At this time there were two resorts in Seville for authors, artists, and men of culture. One was the house of the refined and versatile Pacheco, Canon of the Cathedral; the other was the Casa Pilatos, the mansion of the Duques de Alcalá. In the circle of Francisco Pacheco we shall find all the notable painters and poets of Seville; Céspedes, Cervantes, and Velazquez, who married Pacheco's daughter, were frequenters of the Canon's hospitable house. It was Pacheco who collected and published Herrera's poems, under the patronage of the Condé d'Olivarez, and to him we owe the preservation of some wonderful fragments of a poem on the art of painting, composed by Pablo de Céspedes. These selections were quoted by Pacheco in his treatise on art, and one of the finest passages is that of counsel to an artist in painting a horse. Except for these portions, nothing remains of the poem of Céspedes, which was a work of high merit, written in the purest form of the Castilian language. The author was a man of conspicuous ability. He painted, wrote, carved statuary, and designed buildings. The genial Pacheco is perhaps better known as a writer upon painting, and a maker of Latin verse, than as an artist with the brush. His great book on art, _Arte de la Pintura_, was published in 1649. It is anecdotal, technical and historical, and displays the credulity of the writer in regard to the miraculous. He had the honour of training Velazquez, his future son-in-law, and the satisfaction of discovering the power of his young pupil. We will now take our way to the Casa Pilatos, which stands in the _plaza_ of that name. Passing under a gateway, we enter a court. On the right is a very beautiful ironwork door in the _Mudéjar_ form. An attendant opens it, and we pass into an inner _patio_, surrounded by busts, portions of antique sculpture, and two statues of Athena. In the centre is a fountain. The _casa_ was designed by Moorish artists, early in the sixteenth century, for Don Pedro Enriquez, and his wife Doña Catalina de Ribera. A descendant, Don Fadrique, who had travelled in Palestine, added the so-called Prætorium, and probably named the mansion after Pontius Pilate. There are unlettered persons in Seville who will assure you that Pilate lived in the house. [Illustration: Cancela of the Casa Pilatus.]