I have told the tale rather hurriedly, as it is far from being well authenticated, and because it will doubtless be familiar in some form or another to most readers. That Pedro had a sense of humour is shown by yet another incident. A priest for murdering a shoemaker was condemned by the ecclesiastical tribune to be suspended from his sacerdotal functions for the s.p.a.ce of twelve months. On hearing this Pedro decreed that any tradesman who murdered a priest should be punished by being restrained from the exercise of his trade for the like period.

But now let us return to the palace of which the sinister king seems the presiding genius.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--GARDENS OF THE ALCAZAR]

Crossing the Plaza del Triunfo, which lies between the Cathedral and the old Moorish walls, we enter the Patio de las Banderas, so called either because a flag was hoisted here when the royal family was in residence, or on account of the trophy, composed of the arms of Spain with crossed flags, displayed over one of the arches. Pedro was accustomed to administer justice, tempered with ferocity, after the Oriental fashion, seated on a stone bench in a corner of this square. The surrounding private houses occupy the site of the old Palace of the Almohades, and one of the halls--the Sala de Justicia--is still visible. It is entered from the Patio de la Monteria. Contreras a.s.signs a date to this room even earlier than the advent of the Almohades. It is square, and measures nine metres across. The stucco ceiling is adorned with stars and wreaths, and bordered by a painted frieze. The decorations consist chiefly of inscriptions in Cufic characters. The right-angled apertures in the walls were closed either by screens of translucent stucco or by tapestries, "which must," says Gestoso y Perez, "have made the hall appear a miracle of wealth and splendour." It was in this hall, often overlooked by visitors, that Don Pedro overheard four judges discussing the division of a bribe they had received. The question was abruptly solved by the division of the disputants' heads and bodies. Thanks to its isolation, the Sala de Justicia escaped the dreadful "restoration"

effected in the middle of the nineteenth century by the Duc de Montpensier. The house No. 3, Patio de las Banderas, formed part, in the opinion of Gestoso y Perez, of the Palacio del Yeso, or Stucco Palace, of Don Pedro.

Pa.s.sing through the colonnaded Apeadero, built by Philip III. in 1607, and once used as an armoury, we reach the Patio del Leon, where tournaments used to be held, and stand in front of the Palace of the Alcazar. The facade is gorgeous yet elegant, of a gaudiness that in this brilliant city of golden sunshine and white walls is not obtrusive. Yet, despite the Moorish character of the decoration, the Arabic capitals and pilasters, and the square entrance "in the Persian style," the front is not that of an eastern palace; and it is without surprise that we read over the portal, in quaint Gothic characters, the legend: "The most high, the most n.o.ble, the most powerful, and the most victorious Don Pedro, commanded these Palaces, these Alcazares, and these entrances to be made in the year (of Caesar) 1402" (1364). Elsewhere on the facade are the oft-repeated Cufic inscriptions: "There is no conqueror but Allah,"

"Glory to our lord the Sultan" (Don Pedro), "Eternal glory to Allah,"

etc., etc.

This is a very different entrance from that of the Alhambra, the building on the model of which the Alcazar was undoubtedly planned. From the entrance a pa.s.sage leads from your left to one extremity of the Patio de las Doncellas, the central and princ.i.p.al court of the palace.

How this patio came to be so named I have never been able to ascertain.

There is an absurd story to the effect that here were collected the girls fabled to have been sent by way of annual tribute by Mauregato to the khalifa. Had such a transaction taken place, the tribute would have been payable, of course, at Cordova, not at Seville. Moreover this court was among the works executed in the fourteenth century.

The Alcazar strikes us (if we have come from Granada) as being on a much smaller scale than the Alhambra. It is very much better preserved, as it should be, seeing that it is a century younger; and if it vaguely strikes one as being fitter for the abode of a court favourite than of a monarch, it impresses one as being fresher, more elegant--in a word, more artistic--than the older building.

