ornamented in the same style. The rest of the chapel is occupied by other altars, which, although smaller, are quite as elaborate as that which we have described. But the whole fabric is deficient in the peculiar delicacy of Gothic art, as well as in the charming characteristics of the period of the Renaissance; richness is substituted for purity of outline; it is still very beautiful, however, like everything carried to excess, but yet complete in its own peculiar style.
The organs, which are of a formidable size, have rows of pipes laid transversely, like so many cannon with their muzzles pointed at you; they look very menacing and warlike. The private chapels have each an organ, only of a smaller size. In the retablo of one of these chapels we beheld a painting of such exceeding beauty, that I am even now at a loss to what master to ascribe it, unless it be to Michael Angelo. This magnificent work of art possesses, most undeniably, all the characteristic marks of the Florentine school, when in its most flourishing state, and would form the principal attraction in any gallery however rich. Michael Angelo, however, hardly ever painted in oil colours, and his pictures are fabulously scarce; I am inclined to think that it was painted by Sebastian del Piombo, after a cartoon, and on a drawing of this sublime artist. It is well known that Michael Angelo was jealous of Raphael's success, and that he sometimes employed Sebastian del Piombo, in order to unite colouring to drawing, and thus beat his young rival. However this may be, it is very certain that the picture is admirable. The Virgin Mary is represented seated, with her drapery disposed in majestic folds; she is covering with a transparent scarf the divine form of the infant Jesus, who is standing up by her side. From out the ultramarine of the sky two angels are contemplating her in silence, while in the background is seen a severe landscape, with some rocks and fragments of walls. The head of the Virgin possesses an amount of majesty, serenity, and force, of which it is utterly impossible to convey an adequate idea by mere words. The lines which join the neck to the shoulders are so pure, so chaste, and so noble, the face breathes such an expression of sweet maternal satisfaction, the hands are so divinely treated, and the feet are so remarkable for their elegance and grand style, that I found it almost impossible to tear myself away. Add to this marvellous design, simple, solid, well-sustained colouring, without any claptrap devices, or little tricks of chiaroscuro, but a certain look of fresco which harmonizes perfectly with the tone of the architecture around, and you have a chef-d'œuvre such as is to be found only in the Florentine or Roman school.
There is also in the cathedral at Burgos a "Holy Family," without the painter's name. I strongly suspect it to be the production of Andrea del Sarto. There are likewise some Gothic paintings on wood, by Cornelis van Eyck; the fellows to them are in the gallery at Dresden. The works of the German school are not uncommon in Spain and some of them are exceedingly fine. We will seize the present opportunity to mention some pictures by Fra Diego de Leyva, who became a Carthusian friar in the Cartuja of Miraflores when he had already reached his fifty-fourth year. Among his other compositions we may notice the Martyrdom of Santa Casilda. The executioner has cut off both her breasts, and the blood is gushing forth from the two large red places which mark the spot whence the flesh has been removed; the two breasts are lying at the Saint's side, while she herself is looking with an expression of feverish and convulsive ecstasy at a tall angel, with a thoughtful, melancholy face, who has brought her a palm-branch. These frightful pictures of martyrdom are very frequently to be met with in Spain, where the love of the real and the true in art is carried to the greatest lengths. The artist will not spare you one single drop of blood; you must see the severed nerves shrinking back, you must see the quivering of the living flesh, whose dark purple hue contrasts strongly with the bluish, bloodless whiteness of the skin, you must be shown the vertebræ cut through by the executioner's blade, and the gaping wounds that vomit forth water and blood from their livid mouths; every detail is rendered with horrible truthfulness. Ribera has painted some things in this style, sufficient to make El Verdugo4 himself start back with affright. In sober truth, we require all the dreadful beauty and diabolical energy which characterize this great master, to enable us to support this flaying and slaughtering school of painting, which seems to have been invented by some hangman's assistant for the amusement of cannibals. We actually lose all desire to suffer martyrdom; and the angel, with his palm-branch, strikes us as a very poor
The hangman.
