The Colegiata has been restored. Its chief object of interest is the beautiful monument to Cardinal Ximenez, by Fancelli, an Italian sculptor. Juan Francés executed the reja, or screen, of the chapel in this edifice, and the saints Justo and Pastor, to whom the Colegiata is dedicated, were buried in the vault.
In Santa Maria, an unimposing church, Cervantes was christened; and upon the house where he was born we shall find an inscription containing a tribute to his genius. Several towns in Spain claim to be the birthplace of the author of “Don Quixote,” and it is not absolutely proved that he was born at Alcalá de Henares. There is, however, scarcely any doubt that he was baptised here, for the registers contain an entry of his baptism, and, as children in Spain were christened almost immediately after their birth, there is perhaps the strongest claim to be set forth by the townspeople, who aver that Alcalá is “the real birthplace of the immortal Cervantes.”
Still following the windings of the river Henares, we may reach Guadalajara in a rail journey of about fourteen miles from Alcalá. Here the Castilian landscape is of a less severe aspect, and the Roman and Moorish associations of the town tempt the traveller to linger for a while. The situation of Guadalajara is elevated, and the Romans made it a fortified place, and built an aqueduct from the hills.
The Palace of the Duke del Infantado is the most interesting building in the town. It is in the blended styles of the Goths and the reconciled Moors, and the patios are beautifully decorated, though much of the ornamentation of the interior has suffered the impairment of age and neglect.
On our way from Madrid to these fascinating towns of Castile we gain a glimpse of the stern order of the natural surroundings amongst which Cervantes was reared. This is not “the sunny Spain” of the south, but the Spain of the hardy Castilians, and the country of wind-searched highlands, where vegetation is thin, and whole districts are without foliage and shade. The towns and villages are often in green oases of the dreary table-land, but some of them are among the rocks of this sterile region, and exposed to snowstorms and hurricanes. Were it not for the system of irrigation which the Spaniards learned from the Moors, the plight of the farmer upon these table-lands would be melancholy indeed; but even in the bleakest territory the system of artificially watering the parched, sun-baked soil works wonders, and grain crops smile here and there among the savage hill-slopes of the despoblados or wastes, and almost everywhere flocks gain pasturage in the summer.