Southern Spain, Painted by Trevor Haddon, Described by A. F. CalvertCalvert, Albert Frederick
History
Southern Spain, Painted by Trevor Haddon, Described by A. F. Calvert
Calvert, Albert Frederick
Spain -- Description and travel
The minor churches of Granada are not of very great interest. The church
of San Geronimo was built by the Great Captain as a mausoleum for
himself and his wife, but such of his remains as escaped the ghoulish
spoliation of the French have been transported to Madrid. The church is
no longer used as a place of worship. The retablo is remarkable, and in
it may be traced the dawning of Siloe's ambition to create a true
Spanish Renaissance style. The church of San Juan de Dios, not far off,
is filled with tawdry rubbish, petticoated crucifixes, etc. Here is
buried the titular saint, a Portuguese, Joao de Robles, who in the
seventeenth century devoted himself with so much energy to the sick
and suffering that his contemporaries esteemed him mad. You may see the
cage in which he was confined at the hospital founded by Isabella the
Catholic on the arid, ugly Plaza de Triunfo, near the Bull Ring. A
column in the middle of the square marks the spot where Doña Mariana
Pineda was publicly garrotted in 1831. This lady is the great heroine of
Granada. She perished a victim to the reactionary tendencies then
prevalent in Spain. Spaniards were then crying "Hurrah for our chains!"
and Doña Mariana's house was known to be a rendezvous of the Liberals of
Granada. On raiding her house the police discovered a tricolour flag.
This was evidence enough, and in the thirty-first year of her age this
beautiful and accomplished woman suffered a shameful death. A few years
later, when the nation had recovered its sanity, the magistrate who had
condemned her was shot, and her remains were transported with great pomp
to the Cathedral, where they have been interred close to Alonso Cano's.
A monument has also been raised to her memory in the Campillo Square.
There is another story connected with the Triunfo worth telling, though
it is not very well authenticated. The remains of royal personages on
their way to the Capilla Real were here identified by the officers of
the court. The Duke of Gandia was present on such an occasion, and was
so impressed by the evidences of mortality when the coffin was opened
that he vowed he would never again serve an earthly master. He entered
the Society of Jesus, and after his death was canonized under the name
of St. Francis Borgia. The story is a curious and suggestive one, as
also is that of the duke praying that his wife might die if it were for
his soul's good. St. Francis Borgia has always seemed to me an extreme
example of other-worldliness.
A dusty road through most uninviting surroundings leads to the Cartuja,
or Charterhouse, founded in 1516 by the Great Captain. The cloisters are
painted with scenes of the martyrdom of the Carthusian monks in London
by the minions of Henry VIII.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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