For the historical data, and some of the descriptions contained in this book, I have levied tribute on a large number of authors. Don Pascual de Gayángos, the renowned translator of Al-Makkari; the _Handbook_ and the _Gatherings_ of Richard Ford; William Stirling-Maxwell’s _Don John of Austria_; _The History of the Conquest of Spain_, by Henry Coppeé; Washington Irving’s _Conquest of Granada_; Miss Charlotte Yonge’s _Christians and Moors in Spain_; Stanley Lane-Poole’s _The Moors in Spain_; the writings of Dr. R. Dozy, of Leipsic; Muhammed Hayat Khan’s _Rise and Fall of the Muslim Empire in Spain_; Hannah Lynch’s _Toledo_; Walter M. Gallichan’s _Seville_; _The Latin-Byzantine Monuments of Cordova_; _Monumentos Arquitectonicos de España_; Pedro de Madrazo’s _Sevilla_--these, and many less important writers on Spain, have been consulted.
But with this wealth of literary material to hand, I have remembered that it is my collection of illustrations, rather than on the written word, that I must depend. From the nature of Arabian art, and the characteristic minuteness of the details of which Morisco decoration is composed, lengthy descriptions of architecture, unaccompanied by illustrations, become not only tedious but positively confusing to the reader, while, on the other hand, a sufficiency of illustrations renders exhaustive descriptions superfluous. I have striven to do justice to the subject in this direction, not without hope of achieving my purpose, but with a vast consciousness of the fact that, neither by camera, nor brush, nor by the pen, can one reflect, with any fidelity, the effects obtained by the Moorish masters of the Middle Ages. In their art we find a sense of the mysterious that appeals to one like the glint of moonlight on running water; an intangible spirit of joyousness that one catches from the dancing shadows of leaves upon a sun-swept lawn; and an elusive key to its beauty, which is lost in the bewildering maze of traceries and the inextricable network of designs. The form, but not the fantasy, of these fairy-like, fascinating decorations may be reproduced, and this I have endeavoured to do.
THE MOSQUE--PRINCIPAL NAVE OF THE MIHRAB 9
VIEW OF THE CITY AND BRIDGE SOUTH OF THE GUADALQUIVIR 12