The Patio de las Doncellas is an oblong, and surrounded by an arcade of pointed and dentated arches which spring from the capitals of white marble columns placed in pairs. The middle arch on each side is higher than the others, and springs from oblong imposts resting on the twin columns and flanked by the miniature pillars characteristic of the Granadine architecture. The spandrils are beautifully adorned with stucco work of the trellis pattern. On the frieze above runs a flowing scroll with Arabic inscriptions, among them being "Glory to our lord, the Sultan Don Pedro," and this very remarkable text: "There is but one G.o.d; He is eternal; He was not begotten and has never begotten, and He has no equal." This inscription, opposed to the tenets of Christianity, was evidently designed by a Moslem artificer, who relied (and safely relied) on the ignorance of his employers. The frieze is decorated also, at intervals, by the escutcheons of Don Pedro and of Ferdinand and Isabella, and by the well-known devices of Charles V., the Pillars of Hercules with the motto "Plus Oultre." The inside of the arcade is ornamented with a high dado of glazed tile mosaic (azulejo), brilliantly coloured and with the highly-prized metallic glint. The combinations and variations of the designs are very ingenious and interesting. This decoration probably dates from Don Pedro's time.

Behind each central arch is a round-arched doorway, flanked by twin windows. These are framed in rich conventional ornamental work. Through little oblong windows above the doors light falls and illumines the ceilings of the apartments opening into the court. The ceiling of the arcade dates from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, but was restored in 1856. A deep cornice marks the division of the lower part of the court from the upper storey, the front of which, with its white marble arches, columns and bal.u.s.trades, was the work of Don Luis de Vega, a sixteenth-century architect.

Three recesses in the wall to the left of the entrance are pointed out as the audience closets of King Pedro; but they are much more likely to be walled-up entrances to formerly existing corridors and chambers behind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--PATIO DE LAS BANDERAS]

The door facing this wall gives access to the Hall of the Amba.s.sadors (Salon de los Embajadores), the finest apartment in this fairy palace.

The doors are magnificent examples of inlay work, and were, according to the inscription on them, made by Moorish carpenters from Toledo in the year 1364. The hall is about thirty-three feet square, and exhibits a splendid combination of the various styles with the Gothic and Renaissance. The ornamentation is rich and elaborate almost beyond the possibility of description. The magnificent "half-orange" ceiling of carved wood rests on a frieze decorated with the Tower and Lion. Then come Cufic inscriptions on a blue ground and ugly female heads of the sixteenth century. Then, below another band of decoration, is a row of fifty-six busts of the Kings of Spain, from Receswinto the Goth to Philip III. These date, at earliest, from the sixteenth century. The wrought-iron balconies were made by Francisco Lopez in 1592. The decoration of this splendid chamber is completed by a high dado of blue, white, and green "azulejos." It was in this hall that Abu Sad is said to have been received by his treacherous host.

The Hall of the Amba.s.sadors communicated on each side with the patio and adjoining halls by entrances composed of three horseshoe arches, supported by graceful pillars and enclosed in a circular arch.

Through the arch facing the entrance from the patio we pa.s.s into a long narrow apartment, known as the Comedor, where the late Comtesse de Paris was born in 1848. To the north of the salon is a small square chamber, called the "Cuarto del Techo de Felipe Segundo," with a coffered ceiling dating from the time of that king. North of this room is the exquisite little Patio de las Munecas (Court of the Dolls), purely Granadine in treatment. The rounded arches are separated by cylindrical pillars--I call them so for want of a better word--which rest on slender columns of different colours, reminding one of the early or Cordovan style. The capitals are rich, the pillars they uphold decorated with vertical lines of Cufic inscriptions, many of which, says Contreras, are placed upside down. The walls and spandrils are tastefully adorned with stucco work of the trellis pattern, tiling and mosaic. This court, though still harmonious and beautiful, suffered rather than benefited by its restoration in 1843; but the architecture has been not unsuccessfully reproduced in the upper storey.

This charming spot is by no means suggestive of deeds of blood and violence; yet, just as they point out the Salon de los Embajadores as the scene of the arrest of the Red Sultan by Don Pedro, so here do the guides place the scene of the murder of Don Fadrique by the truculent monarch--a fratricide to be avenged by another fratricide at Montiel.

