colophon London, 1910 J.   M.   Dent   &   Sons,   Ltd. New   York:   E.   P.   Dutton   &   Co....

W HAT more stupefying contrast than that of cheap commonplace Madrid (cheap alas! only in the artistic sense) and the legendary still visage of Toledo? The capital you leave abustle with modern movement, glaring, gesticulating, chattering, animated in its own empty and insignificant fashion, with its pleasant street of Alcala, so engagingly unhistoric, its shop-fronts full of expensive and second-rate articles from other capitals, the vulgar vivacity of the Puerta del Sol thronged with everlasti

H ERE may be said to begin the real history of Toledo, from this until the fatal battle of Guadalete, the capital of Spain, since it was the heart of Gothic rule. The backward pages of its story are blurred and insignificant, judged by their traces, though we may imagine, if it were possible to build up the effaced picture of Toledo under Roman power, we should find a very superior civilisation. Instead of a flourishing Roman colony, Atanagildo’s choice of this “strong place” was merely the esta

“I T must not be supposed that the Moors,” writes Mr Lane Poole in his “History of the Moors in Spain,” “like the barbarian hordes who preceded them, brought desolation and tyranny in their wake. On the contrary, never was Andalusia so mildly, justly, and wisely governed as by her Arab conquerors.... All the administrative talent of Spain had not sufficed to make the Gothic domination tolerable to its subjects. Under the Moors, on the other hand, the people were on the whole contented—as content

T HE start of Spanish rule in Toledo was clouded and stormy. The Cid was named the first Alcalde, and the Castillians expressed their dissatisfaction with Mozarabe law, which was the Gothic law of Toledo. They clamoured for Castillian Judges and the Castillian fueros or privileges. The King granted their request in all civil cases, but in criminal cases decided that every citizen should be subject to the Mozarabe Alcalde, and in case of death the first application for burial had to be made to th

T HE tale of Toledo’s rough and broken history, ending as I have shown with the last struggle of the Comuneros , will have amply prepared the reader for the town’s present physiognomy. Few cities in Europe that for so long were accustomed to opulence and power, have known a reverse so instantaneous, so complete, an extinction against which all effort, all hope, all aspiration have proved vain, as that which Toledo was crushed beneath, when Felipe Segundo chose miserable, ugly, undistinguished Ma

T HE monument which dominates Toledo, and which is not only the most prominent feature in a town whose every feature is so marked and significant, so unlike all the travelled eye is most familiar with, but is the centre of its changes and vicissitudes, of its triumphs and humiliations, is the Cathedral. Writing of the high terrace on which it stands, M. Maurice Barrès says: “c’était toujours le même sublime qui jamais ne rassasie les âmes, car en même temps qu’elles s’en remplissent il les dilat

T HERE is but one great painter permanently and almost exclusively associated with Toledo, El Greco . All the notable pictures of the town are his, and so vast is his work here, that the Toledan churches possess at least fifty pictures of his, a dozen of which are nothing less than masterpieces, and the rest the work of a master in weaker and more erratic moments. Masters are so rare in the history of this world that one would gladly know something of this tardily recognised great one; learn the

R ELIGION and revolt are the chief features in Toledo’s story. When her sons were not quarrelling within or warring without, they were building churches and convents, and none more famous than San Juan de los Reyes, built in fulfilment of a vow by the Catholic kings after the victory of Toro, gained over the Portuguese sympathisers with the Beltraneja , Henry’s luckless heiress. The architect was Juan Guas, master builder of the Cathedral, and the church was finished in 1476, and given over by I

C OMING out from the station, instead of taking the road up to the town, you may cross the fields, and thus into the famous Huerta del Rey , where old Arabian splendours and romance once were castled in the legendary palace of Galiana. Now alas! beauty and legend in disgraceful abandonment. All this rich land of the Vega is the property of the ex-Empress of the French, Doña Eugenia de Guzman and Condesa de Teba. To bear a glorious name (beside which the title of French Empress is but a trumpery

T O write of all the churches and convents of Toledo would be to burthen the reader with a needless and confusing fatigue. It is enough to know that the city was pre-eminently a hieratic centre to understand that both were once innumerable. To-day they are still too many to remember and certainly more than are worth visiting. Some, like San José, are of no architectural value whatever, only known as a poor little hall which contains some of El Greco’s finest pictures. The fame of others, like Sa

I HAVE said there are but two bridges guarding the wide sweep of the Tagus round Toledo, the Puente de Alcántara and the Puente de San Martin. These bridges are unimaginably picturesque and fine. The first you enter from the railway station, with an excellent view of the double line of walls, broken by towers built upon the rugged rocks. No more superb and impressive scene is to be found elsewhere than that the old city makes behind this castellated bridge. The bridge in its actual state was bui

T HE traveller to Toledo will be glad, perhaps, of some practical information. A guide for a short stay is indispensable. I did not claim the services of any, so cannot speak from personal experience, but the proprietor of the Hotel Castilla assures me that his German guide can be recommended. His charge is ten pesetas a day, nominally eight shillings, but often considerably less owing to the rate of change. My friend and guide, the Spanish painter, who came fifteen years ago to Toledo lo sketch