V

V

AVILA

Like Stratford-on-Avon, like Assisi, this sombre city in the mountains of Castile is the shrine of a single pre-eminent personality. To the Spaniard Avila is essentially the city of the great saint--of Santa Teresa, the greatest, perhaps, of Spain’s many great women. And the fame of the saint and, therefore, of the city, has spread far beyond the limits of the country in which she was born, and indeed outside of the church to which her every faculty was devoted. To those (and they are in the large majority) who approach Avila as pilgrims, it may seem idle to tell anything of its story unconnected with her. At Assisi you wish to hear only of Francis, and who cares aught for the Stratford of an earlier day than Shakespeare’s?

But Teresa was the product of Avila, and to the making of her character all the experience and emotion of her ancestors had contributed. Those who would rightly understand her must know something of the breed from which she sprang.

The city is one of the forty-three said to have been founded by Hercules. It is mentioned, indeed, by Ptolemy, but we know nothing of its history previous to the reconquest of this part of Castile by Alfonso VI. Avila, like Salamanca and Segovia, arose from the ashes of the Moorish empire, and was repeopled and probably rebuilt by the Count Raymond of Burgundy. To him we owe those venerable walls, stern yet beautiful in their ruddy granite, that girdle the city round. But these served, at a very early date, to keep out other than the infidels. The annalists tell us that the knights of Avila, returning one day from a foray, found that the Moors had ravaged the neighbouring country and carried off a multitude of prisoners and much booty. Without hesitation the enraged gentlemen gave chase, and though the enemy were in vastly superior numbers, they overtook and routed them at Barbacedo, recovering most of the spoil and a good deal of additional treasure. But, on their return to Avila, the ungrateful commons closed the gates against them, and refused admittance to the deliverers of their own wives and children unless they were given a large share of the booty. The indignant knights refused to surrender the guerdon of their swords, and entrenched themselves in the suburbs. Peace was restored only on the intervention of Count Raymond, who expelled the churlish townsmen and intrusted the government of the city to the knights. During the whole of the twelfth century the bitterest animosity continued to prevail between the descendants of these antagonists.

Heroines are common in Spanish history. When the town was unexpectedly besieged by the Almoravides in the absence of nearly the whole male population, the women garrisoned the walls wearing the men’s helmets, and compelled the enemy to withdraw. The leader of these Amazons was Jimena Blásquez, wife of the governor, Fernán Lopez. Her female descendants were privileged, in remembrance of this event, to speak and to vote at the council board in the same way as men.

Jimena’s kinsman, Nalvillos, was as unfortunate in love as he was fortunate in war. One day he saw Ayesha Galiana, the beautiful daughter of the late Moorish king of Toledo. Desperately enamoured, he forgot his own betrothal to Galinda Arias, and that the fair infidel had been promised to her countryman, Jenina Yahya. With the favour of the king he overcame all these obstacles, and made Ayesha his wife. But she could forget neither her old faith nor her old love. Nalvillos’ deeds of prowess failed to win her heart; and one day he returned to Avila from a victorious expedition to find that the bird had flown. She had returned to her first love, Yahya, who had raised the standard of revolt at Talavera. The furious Castilian stormed the town, slew the Moor, and penetrated to his faithless wife’s bower, only to find her expiring from a self-inflicted wound. Nalvillos lived many years after, and fought and won many battles. He rose to great distinction in the service of his sovereign, but we never hear of his marrying again.

It was in this town, that styles itself _del rey_, _de los leales_, _de los caballeros_, that the boy king Alfonso VIII. was placed by the Regent, Don Manrique de Lara, to protect him from his uncle, Fernando of Leon. But the class rancour of Avila was not unknown to Fernando, who stirred up the people of the suburbs against the _serranos_, or aristocratic townsfolk, promising them a share in his new town of Ciudad Rodrigo. The knights were victorious, and do not seem to have conducted themselves with great generosity towards the vanquished.