The Master of Santiago, to give the Don his usual t.i.tle, after a successful campaign in Murcia, had been graciously received by his brother the king, and presently went to pay his respects in another part of the palace to the royal favourite, Maria de Padilla. It is said that she warned him of his impending fate; perhaps by her manner, if not by words, she tried to arouse in him a sense of danger, but the soldier prince returned to the king's presence. With a shout, Pedro gave the fatal signal. "Kill the Master of Santiago," he cried. Guards fell upon the prince. His sword was entangled in his scarf, and he was butchered without mercy. His retainers fled in all directions, pursued by Pedro's guards. One took refuge in Maria de Padilla's own apartment, and tried to screen himself by holding her little daughter, Dona Beatriz, before him. Pedro tore the child away, and despatched the unfortunate man with his own hand. The murder took place on May 19, 1358.

To the west of the court is a little room, elegantly decorated, and named after the Catholic Sovereigns, by whom it was restored. Their well-known devices appear, together with the Towers and Lions, among the decorations, which reveal the influence of the plateresque style. The north side of the patio is occupied by the Cuarto de los Principes, not to be confounded with a similarly named apartment on the floor above. At either end of this room is an arch, adorned with stucco work, admitting to a cabinet or alcove. That to the right has a fine artesonado ceiling, and that to the left is decorated in a species of Moorish plateresque style. An inscription states that the frieze was made in the year 1543 by Juan de Simancas, master carpenter.

East of the Patio de las Munecas, and occupying the north side of the Patio de las Doncellas, is the long room called the Dormitorio de los Reyes Moros. All the apartments in the Alcazar are fancifully named, but the designation of none is quite so stupid and misleading as this. The columns of the twin windows on either side of the door appear to date from the time of the Khalifate. The doors themselves are richly inlaid and painted with geometrical patterns. The three horseshoe arches leading to the _al hami_, or alcove, also seem to belong to the early period of Spanish-Arabic art. The room is so richly decorated that scarce a handbreadth of the surface is free from ornament.

On the opposite side of the central court is the sumptuous Salon de Carlos V., the ceiling of which was constructed by order of the emperor, and is adorned with cla.s.sical heads. The tile and stucco work is the finest in the palace. There is a legend to the effect that St. Ferdinand died in this room--on his knees, with a cord round his neck and a taper in his hand--but it is unlikely that this part of the palace existed in his time. The guide pointed out the room to the west of this salon as the chamber of Maria de Padilla, but this again is, to put it mildly, doubtful.

The upper chambers of the Alcazar, which are not accessible to the general public, are very handsome. The floor overlooking the Patio del Leon is occupied by the Sala del Principe, with its beautiful spring windows, polychrome tiling, and columns brought from the old Moorish Palace at Valencia. Adjacent is the Oratory, built by order of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1504. The tile work is of extraordinary beauty, and shows that the Moors had not a monopoly of talent in this kind of decoration. The fine Visitation over the altar is signed by Francesco Nicoloso, the Italian. On the same floor is the reputed bed-chamber of Don Pedro. Over the door may be seen four death's-heads, and over another entrance the curious figure of a man who looks back over his shoulder at a grinning skull. These gruesome designs commemorate the summary execution by the king of four judges whom he overheard discussing the division of a bribe. The royal apartments on this floor contain some precious works of art; but I abstain from mentioning the most remarkable of these, as pictures are so often transferred in Spain from one royal residence to another that such indications are often out of date before they are printed.

The Alcazar, I think, disappoints most foreigners. The architectural and decorative work of the Spanish Moors and their descendants pleases people quite inexperienced in the arts by its mere prettiness, its brilliance, its originality, and its colour; and it delights still more those who are able to appreciate its marvellous combinations of geometrical forms, its exquisite epigraphy, and all its subtle details.

But the average traveller stands between these two cla.s.ses of observers.

He looks for grandeur where he should expect only beauty, and his eye is wearied by the wealth of conventional ornamentation. What I think is conspicuously lacking in the Alcazar, and to almost the same extent in the Alhambra, is atmosphere. Memories do not haunt you in these gilded halls. There is nothing about them to suggest that anything ever happened here. The legends tell us the contrary; but a.s.suredly no one was ever less successful in impressing his personality on his abode than were the founders and inhabitants of the Alcazar.

The gardens are really the most pleasing spot within the enclosure. They form a delicious pleasaunce, where the orange and citron diffuse their fragrance, and magic fountains spring up suddenly beneath the pa.s.senger's feet, sprinkling him with a cooling dew. I noticed some flower beds shaped like curiously formed crosses, which the gardener told me were the crosses of the orders of Calatrava, Santiago, Alcantara, and Montesa. You are also shown the Baths of Maria de Padilla, which are approached through a gloomy arched entrance. In the favourite's time they had no other roof than the sky, and no further protection from prying eyes than that afforded by a screen of orange and lemon trees. In Mohammedan times the baths were probably used by the ladies of the harem.

