Before proceeding with the story it is worth while to consider the effect which this long struggle of seven hundred and eighty years had had upon the Spanish character. In the first place it had fused the nation into one; not by some sudden stroke of patriotic ardor but by a slow and painful process, in which the patriotism had been tested in the forge of adversity, stiffened and tempered on the anvil of endurance and proven by long experiences. Its qualities were trenchant, uncompromising, decisively complete. The Spaniard had become a hero to himself; sufficient in and for himself; realising his superiority and wrapping it about with a mantle of haughty exclusiveness. He had learned to rely upon himself and had justified his confidence by victory, hardly won and dearly bought; he was a Spaniard--_verbum sat._ But he had been more than patriot; he had been a Paladin of the Faith; a Knight of the Cross; a Soldier of Christendom, Champion of the Holy Catholic Church. The consciousness of this had sustained him in adversity; quickened his strength in hours of vigil, inflamed him to the attack and crowned both victories and defeats with divine glory. An intense passion of spiritual ecstasy burned within him. He was at once a man of action, hard and practical, and a pietistic dreamer, a fanatic and visionary. How this mingling of qualities affected Spanish art, causing it, on the one hand, to be distinctively national and, on the other, a product of naturalistic method and highly pietistic motive will appear in the course of our story. * * * * * It was, perhaps, Spain’s misfortune that her victories over the Moors were not succeeded by a period of settled conditions. For already she had entered upon a career of brilliant enterprise in the arts of peace. Under the patronage of Queen Isabella and of prelates, such as Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, whose power rivaled that of the Crown, great architectural works were inaugurated and sculptors and painters were drawn from Flanders and Germany to decorate them. Learning was still further encouraged by the founding of a new University at Alcalá de Henares to supplement the famous foundation of Salamanca, and men of letters and artists were welcomed and honored at Court. Among them stand out the names of Pulgar, the first historian of Castile; Cota, the first Spanish dramatist and Rincon, the earliest of the native painters. The sixteenth century, in fact, opened with a brilliant dawn, full of promise for the new nation, if only it might have had leisure to consolidate and develop naturally its resources. But it was drawn almost immediately into the whirl of foreign conquests.