The inveterate hostility of the commons did not tend, as it might be expected to have done, to unite the threatened ranks of the patricians. These prosecuted bitter feuds among themselves, different families striving desperately for the mastery. One faction, on being expelled from the town, took refuge in a neighbouring castle, where they were surprised and cut to pieces by the Moors.

The place was regarded, notwithstanding, as the safest asylum for the boy-kings who so often appear in the pages of Castilian history. During his minority, Alfonso XI. remained in the custody of the bishop till the pretenders to the regency had adjusted their claims to his lordship’s satisfaction. In the Civil War of 1367 Avila was on the right side--that of Enrique II.--and suffered severely in consequence at the hands of the Black Prince’s marauding hordes. Here at the Puerta del Alcazar took place, at the instance of Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo, the mock deposition and degradation of Enrique IV., represented by an effigy, and the proclamation of his eleven-year-old son as king. Yet in 1474 the fickle city displayed every sign of grief and remorse on the unfortunate monarch’s death.

In the disputed succession that ensued Avila sided with Queen Isabel. Possibly as an expression of royal gratitude, the convent of Santo Tomás was chosen for the first seat of the Tribunal of the Inquisition; and in 1491 three Jews, professing the faith of their fathers to the last, were roasted to death in the Mercado Grande.

Avila was the seat of the Supreme Junta of the Comunidad from July to September 1520. The rebellious temper of her citizens found expression in Philip II.’s reign in some anonymous placards, posted in the streets, reflecting on the king’s policy. The royal vengeance was indiscriminate and drastic. The Vicar of Santo Tomás was stripped of his sacerdotal functions, Don Enrique Davila was imprisoned for life in the castle of Turegano, and Don Diego Bracamonte perished on the scaffold. This king’s successor inflicted the _coup de grâce_ on the luckless town by expelling its large and industrious Morisco population. Avila never recovered her prosperity. She remains an example of the wholly destructive policy of the Spanish Hapsburgs. Not only was the country ruined by the expulsion of the Jews and Moriscos, but these exiles were not able to transplant their industry to some other clime. With their expulsion so much productive and industrial power was absolutely lost to the world. The wealth acquired by the Inquisition at the expense of its victims, or rather what was left of it, ultimately found its way into the State coffers on the establishment of the new order of things a century ago.

Avila ‘of the Knights’ was, before all else, a fortress. When the walls were built, churches and suburbs were left outside the enclosure, that the military advantages of the height on which the old town stands might not be lost. These walls of dark-red granite girdle Avila to-day, unbroken, formidable, intact. They rise so high that they shut out from view all that they enclose, except the towers of the cathedral. Near San Vicente the masonry is fourteen feet thick, and forty-two feet in height. Flanking defence is provided by eighty-six elliptical towers--thirty on the north, twelve on the west, twenty-five on the south, twenty-one on the east. These rise above the crenellated parapet at places by eighteen feet. The ten gateways are formed by two towers being brought together and connected with arches. The most impressive gates are the Puertas del Mercado and de San Vicente, the former admitting to the scanty remains of the old Alcazar, the latter facing the church of San Vicente. In both cases the flanking towers are connected at the level of their platforms by a high, arched and crenellated gallery.

The actual gateway is defended by a portcullis, and the usual apertures for thrusting out lances, beams, etc. One of the gates, now walled up, was known as the Puerta de la Mala Ventura, in memory of a baseless tradition that it was the scene of the massacre by Alfonso el Batallador of certain Avilese nobles who had been given him as hostages for the little King Alfonso VII. of Castile. Nearly all the gates open on to squares or places of arms. A leisurely walk round these grand old walls is one of the most agreeable experiences of a journey in Spain, and carries the mind back to the days when knighthood was in flower. From their strength it is easy to see how the town could have been held by a limited number of Caballeros against the commoners of the suburb outside. There seems no reason to doubt that the walls were, as tradition avers, built by Raymond of Burgundy in the last decade of the eleventh century. Eight hundred men were employed upon them daily during nine years, under the direction of a Roman, Cassandro, and a Frenchman, Florin de Ponthieu.

