The mighty doors of the "Hall of Ambassadors," in the mediæval royal residence of Seville (Plates xi. and xii.), are quite the finest to be seen in Spain. Although a widespread superstition assigns their manufacture to a period close upon the Moorish conquest, it has been proved conclusively that they were made by Mudejar craftsmen of Toledo at the time when the whole Alcázar was erected more or less upon the ruins of the old, by Pedro the First of Castile, denominated, according to the prejudice with which we view his character, "the Cruel," or "the Just."[44] [44] The following words record the date of the construction of this place and its doors, and may be read (Plate xiii.) upon the scroll of tiles or _alizares_ crowning the principal façade:-- [cross] EL ¦ MUY ¦ ALTO ¦ ET ¦ MUY ¦ NOBLE ¦ ET ¦ MUY ¦ PODEROSO ¦ ET ¦ MUY ¦ CONQUERIDOR ¦ DON ¦ PEDRO ¦ POR ¦ LA ¦ GRACIA ¦ DE ¦ DIOS ¦ REY ¦ DE ¦ CASTIELLA ¦ ET ¦ DE ¦ LEON ¦ MANDÓ ¦ FACER ¦ ESTOS ¦ ALCÁZARES ¦ ET ¦ ESTOS ¦ PALACIOS ¦ ET ¦ ESTAS ¦ PORTADAS ¦ QUE ¦ FUÉ ¦ FECHO ¦ EN ¦ LA ¦ ERA ¦ DE ¦ MILL ¦ ET ¦ QUATROÇIENTOS ¦ Y ¦ DOS ¦ The observant Swinburne was not misled, like many travellers of to-day, into believing the Alcázar to be of purely Moorish origin. "Having read that the Moors built one part of this palace, I concluded I was admiring something as old as the Mahometan kings of Seville; but upon closer examination was not a little surprised to find _lions_, _castles_, and other armorial ensigns of Castille and Leon, interwoven with Arabesque foliages; and still more so, to see in large Gothic characters, an inscription informing me that these edifices were built in the fourteenth century, by the most mighty king of Castille and Leon, Don Pedro." These doors, which under a pretence of restoration have been mutilated more than once, are made of larch, and measure sixteen feet in height by thirteen feet (including both the leaves) in width. The upper part of either leaf consists of geometrical and floral ornament in exquisitely tasteful combination, executed in the scheme known technically, from the angles at the central polygon, as _lazo de á doce_--"_lazo_-work of twelve." The decoration of the lower part is more minute, and in the scheme of _lazo de á diez_--"_lazo_-work of ten." Inscriptions in Arabic and Latin, many of which are quoted from the Psalms, are distributed on both sides of the woodwork, and confirm our other evidence that the doors were made during the reign and in obedience to the orders, of Don Pedro.