Amongst the illustrations appearing on p. xlix. _supra_, which principally consist of cornices, capitals, and columns in the Alhambra, is a motto in Roman characters: TĀTO·MŌTA--Tanto Monta--pertaining to Ferdinand and Isabella, and which is somewhat out of place in a page otherwise devoted to Moorish ornament. The motto, of course, signifies _tantamount_, and is meant to express an equality in power between the two Sovereigns; Isabella zealously maintaining that her right of exercising the royal authority was equivalent to that of her royal consort: “_Tanto monta Isabella que Hernando, Hernando que Isabella_”--of equal worth are Isabella and Ferdinand. The motto appears in relief in the Court of the Lions.
Acknowledgment is made to the work of the late James Cavanah Murphy, _Arabian Antiquities of Spain_, Lond., 1815, to which source we are indebted for some of the illustrations to the present volume. Mr. Murphy faithfully delineated, and admirably engraved the arabesques and mosaics of the superb Courts and Halls of the Palace of the Alhambra at Granada.
For the rest, it may be said that a vast number of plates have been specially prepared for the present volume; and it is thought a confident expectation may be indulged of a favourable reception to an attempt at preserving the reliques of a romantic pile--the glory and the wonder of a civilised world.
“I PRAY YOU, LET US SATISFY OUR EYES WITH THE MEMORIALS AND THE THINGS OF FAME THAT DO RENOWN THIS CITY.”
The ancient citadel and residence of the Moorish monarchs of Granada is, indisputably, the most curious, and in some ways the most marvellous building that exists in the whole world. In its period, its architectural style, and artistic effect, it is not without its counterpart in Southern Spain; but the Alhambra was conceived and constructed on so colossal a scale that it is accepted as the last word in Arabian workmanship. From the outside it appears to be a forbidding fortress, and, indeed, its walls are of prodigious strength; but within it is a palace that was once the most voluptuous in the makings and imaginings of man, and in which everything was made subservient to luxury.
The singular fortunes of the Arabian, or Moresco-Spaniards, whose whole existence is a tale that is told, certainly forms one of the most anomalous, yet splendid episodes in history. Potent and durable as was their dominion, we have no one distinct title by which to designate them. They were a nation, as it were, without a legitimate country or a name: a remote wave of the great Arabian inundation cast upon the shores of Europe. From the year 710, when the Arab general Tarif landed at the port which bears his name, and plundered Algeciras, to be succeeded in the following year by a greater soldier, Geb-al-Tarik, whose name survives in the title of “The Rock”--a familiar designation very dear to Englishmen--the course of Moorish conquest from Gibraltar to the cliffs of the Pyrenees was as rapid and brilliant as the ancient Moslem victories of Syria and Egypt. Nay, had they not been checked on the Plains of Tours by Charles _Martel_, who that day gained his _sobriquet_--“The Hammerer”--all France, all Europe might have succumbed to the ravages of the Saracenic warriors as completely as the empires of the East were made to yield, and the crescent might have glittered on the fanes of Paris and of London.