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Built into the city wall at its eastern end is the noble cathedral of San Salvador, founded according to some by Fernán Gonzalez, Count of Castile, and begun a second time in 1091 by Alvár Garcia of Estella in Navarra. It is, perhaps, the finest example extant of the fortress-church of the Middle Ages. The oldest part is the apse, which makes a pronounced bastion or projection in the city wall. The external walls probably date from Alvár Garcia’s time, but the rest of the church must be from one to two centuries later.

The church consists of a nave, aisles, projecting transepts and a chevet, which has semicircular chapels built into the town wall and double aisle. The chevet is, architecturally, perhaps the most interesting part of the structure. Nothing at all is to be seen without of the chapels, over which is carried the ordinary rampart walk or allure; behind this rises a second battlemented wall, from which we look down on to the aisle roof of the chevet and clerestory of the central apse. This end of the cathedral appears from the exterior simply as an unusually massive round tower projecting from the wall. The west front is flanked by two towers, only one of which--the northern--is completed. This is a notable and fortresslike structure, recalling similar work in England. The strongly-defined buttresses finish in pinnacles, and are outlined at the angles with a ball enrichment, which is also to be seen on the pointed arches over the belfry windows. The windows themselves are round-arched, as are also those now filled up in a lower stage of the tower. The entrance is comparatively modern. On either side is the figure of a wild man with shield and mace--strange guardians of a church! On the spandrils of the arch are the figures of Saints Peter and Paul. The middle stage of this front is occupied by a curious retablo-like composition. In the various compartments are the figures of Christ and different saints, sheltered by ugly canopies; and surmounting this work is an extravagant and tasteless acroterium, displaying the arms of the Chapter. Behind and above this is the older and infinitely more graceful west window within an elliptical arch, and with delicate though elaborate traceries.

Very much finer is the north porch, admitting not to the transept but to the nave. The elliptical arch has on each side six jambs, each of which is adorned with the figure of an apostle resting on the capital of a pilaster and sheltered beneath a canopy. The five orders of the arch are sculptured with reliefs of angels and prophets, alternating with wreaths. In the centre of the tympanum is the seated figure of Christ; and around Him, arranged in four horizontal divisions, are compositions representing the Betrayal and Last Supper, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Angelic Choir. Street recognises in this doorway the work of the architect of the portals of the cathedrals of Leon and Burgos. Before it are two lions couchant on pedestals, chained to the walls. The porch dates from the fourteenth century. Above it is a canopy begun in 1566, and intended to form a kind of triumphal arch. Crowning all is seen the figure of the Redeemer.

The north transept is pierced by a fine wheel-window of sixteen divisions. The windows of the clerestory are very large, and placed between great double flying buttresses. Since 1772 the upper and lower traceries have been blocked up, for a reason not apparent to the modern observer. The windows of the transept escaped this treatment, and are filled with good stained glass.

The nave is 130 feet long and 28 feet broad. The arches are supported by piers of four pilasters, the capitals of which show Romanesque influence. The aisles are only about half the height of the nave, and are 24 feet wide. Their pitched roof formerly admitted light into the nave through the triforium, now blocked up.

The outer walls of the chevet, as we have seen, are the most ancient part of the fabric, but the seven chapels formed within the thickness of the wall are of later date. The extraordinary beauty of this part of the church is due to the division of the ambulatory into two by a series of tall, slender columns carrying some excellent groining. The outer or recessed aisle is narrower than the inner, an inequality corrected very skilfully at the opening into the south transept by an imperceptible deviation in the line of columns. Very little light penetrates through the narrow slits in the chapel walls into this sombre, beautiful arcade.

Behind the reredos of the High Altar sleeps the learned bishop, Don Alonso Fernández de Madrigal, surnamed el Tostado and el Abulense, who died in 1455. The prelate, who was one of the most prolific writers that ever lived, is shown in alabaster writing at a desk. The framework of the tomb is adorned with reliefs of the Adoration of the Magi and Shepherds, of the Divine and Cardinal Virtues, and of the Eternal Father. This noble work has been variously ascribed to Berruguete and to Domenico Fancelli, whose more famous performance we shall see in the church of Santo Tomás.

