Juan de Valdés Leal was born in Cordova in 1630. Most of the painter’s life was spent in Seville, where he was regarded as the rival of Murillo. His most sincere, and one of his earliest compositions is in Cordova, in the Church of the Carmen. This work is interesting because it instances the dramatic qualities of the painter. The retablo is painted in eleven different parts, representing the life of the prophet Elijah. Most of the work of Valdés Leal is to be seen in Seville. Antonio de Castillo y Saavedra, born in Cordova in 1603, revived the best traditions of Céspedes. Castillo was one of the first of the Spanish landscape-painters, but his strength lay in the presentment of figures. His colour is not his _forte_, as will be seen from a study of his pictures in the Museo. Perhaps his most admirable work is the ‘Denial of St. Peter.’ Castillo unfortunately attempted to imitate Murillo, and it is said that he was envious of the reputation of that more popular painter. This artist seems to have spent most of his time in Cordova, where he died in 1667. The poet Luis de Gongora was born in the city in 1561. His first studies were at the University of Salamanca, whither he was sent at the age of fifteen, to learn law. While at the College he became exceedingly worn in health, but his disease was not mortal, and his recovery was accounted miraculous. While still a youth Gongora wrote poetry. He showed but little aptitude for the profession of lawyer, and upon his return to Cordova he cultivated his bent for poetry. In person Luis de Gongora was tall and powerfully built. He was a caustic writer, and in his first period his style was simple and delightful. But he became more mannered and affected as he grew older, and his later work was marred by pomposity, extravagance, and often by sheer absurdity. His mannerisms were, however, regarded as the fruit of rare genius by his host of disciples and imitators. Gongorism became the fashion among poetasters in Spain, and the followers of this master of eccentricity were slavish flatterers and fanatical worshippers. At forty-five Gongora left Cordova and entered the Church. He afterwards lived in Madrid. In the capital he was under the patronage of influential hidalgos and nobles, and Philip III. made him his honorary chaplain. Gongora eventually returned to his native place, where he died at the age of sixty-six, in the year 1627. In spite of his stilted style and metrical defects, Gongora was endowed with true poetic talent. Writing of him, Lope de Vega said: ‘I have known this gentleman for eight-and-twenty years, and I hold him to be possessed of the rarest and most excellent talent of any in Cordova, so that he need not yield even to Seneca or Lucan, who were natives of the same town.’ APPENDIX I THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOVA