A book that may be read for its own sake as well as for its historical importance is the Tragicomedy of Calixto and Melibea (published in 1499), generally known as La Celestina. The authorship of the first part is disputed; but probably the whole is the work of Fernando de B,ojas. La Celestina is a story told throughout in dialogue, and divided into twenty-two acts. Its length is only one of the circumstances that unfit it for acting; but its vivacious and natural dialogue furnished a model for the drama. Its hero and heroine are the typical lady and gallant, the stock romantic characters of the comedy “of cloak and sword,” the primitive Romeo and Juliet. Celestina, witch and go-between, with her train of thieving lackeys, low women and bullies, more than foreshadows the realistic and comic characters of the drama and novel, the rogues (picaros) and buffoons (graciosos) who in later days were to play so prominent a part. The book was translated into many tongues; its influence at home and abroad is incalculable.
Another masterpiece solitary in its kind, and contrasted in its noble earnestness with the artificiality of the other poems of its author and his generation, is the Coplas de Manrique,—verses by Jorge de Manrique on the death of his father (which occurred in 1476, two years before his own). Longfellow has done all that a translator can do for this unsurpassed elegy; but half its beauty is lost with the language in which it is written. Its stately pageant of mourning and final resignation realise Christian chivalry as poets have dreamed of it, and the solemn knell of the majestic verse is worthy of “the noblest daughter of Latin.” At the beginning of the sixteenth century the knightly chronicle degenerated into the romance of chivalry. Amadis of Gaul, the first and best of the kind, perhaps originated in a French fabliau. More than one allusion to it is found in Spanish writers, before it was published (1508) by Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo as a translation from the Portuguese. The success produced many imitations and “continuations” dealing with exploits of “the innumerable lineage of Amadis.” These heroes of the romances of chivalry are impossible beings, living in a shadowy and impossible world. The first of them exhausted the capability of the species; the others surpass it only in absurdity, while the abuse of the supernatural makes their stories tame and uninteresting. A Cervantes was hardly needed to dispel this fantastic dream of a debased chivalry.
The advance from chronicle to history due to the Revival of Learning was not made in Spain till the middle of the sixteenth century. The story of the reign of the Catholic Kings down to 1492 was written by their official chronicler Hernando del Pulgar in the form of annals. Despite some graphic descriptions and florid speeches, it is in general heavy and arid, lacking in the simple dignity of its kind, and inferior to the Claras Varones de Castilla, a gallery of contemporary portraits drawn with skill and energy by the same pen. Andres Bernaldez, curate of Los Palacios, expanded his memoirs into a history of his time. He is at his best, when he forgets the gravity of his subject and is content to gossip about the events of which he was an eyewitness. Nebrija condensed Pulgar’s Chronicle; Peter Martyr left a collection of letters on contemporary events, a rich but untrustworthy and puzzling mine of information. These books, like the De Rebus Hispaniae of Marineus Siculus, are Latin exercises upon historical subjects.
Spain has never lacked learned men; but, except perhaps in theology, the Spaniards have never been a learned nation. The foreigners who came with Charles V were struck by the ignorance and contempt of letters prevalent in Spain, as well as by the semi-savagery of the bulk of its people. The Revival of Learning -could not at once produce fruit on soil so scorched and seamed by centuries of war. Moreover the richest fruits of Spanish genius are indigenous. Inspiration for the noblest poetry of Spain was found in the Bible and in her own history rather than in Latin and Italian writers; her novel and drama sprang from her own rough but teeming soil.
With the exception of painting, which was still in its infancy, the arts had already reached the fullest expression to which they have at any time attained in this country. In architecture, in sculpture, in pottery, in gold, silver and iron work, and in embroidery Spain never improved upon the skill of the Saracens and the masterpieces of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The influences which moulded her art are to be found partly in race, partly in climate, and partly in history. Possessing great power of adaptation, she set her mark upon all that she produced. In the northern and central regions design and initiative in architecture are mostly French; but the influence of the Saracens leavens this northern style and informs it with richer beauty, “the songs and shrines being equally tinged with the colouring of northern piety and oriental fancy.” Introduced at first as a mere accessory in vestments and jewelry, and in Moorish caskets which guarded the relics of saints, little by little this more gorgeous ornamentation permeated the whole building. It was still a Christian cathedral; yet the lavishness with which the minor arts were used in decoration produced a result that is not to be found elsewhere, and is known as the plateresque or silversmith’s style. Typical examples are the Puerta del Perddn of Seville Cathedral, the horseshoe arch of a mosque overlaid with Christian emblem and decoration (1519), and, in less mixed form, San Marcos of Leon (1514). To this period belong some of the choicest works of expiring Gothic and dawning renaissance building. The Church of San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo perpetuates the memory of the battle of Toro. Cathedrals were planned for Salamanca, Segovia, Plasencia, and Granada; but the most valuable work of the age was the completion and decoration of the splendid designs of an earlier time at Burgos, at Toledo, and at Seville. To it belong also the church set down in the midst of the great mosque of Cdrdova, and the splendid but incongruous palace of Charles V on the Alhambra Hill.
Sculpture in Spain is usually associated with religious architecture. It is often in bolder relief and of more intense expression than elsewhere, and attains its greatest perfection in altar-pieces and sepulchral monuments. Such are the marvels of marble and wood created by Philip de Vigarny or de Bolona (about 1500-43), Alonso de Berruguete, a Spanish pupil of Michael Angelo (about 1520), and Damien Forment of Valencia (about 1511-32), the tombs of King Juan II in the Cartuja de Miraflores, that of the Infante Don Juan at Avila, those of Inigo de Mendoza and his wife at Burgos, and the kneeling statue of Padilla. They are, it must be confessed, delicate and gorgeous rather than grand. Marble and alabaster are treated like metal and lace; beauty is sought in details and no longer in grand and simple lines. To the Spanish Saracens belongs the invention of a dwelling combining with convenience and suitability to their climate a high degree of beauty. Nowhere else has a fortress been made a home of strength and beauty like the Alhambra (mainly fourteenth century) and the other alcazars of Spain. The semi-oriental domestic architecture adopted by the Christians of Andalusia is seen at its best in the so-called Casa de Pilatos at Seville (1521). Here there is no need to guard against the weight of snow, no cold to be kept out, no smoke to blacken; so the roof becomes a terrace, the arch is reared in fairy lightness, the glaze and colour of brilliant tiles replace the heavy wainscot and arras; stucco moulded into geometrical designs and harmoniously coloured makes up for the lack of pictures and for the scantiness of the furniture. The Lonja or Silk-Exchange at Valencia (1482) is an example, not without parallel, of the successful wedding of late Gothic design to Saracen detail of window (ajimez) and decoration. As a subject race the Saracens continued almost to monopolise the more delicate industrial arts. Theirs are the pottery of metallic sheen, and the exquisite designs of lace and filigree, damascening and inlaying-which with the rich silks and velvets testify to their skill as handicraftsmen and to their exquisite taste in form and colour.
CHAPTER XII. FRANCE, by Stanley Leathes
FOUR reigns almost fill up the space of time from Agincourt to Marignano. In that century the slow consistent policy of four Kings and their agents raises France from her nadir almost to her zenith. The institutions and the prosperity built up by Louis the Fat, Philip Augustus, Louis IX, and Philip the Fair had been shattered under the first two Valois; the prosperity had been in part restored, the institutions further developed under Charles V. In the long anarchy which we call the reign of Charles VI, all bonds had been loosened, all well-being blighted, all order overwhelmed. Slowly the old traditions reassert themselves, the old principles