In the chapel of Santa Ana is buried Don Sancho Davila, Bishop of Plasencia, who died in 1625. Most of the tombs in the chapels of the chevet belong, however, to the thirteenth century, though the dates on most of them are merely conjectural, and were inscribed in the sixteenth century by a prebendary of the cathedral.

The High Altar is backed by an elaborate retablo of the age of the Catholic Kings. It is divided into three stages, and was painted by Pedro Berruguete (father of the more famous Alonso), Santos Cruz, and Juan de Borgoña (father of Felipe). To the two first-named may be attributed the ten panels of the lowest stage, representing Saints Peter and Paul, the Four Evangelists, and Four Doctors of the Church, and the Transfiguration, Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, and Presentation in the Temple, in the second stage. To Borgoña we may ascribe the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging, Crucifixion, Descent into Hell, and Resurrection, in the third stage. To the right and left of the church are two beautiful Renaissance retablos in alabaster, illustrating the lives of Saints Secundus and Catharine, and two tasteful gilt iron pulpits. The light reaches the High Altar through two rows of thirteen windows, the lower ‘round-arched, of two horseshoe-headed lights divided by a shafted monial,’ and the upper ‘round-headed, broadish windows, with jamb-shafts and richly-chevroned arches.’ The fine stained glass is the work of Albert of Holland (1520-1525).

The choir was placed in the easternmost bay of the nave in 1531. The _trascoro_ or back of the choir is adorned with reliefs of the Adoration of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Presentation; smaller panels represent other scenes from the history of Christ and the Blessed Virgin. The frieze with its fourteen figures of prophets is the finest part of the work. The choir stalls were begun in 1527 by Juan Rodrigo, and completed by Cornelius of Holland in 1536. The carving is of varying merit. The upper panels appear to portray the martyrdoms of different saints, episodes in whose lives are shown on the panels below. The ornamentation of the columns and friezes is profuse and delicately done.

In the south transept is the fine tomb of Don Sancho Davila, Bishop of Sigüenza, who died in 1534, and near him that of a namesake, whose effigy is clad in armour. This knight died before the walls of Alhama in a combat so furious that his scattered limbs had afterwards to be collected and pieced together by his friends. A curious tomb is to be seen near by: the figures of a knight in armour and an ecclesiastic repose on black coffins, the sides of which are sculptured with escutcheons upheld by woolly-haired savages; a monkey is seen pulling the negroes’ hair. In the chapel of San Miguel, at the north-west end of the nave, is an interesting tomb of the thirteenth century, representing a funeral, whereat the anguish of the mourners contrasts strikingly with the stoical indifference of the clergy.

The gorgeous chapel of San Segundo at the south-east of the apse, outside the town wall, was founded in 1595 by Bishop Manrique, on the model, it is said, of the Escorial. Magnificence, rather than good taste, characterises this chapel and its furniture. Frescoes by Francisco Llamas illustrate the life of the saint, whose ashes are contained in a Churrigueresque tabernacle. On the opposite side of the apse, but within the wall, is another excrescence, the Velada chapel, completed in the eighteenth century.

The sacristy is an ornate Renaissance structure, richly gilded and painted. The alabaster retablo over the altar of St. Barnabas is the work of a genius whose name unfortunately has not been handed down. The chamber also contains some curious fifteenth-century paintings relating to the life of St. Peter. Here may be seen the superb monstrance of Juan de Arfe, dated 1574, and therefore among his earliest works.

The cloister on the south side of the cathedral was built in the early sixteenth century on the site of an earlier one. There was an attempt made at the same time to restore, more or less at haphazard, all the tombs and epitaphs left from earlier times. At the angles are chapels, one of which, the Piedad, contains some good stained glass and iron-work. East of the cloister is the spacious apartment called the Cardinal’s Chapel, after Cardinal Davila y Mujica, whose tomb it contains. Here met the Junta of the Comuneros. The fine stained glass in the windows shows the skill of Juan de Santillana and Juan de Valdevieso, two famous glass-workers of Burgos.