But if the Alcazar is a disappointment to the majority of visitors, I cannot conceive the Cathedral being so, despite the unfavourable criticism to which it has been subjected. The exterior, it is true, is unimpressive, and the vastness of the pile is largely responsible for the powerful effect proclaimed by the interior. But when the worst has been urged, this, the third largest church in Christendom, remains a grand, a solemn, and a magnificent temple, thoroughly Christian in atmosphere and details.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--GARDENS OF THE ALCAZAR]

I like the story of its foundation better than the silly tales about Don Pedro, or about crucifixes helping jilted damsels. It has, moreover, the very unusual merit of being true. After the conquest by St. Ferdinand the old mosque of the Almohades was "purified," and served as the cathedral till, towards the end of the fourteenth century, it became practically ruined by earthquakes. The dean and chapter took counsel together, and at a conclave held in the Court of the Elms, on the south side of the mosque, it was resolved to build a new church forthwith.

Then uprose a zealous prebendary and cried: "Let us build a church so great that those who come after us will think us mad to have attempted it!" The proposal was adopted with acclamation; and the great-hearted priests bound themselves to contribute from their own stipends as much money as might be necessary, should the revenue of the See prove unequal to the cost of the undertaking. They could never hope to see the fruit of their labours. I do not think the name of any one of them has been preserved. The architect alike has been forgotten. All concerned sought only the greater glorification of their faith. Such greatness of spirit deserved a n.o.ble monument.[*]

[Note *: Instances of this lofty spirit are frequent in the history of the Spanish peoples. When, after their first uprising against the mother country, the people of Honduras (Central America) met in Congress to frame a Const.i.tution, a priest rose and proposed that before anything else was done, every slave in the country should be set free. And the measure was carried unanimously and enthusiastically by the Congress, which must have included many slaveholders. It took the United States forty years to follow this example.]

The Cathedral took one hundred and seventeen years to build, the first stone having been laid in 1402 and the lantern having been finished by Juan Gil de Hontanon in 1519. Of the mosque certain portions were left: the Giralda, the Patio de los Naranjos, and the portal called the Puerta del Lagarto. The latter is named after the wooden model of an alligator which hangs from the roof. Three or four centuries ago the mummified form of a real alligator hung there. It was one of the gifts of an Egyptian khalifa to the daughter of a Castilian king, whom he sought in marriage. The saurian was accompanied from the banks of the Nile by various animals peculiar to that fertile region, but these interesting offerings failed to make any impression on the heart of the Infanta.

Thus the forlorn-looking effigy of the reptile is in reality an affecting memorial of unrequited love.

Churches, it has been remarked, were considered in the Middle Ages very proper repositories for curiosities of all sorts. The cloister of the Lagarto contains also an elephant's tusk, weighing seventy pounds, and a horse's bit, said to be that of Babieca, the Cid's charger.

Very grateful is the sudden cool of the great church when you enter it from the sun-scorched plaza. Then there comes over you a feeling of profound reverence, followed very soon by an infinite restfulness. There is no place in Seville where you more willingly linger. A holy calm pervades the whole building, and you wonder that it should have suggested to Theophile Gautier such fantastic comparisons. If it were not the temple of Christ, I could believe it to be the temple of Silence.

The Puerta del Lagarto is the favourite entrance, but when the day comes for a painstaking examination, you would do well to begin at one of the entrances in the west front. Of these there are three: the Puerta Mayor, the Puerta del Bautismo, and the Puerta San Miguel. All are enriched with good statuary, the graceful and vigorous statues of the side doors being the work of Pedro Millan, a fifteenth-century sculptor of renown.

Entering, we set foot on the fine marble floor and make out the stupendous church to be composed of a nave and of two aisles on either side. The nave, you are told, is one hundred feet high and fifty feet wide. The n.o.ble columns, almost free of adornment, which uphold the s.p.a.cious vaults recede in the far distance like trees in an overarching avenue. The effect, fine as it is, might have been much finer if the centre of the nave had not been blocked up by the choir. The "Trascoro,"

or screen, facing the west entrance, is richly adorned with red columns.

