LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMVII Printed by Ballantyne & Co. Limited Tavistock Street, London TO H.I.M. THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE THIS SOUVENIR OF THAT FAIR GRANADAN HOME FROM WHICH SHE CARRIED THE CROWN OF SPANISH BEAUTY TO GRACE THE THRONE OF FRANCE IS DEDICATED IN ACCORDANCE WITH HER MAJESTY’S GRACIOUS PERMISSION...

Although the admission may be construed by the censorious as betraying a lack of becoming diffidence, I am tempted to believe that no apology will be demanded for the publication of this volume by that section of the reading public for which it has been chiefly compiled. My temerity goes even further, and I anticipate with some confidence that visitors to the Alhambra, and pilgrims to that famous Mecca of Moorish workmanship, will recognise in this book an earnest attempt to supply a long-felt w

The compilation of a book of this kind reveals in the author a refreshing optimism which does not always survive the ordeal of publication, and it is, perhaps, out of sympathy with the misgivings that assail him as he approaches the bar of public and critical opinion, that convention cedes to him the privilege of making some apology for the faith that is in him. In his preface he is permitted to explain himself, and this apologia or justification, call it which you will, stands as the last word

The generous appreciation with which my larger book on the Alhambra was received by both the Press and the public in Spain and America, as well as in this country, encourages me to hope that the present volume will prove a popular addition to this Spanish Series. Three years ago, when I published The Alhambra to supply what my own experience taught me to be a real want, the scale and quality of the illustrations made it impossible to issue the work at a popular price. I am now enabled to present

The Alhambra, or Red Palace, the Acropolis of Granada, is the finest secular monument with which the Muslims have endowed Europe. It belongs to the last period of Spanish-Arabic art, when the seed of Mohammedan ideas and culture had long since taken deep root in the soil and produced a style which might more properly be called Andalusian than Moorish. If the Muslims left a deep impression upon Spanish thought and art, it must not be supposed that they altogether escaped the influence of their Ch

Across an ivy-draped ravine—a perfect study in green and red—the Palace of Recreations, the Generalife, overlooks the rugged walls of the Alhambra. The name is believed to have been derived from Jennatu-l’arif, “the garden of the architect.” The palace appears to have been built by a Moor called Omar, from whom it was purchased by the Sultan Abu-l-Walid. At the Reconquest it became the property of a renegade prince, Sidi Yahya, who adopted the name of Don Pedro de Granada, and whose descendants,

Almost the first act performed by a Spanish king on his entry into a conquered Mohammedan city was to convert the chief mosque (aljama) into a Christian church. This was also done at Granada, but the chapel of the Alhambra remained for some time the cathedral of the new See. The mosque in the city, afterwards elevated to that rank, is described by the Abbé Bertaut of Rouen (quoted by Valladar), writing in 1669, as “square, or rather longer than wide, without vaults, and the roof covered with til