In some respects more interesting than the cathedral, and probably more ancient, taken as a whole, is the Romanesque church of San Vicente, outside the walls, near the Segovia gate. It marks the site of the martyrdom of Vicente and his sisters, Sabina and Cristeta, who had taken refuge here to escape the persecution of Dacian, at the beginning of the fourth century. Their religion having been discovered, they were again apprehended, and put to death by their skulls being battered against the rocks. Their bodies were left unburied, but a great serpent came out of a hole near by and protected them from insult. A Jew approached the spot, led by spiteful curiosity, and was seized by the monster, which wound its coils about him. The terrified Hebrew invoked the name of Christ and was released. He was baptized, and secretly gave the martyrs honourable burial, subsequently raising a church over the scene of their martyrdom. So runs the tradition. These dissenters from the state religion of the Roman Empire are remembered and revered to this day, and magnificent fanes are rightly raised over their graves. Their ashes are preserved in reliquaries more costly than royal thrones, and kings kneel before their shrines. But no monuments are erected, no reverence paid to the equally high-minded and courageous dissenters from the state religion of the Spanish monarchy, who perished in the flames kindled by the Inquisition. The very city which delighted to honour Vicente and his sisters, and recorded its detestation of the lawful authority that put them to death, was the seat of the dreadful tribunal of Torquemada and the scene of cruelties worse than any perpetrated by the Romans.

The basilica raised by the converted Jew was swept away by the Moors, and the relics of the martyrs seem to have been transported elsewhere. They were recovered, at least in part, at the time of the resettlement of the city, and the present church was built by St. Ferdinand in 1252 to contain them; though parts of the fabric certainly seem, despite the absence of documentary evidence, to date from a century earlier. The church is built on sloping ground, the difficulties of the site being admirably overcome. The plan is cruciform, the nave and aisles terminating in apses. The crossing is surmounted by a square lantern, and the western front flanked by steeples. An open cloister runs along the outside of the south aisle.

The western front is very beautiful. The southern tower or steeple wants a third or upper story, which was added to the north tower only in the fifteenth century. The second stories are arcaded, and splayed at their angles. On the third gable-like story of the north steeple are hung the bells, one of which bears the date 1158. These towers open only into the westernmost bay of the nave, which forms the porch of the church, opening on the outside with a high-pointed arch, and into the interior through a superb double doorway. Street speaks of this porch as follows: ‘The whole effect is fine, and the light and shade admirable and well contrasted; but the charm of the whole work seemed to me to lie very much in the contrast between the noble simplicity and solid massiveness of the architecture generally, and the marvellous beauty and delicacy of the enrichments of the western doorway, which is certainly one of the very finest transitional works I have ever seen.’ The shaft dividing the doors is sculptured with a figure of Christ seated on a pedestal. Statues of the twelve Apostles occupy the jambs. Over each door a round arch springs from luxuriantly carved capitals, flanked by the heads of bulls and lions. The tympana are occupied with representations of Dives and Lazarus, and the Release of a Blessed Spirit. The round arch which encloses the whole portal exhibits a marvellous profusion of delicate and rich ornamentation. A Spanish writer truly observes that the foliage looks as if the faintest breeze would stir it; the beasts seem ready to spring, and the birds as if, with the least effort, they might disentangle themselves and fly from the branches. Over the arch is a parapet and string-course, and a round-arched window opening into the nave.

The church is usually entered by the south door opening into the aisle beside the transept. The seven orders of the archivolt are almost devoid of ornament, but the capitals are carved with curious figures of wild beasts fighting. The monogram of Christ on the keystone of the innermost arch is rare in Castilian churches, and the rude sculptured figures on the capitals are very primitive and unsymmetrical. On one of the jambs the Virgin and the Angel Gabriel are sculptured; on another a curious mitred personage representing, it is believed, one of the ancestors of the Messiah.