Over the altar is a fourteenth-century picture of the Madonna, and a painting by Pacheco, the Inquisitor, representing St. Ferdinand receiving the keys of Seville. Over one of the beautiful little side altars of the choir is one of the rare examples of good Spanish sculpture--a Virgin, by Juan Martinez Montanez. On the altar side the choir is shut off by a sixteenth-century railing, attributed to Sancho Munoz. This protects from intrusion their reverences the canons, who sit in stalls, exquisitely carved between the years 1475 and 1538. The patterns and coloured inlaid work of the backs reveal Moorish influence.

The lectern was the work of Bartolome Morel. When the lantern collapsed in 1888, the choir was severely damaged. The architect who restored the fabric proposed to move it considerably nearer the high altar, but the proposal was stupidly rejected. A good opportunity for improving the appearance of the Cathedral was thus lost.

The retablo of the high altar is the quintessence of late Gothic sculpture. It is a marvellous work of extraordinary delicacy and elaboration. Each of the forty-five compartments into which it is divided contains a subject from the Bible or from the lives of the saints, carved, painted, or gilded with the rarest skill. Begun by the Fleming Dancart, in 1479, this wonderful triumph of the carver's art was completed by Spanish artists in 1526. The earlier work is in the middle.

Crowning it is a gilt crucifix and the statues of Our Lady and St. John.

There are some very interesting objects in the Sacristy, as it is called, between the reredos and the hind wall of the chancel. The sacristan will show you the reliquary, shaped like a triptych, which came from Constantinople and was presented to the old cathedral by Alfonso the Learned. The double folding door is also said to have come from the Moorish temple. With a glance at the fine terra-cotta statues by Miguel Florentin, Juan Marin, and others, we pa.s.s behind the chancel wall, and see before us the plateresque Royal Chapel, built by Charles V. over the remains of certain of his ancestors. Beneath the altar lies the body of St. Ferdinand in crown and royal robes. He lies here in the heart of his fairest conquest, even as his descendants, Ferdinand and Isabella, sleep in the heart of Granada. You may see his sword, the handle of which was denuded of gems by Pedro the Cruel, lest they should excite the cupidity of others. That royal humorist also lies here, near his saintly ancestor and the one woman whom he ever loved, the gentle Maria de Padilla. Then there is to be seen the Virgen de los Reyes, an image presented by St. Louis of France to St. Ferdinand of Castile.

(Strange that when saints filled the thrones of Europe, things went on no better than they do now!) Another relic highly prized is the Virgen de las Batallas, an ivory statuette which St. Ferdinand used to carry at his saddle-bow. These memorials of the heroic past give you little time or inclination for an examination of the chapel itself, which has a lofty dome, and is flanked at the entrance by twelve good statues by Peter Kempener--whom Spaniards call Campana. At least (so I read) he drew them on the wall with charcoal for a ducat each, and they were executed by Lorenzo del Vao and Campos in 1553.

This chapel and the reredos of the chancel must be called, I suppose, the great sights of the Cathedral, though to some its chief treasures will be the numerous works of Murillo enshrined in its chapels and dependencies. For myself, I like the building for its own sake, or, to use a very hard-worked word, for its atmosphere. As you cross the nave, looking upwards, where the light streams through the tall clerestory windows, you will be tempted to neglect the dark chapels in the aisles, and to revel for a while in these exquisite symphonies in coloured gla.s.s. Few of them are of Spanish workmanship. Master Christopher the German (Micer Cristobal Aleman) began the first--the first stained-gla.s.s window in Seville--in 1504, the work being afterwards carried on by the German Heinrich, the Flemings Beernaert of Zeeland and Jan Beernaert, Carel of Bruges, and Arnulf of Flanders. The best windows are those adorned with the Ascension, St. Mary Magdalen, Lazarus, and the Entry into Jerusalem, by Arnulf and his brother, and the Resurrection, by Carel of Bruges.

In the south transept is a monument, striking in itself and of very recent erection, which will in the course of time attract more pilgrims than the soldier saint's shrine. For here are contained the remains of a man who added not a Moorish city but a continent to the realm of Leon and Castile. The ashes of Christopher Columbus repose in a coffin which is borne on the shoulders of four figures of bronze, representing the kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Navarre.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL]

These figures are not wanting in majesty and expression. All are crowned and wear semi-sacerdotal garb. Castile holds an oar, Leon a cross.