This porch is older by two centuries than the cloister running along the south side of the church. It is in twelve semicircular arches, with a buttress between every three. Made of purple granite, it contrasts strikingly with the sandstone of the main edifice.

The north front is very plain and severe. The massive buttresses excited the enthusiasm of Street. The north door is of corresponding simplicity. Beside it, as at the side of the south door, are a couple of tombs, which seem to prove that the space round the church was at one time used as a burial-ground.

The eastern end is the most interesting part of the building. The central apse is larger and loftier than the adjoining apses. All three are divided perpendicularly by slender engaged shafts, terminating in capitals under the eaves; and horizontally by carved or moulded string-courses. The central apse has three round-headed windows; the lateral apses, two each. The capitals and corbels are everywhere very finely carved. There are few better examples of Romanesque work in the Peninsula. The square lantern is pierced on each side with a three-light window of Gothic design. At its angles it is surmounted by stone crosses.

The interior is impressive and thoroughly Romanesque. The piers are square, and rest on round bases. The capitals are carved with oak leaves. The arches are semicircular, and the vaulting pointed. Between two string-courses runs a triforium of round-arched openings, the windows of the clerestory being likewise rounded and of one light. The windows of the aisles have been closed up. The church is undergoing extensive repairs. The piers of the lantern seem to be of later date than the foundation of the church, and seem to indicate that the original lantern had at one time fallen in. The interior is octagonal, and pierced with four lancet stained-glass windows. On the chancel side is a fine fourteenth-century painting of the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Disciples.

The interior of the central apse is occupied by the High Altar, with an ugly baroque retablo which unfortunately conceals the graceful windows.

The shrine of San Vicente and his brethren is placed on the south side of the crossing. In the ages of faith this was an object of extraordinary sanctity. Men were sworn on the tomb, and it was universally believed that the arms of those who bore false witness thereon withered away. The practice was forbidden by law under Ferdinand and Isabel. Notwithstanding, grave doubts existed as to the actual whereabouts of the martyrs’ bodies. To set the matter at rest, the Bishop Martin de Vilches, in the reign of Enrique III., decided on a thorough examination of the tomb. Having celebrated Mass, he caused the sarcophagus to be opened. Dense vapour immediately issued forth, and the bishop thrust in his hand, to withdraw it a second later, convulsed with a violent pain, and covered with blood. He proceeded no further with the investigation, and ordered the tomb to be closed, satisfied that it contained the holy relics. The imprint of his blood-stained hand was left on a tablet placed inside the arches on which the sarcophagus rests. This appears to date from the thirteenth century, and is carved with interesting reliefs. The baldachino covering it is carried on four bold columns, and was added by Bishop de Vilches, whose arms it bears. The figure at the apex appears to represent San Vicente.

In the south transept is a tablet with an inscription declaring that there lie the remains of the Jew who gave the martyrs decent burial. Close by is the shrine, executed by Francisco de Mora, of San Pedro del Barco, a saint of absolutely unknown antecedents, and mentioned as far back as 1302.

The crypt has been modernised. On it may be seen the rock on which the tutelary saints suffered martyrdom, and a miraculous image, called Nuestra Señora de la Sotteraña, which is obviously far from possessing the antiquity its devotees claim for it.

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Characteristics very similar to San Vicente are exhibited by the church of San Pedro in the picturesque Mercado Grande. Dating from the latter part of the twelfth century, we find here also the apsidal east end, the square lantern, and the entrances at the west end and beside the transepts. The western porch is very fine, and above it is a very beautiful wheel-window. The north doorway is more richly sculptured, and is later than the rest of the fabric. There are a few points of difference between this church and that previously described. There is no triforium, and the clerestory windows are of a single light, and much larger than those of the nave. As at San Vicente, the apsidal chapels have been spoilt by injudicious painting. In the transept are the tombs of the rival families of Blasco Jimeno and Esteban Domingo, distinguished by shields of six and thirteen bezants respectively. The church is in every respect a noble edifice, but loses interest after you have visited the almost identical basilica of San Vicente. Nor will your attention be long engaged by the modern monument to the illustrious natives of Avila in the centre of the market-place, crowned by the statue of Santa Teresa. Here took place in 1491 the _auto da fé_ of the Jew, Benito Garcia, found guilty of murdering a Christian child, and stealing a consecrated Host for the purpose of sacrilegious rites. It should be added that no particular child could be put forward by the prosecution as having been murdered, and the suppositious victim went down to posterity simply as the Niño de la Guardia--la Guardia being the village where the crime was supposed to have taken place. The body was conveniently assumed to have been taken up to heaven. Its disappearance did not benefit the luckless Hebrews, two of whom, before the execution of Garcia, were torn to pieces by red-hot pincers.

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The town proper having always been regarded as an acropolis, the greater number of churches are situated outside the walls. Several of these, like those already described, are of considerable interest. The doughty Nalvillos is said to lie beneath the flags of the church of Santiago. San Andrés is an interesting Romanesque structure, spoilt, however, by the addition of an incongruous sacristy. To the north-west of the town, near the river (Adaja), is the curious little sanctuary of San Segundo, with a wooden roof, and rather suggestive of Norman architecture. It marks the spot whereon fell an unfortunate Saracen, who was pushed over the turret above by the sainted Secundus. Some of the ashes of that muscular Christian are preserved here, beneath the fine alabaster statue which represents him kneeling with an open book before him. The sanctuary is believed to occupy the site of the earliest Christian church of Avila. The actual edifice is not nearly so old as the ruined and abandoned church of San Isidore, now fast crumbling away.

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One of the most important monuments of the city is the church of the Dominican monastery of Santo Tomás (now used as a missionary college). It was founded in 1478 by Doña Maria Davila, wife of a Viceroy of Sicily, and completed in 1493. Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, interested the Catholic sovereigns in the work, and the cost was met by the confiscated property of Jews and heretics. The cloisters and conventual buildings are devoid of interest. The west front is in a poor late Gothic style, and distinguished by richness rather than beauty. The two massive flanking buttresses are outlined with a ball ornament, and end in eaves, corbel tables, and paltry pinnacles. Beneath the gable is a huge escutcheon, and beneath this again a round window. The doorway is within a deep porch; the archivolt is pointed and elaborately fluted and carved; on either side of the doorway are statues of saints of the Dominican order beneath canopies. The interior is more interesting. The chancel is almost square, the transept short; and, curious to relate, not only is the choir placed in a gallery in the western nave, but the altar is correspondingly elevated at the eastern end. Street thought the effect of this arrangement very fine, an opinion which all are not likely to share. The reredos is tastefully carved and painted. The choir stalls are good, as usual in Spain, particularly the royal chairs, which have splendid canopies, and bear the device of the yoke and sheaf of arrows.

Interest here, however, centres mainly in the superb Renaissance monument to the Infante Juan, eldest son of Ferdinand and Isabel, who died at Salamanca in 1497, aged nineteen. Ferdinand, to soften the blow, caused his wife to be informed that he and not the prince had perished; and such, in Isabel’s temperament, was the excess of conjugal over maternal affection, that her relief when the real state of things was revealed to her enabled her to bear the loss of her son with comparative composure. The tomb was the work of Domenico Alessandro the Florentine, specimens of whose skill we have seen in the cathedral. At the corners of the sarcophagus are eagles; the sides are covered with reliefs of the Virgin and the Baptist, and of the Cardinal and Theological Virtues. On the edge of the upper slab are carved escutcheons, angels, trophies, and garlands. The recumbent effigy of the prince, crowned, and with sword and mantle, is marvellously well done. The sculptor has expressed adolescence in stone. This rightly ranks among the finest works of art in Spain. Hardly inferior is the tomb of Juan Davila and his wife, Joana Velazquez de la Torre, the prince’s attendants, also by the Florentine. Don Juan is shown clad in somewhat fantastic armour; a page kneeling at his feet holds his helmet. Sphynxes are placed at the corners of the sarcophagus, the sides of which bear medallions representing St. James destroying infidels, and St. John the Divine in a cauldron of boiling oil.