Behind them come Aragon and Navarre, sombre of countenance, wearing shirts of mail. On the bosom of each is displayed the national escutcheon: the Towers of Castile, the Lions of Leon, the Bats of Aragon, and the Chains of Navarre. The pall bears words traced by Isabella herself:

"A Castilla y Leon, Nuevo mundo dio Colon,"

and round the pedestal is an inscription which relates how the body of the immortal Admiral of the Indies was brought here when the "ungrateful America" revolted from the Spanish yoke. But however much the Spain of to-day may honour Columbus dead, it is hardly for her to reproach any land with ingrat.i.tude towards him.

Half-way between the main entrance and the choir, the Great Navigator's son is buried. An inscription on a slab invites the reader to pray for the soul of Don Fernando Colon, who, as Ford very truly says, would have been considered a great man if he had been the son of a less great father. He rendered important services to literature, and left behind him a library of 15,000 volumes, including some ma.n.u.scripts of extreme rarity. It was ultimately acquired by the Crown, and const.i.tutes the basis of the Biblioteca Columbina, housed in the Patio de los Naranjos.

The Royal Chapel is flanked by two little chapels, one of which, dedicated to St. Peter, contains some Zurbarans, impossible to distinguish in the dim light; while in the other (Capilla de la Concepcion grande) is a fine monument of Cardinal Cienfuegos and a crucifix attributed to Alonso Cano. Opening on to the north side are the chapels del Pilar, de las Evangelistas, de las Doncellas, de San Francisco, de Santiago, de las Escales, and del Bautisterio. In the latter is one of Murillo's most famous works, "The Vision of St. Anthony of Padua." Of Cano's works there is a specimen, the "Virgin and Child,"

over the altar of Belen, adjacent to the Puerta de los Naranjos. Valdes Leal and Juan de las Roelas are represented in the chapel of Santiago, and Herrera the younger by an ambitious "Apotheosis of St. Francis" in the chapel of that saint. In the Capilla de las Escalas are two works of Luca Giordano, strong in drawing, colour, and character. The same chapel contains the fine tomb of Bishop Baltasar del Rio, dating from about 1500.

In the south aisle are the chapels of the Mariscal, San Andres, las Dolores, la Antigua, San Hermenegildo, San Jose, Santa Ana, and Santa Laureana. These chapels are richer in sculpture than in painting.

Kempener designed the beautiful altar-piece in the Capilla del Mariscal, and Montanez the grand statue of St. Hermenegildo in his chapel. On the west side of the Puerta de San Cristobal, over a small altar, is the "Generacion" of Luis de Vargas--the much praised "leg" picture which has given its name to the chapel. The fresco of St. Christopher that faces it is remarkable only for its size. You find such pictures of the saint at the entrances to many Spanish churches, the old belief having been that those who gazed upon it would not die unpreparedly that day. A much more ancient and interesting mural painting in the Byzantine style is to be seen in the large chapel of the "Antigua," where it was placed in 1578. The retablo of St. Anne's Chapel is also very old, and comes from the former cathedral. The next chapel, San Jose, is adorned by Valdes Leal's "Espousals of the Virgin." The Cathedral does not contain any fine ancient tombs. One of the best is that of Archbishop Mendoza, by Miguel Florentin, in the Antigua Chapel.

As every visitor to Seville professes a special devotion to Murillo, he will probably overlook the fine "Nativity" by Luis de Vargas to the right, on entering, of the Puerta del Nacimiento, and hurry at once to the more famous master's "Guardian Angel," between Puerta Mayor and Puerta del Bautismo. His "St. Leander" and "St. Isidore" are to be seen in the great Sacristy, where they are eclipsed by Kempener's beautiful "Descent from the Cross," before which Murillo himself used to stand for hours in rapt contemplation. The French cut this priceless work into five pieces, intending to remove it, and although their design was frustrated, the subsequent restoration was badly effected. The Sacristia de los Calices is a storehouse of art treasures. Here you may see Goya's "Saint Justa and Saint Rufina," a "Trinity" by "El Greco,"