In the sacristy is a tomb more impressive than either of these, but in a very different sense. A plain slab covers the body of Tomás de Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of Spain. He lies here in the temple reared on the fortunes of the men and women he had plundered and burned. There is no inscription to tell us who rests here; but Torquemada is as little likely to be forgotten as Attila or Nero. Few things in Avila create a deeper, sadder impression than the tomb of this strange, sinister priest.

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His was one phase of the religious temperament, not perhaps more difficult of comprehension to us modern northerners than Teresa’s. We execrate the one and revere the other, and understand neither. Still, we know enough to see that the Inquisitor and the Nun stand respectively for what is worst and best in the Spanish character. And, happily, the woman’s fame has far outshone the man’s.

We may assume that no one who visits Avila is ignorant of the leading events in her career, or needs to be told what manner of woman she was. What we have to do is to follow her footsteps through her native city. The house in which she was born on March 28, 1515, has been converted into an ugly church (Nuestra Seráfica Madre Santa Teresa de Jesus). The exterior is in the baroque style. The room in which she first saw the light is now a chapel in the worst taste, and contains her rosary, sandals, and even one of her fingers. It was from this house that she stole away with her brother Lorenzo, determined to seek martyrdom at the hands of the Moors. Here she indulged in those ‘worldly conversations’ and that light reading which to her carefully polished conscience in after years appeared fraught with such dire peril. Here her vocation was born; and to this house she returned from the cloister in after years to watch by the deathbed of her father, Alonso de Cepeda.

It was in the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation, north of the city, that Teresa took the veil on All Souls’ Day 1533. Nothing remains of the structure as it was in her day. More interesting is the convent of ‘Las Madres,’ which occupies the site of the first foundation of the reformed order. The poor chapel of St. Joseph gave way in 1608 to the present handsome church designed by Francisco de Mora, who spared the tomb and chapel of Teresa’s brother, Lorenzo. Other fine monuments are those of Bishop Alvaro de Mendoza, and of Francisco Velazquez and his wife. In the garden of the convent is shown an apple-tree planted by the saint. Her body does not rest here, but at Alba de Tormes, where she expired on October 15, 1582.

You may also visit, for her sake, the church of San Juan in the Mercado Chico, where she was baptized on April 7, 1515.

Attached to the Dominican convent is the sumptuous chapel of Mosén Rubio de Bracamonte, which was founded by Doña Maria de Herrera in 1516. The architecture represents the transition from late Gothic to Renaissance. The interior is richly adorned with marbles, the semicircular windows with stained glass. The tomb of the patron (Mosén Rubio, lord of Fuente del Sol) and his wife is in keeping with the splendour of the edifice, which is further enriched by two ancient paintings of Saints Jerome and Anthony of Padua. The reredos dates from the early seventeenth century.

The dark granite of which the houses of Avila are built gives them a spurious air of antiquity. Very few date from before the age of Charles V. Near the cathedral is the mansion of the Marquis de Velada, whose ancestor, Gomez Velada, entertained the Emperor here in 1534. Opposite is an interesting doorway, with the figure of an armed knight, surrounded by escutcheons and enclosed within a trefoil arch. A magnificent doorway, likewise sculptured with armed figures and overhung by a kind of bartizan, leads into the fine courtyard of the palace of the Condes de Polentinos. An interesting house is that of the Davilas of Villafranca. The escutcheon with thirteen bezants between two chained slaves, supported by mounted heralds, was won by the family in an expedition to Ronda. At the side is a picturesque window with a grating, above which is the inscription _Petrus Davila et Maria Cordubensis uxor MDXLI._, and beneath, in Spanish, ‘Where one door shuts another opens.’ The houses of the Bracamontes and of the Counts of Superunda deserve notice.