he accepted the post of confessor to his majesty. We are assured by his panegyrist that he bore these honours with exemplary meekness and moderation, asking for favours only for his convent, and referring all petitioners who besought his influence in the closet, either to the tribunals of justice or to the ministers of state. Of his annual pension he gave one fourth to the poor of Calahorra, and the rest to his Jeromite brethren at Zaragoza. But if he were free from avarice and political intrigue, he was deeply stained with another vice of his calling. His hate was bitter and inextinguishable, and displayed itself in the eager and unscrupulous zeal with which he ran at the head of the pack that hunted the unfortunate archbishop Carranza into the castle of St. Angelo. He died of fever in the summer of 1574, in the rising cloisters of the Escorial.' During his long life he had formed a considerable collection of books, which he bequeathed, as a last token of filial love, to his mother-convent of Santa Engracia, and which was accordingly added to its noble library, famous for literary treasures, and for the lovely prospect seen from its windows, extending over the garden of the Ebro to the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees.2 Fray Francisco de Villalva, on the return of Philip the Second to Spain, was appointed one of his preachers, and was ever afterwards much in his confidence in ecclesiastical affairs. In framing the constitution of the convent of the Escorial, in which the Jeromites saw with exultation their ancient seats of Lupiana and Guadalupe outdone in magnificence, Villalva was constantly consulted. He was likewise employed to report on the claim of the metropolitan church of Toledo to retain a missal and breviary of its own in spite of a 1 Siguença: p. iii., p. 448. 2 Vinc. Blasco de Lanuza: Historia de Aragon, 2 tom. 4to. Zaragoza : 1622, i., 110. decree of the council of Trent; and he drew up, on this subject, a paper so learned and so lucid, that it silenced, and his friends said convinced, the successor of St. Ildefonso and his chapter of golden canons. Preaching before the king at the Escorial on Easterday, 1575, Villalva was seized, as he descended from the pulpit, with an illness of which he died in a few days. Notwithstanding his fame as a preacher, none of his sermons appear to have found their way to the press; but as his celebrated discourse at the emperor's funeral at Yuste was handed about in manuscript, and sent both to the regent at Valladolid and to the king at Bruxelles, it is possible that it may still survive in some of the older libraries of Spain or the Netherlands.' The preacher Fray Juan de Açaloras was general of the order of Jerome from 1558 to 1561; he was afterwards named by the king as one of the commissioners to examine the famous propositions of archbishop Carranza; and he eventually harangued his way to the patriarchal chair and the mitre of the Canaries.2 Fray Juan de Santandres, the third preacher, ended his days as friar of his convent at Talavera, the chief incident and reward of his harmless and obscure life being, that it was vouchsafed to him to foretel, at some distance of time, the exact day and hour of his own death.3 Fray Antonio de Villacastin, the builder of the palace of Yuste, returned to his convent of La Sisla, near Toledo, and for some years performed the humbler functions of baker to the fraternity. When the building of the Escorial was commenced, in 1563, he was appointed master of the works; and for forty years he superintended the execution of every detail of the mighty 1 Los Santos: Hist. de San. Geron., p. 515. Siguença, ib. 193. In fabric, from the hewing of the granite by Biscayan masons, to the painting of the frescoes on wall or dome by Cambiaso or Tibaldi. His clear head, strong memory, cool temper, and sound practical knowledge enabled him to fill the post with great credit to himself, and to the general satisfaction both of those whose money he spent, and of those whose labours he directed. Philip the Second was very fond of him; being attracted at first it is said by the retiring habits of the friar, who always retreated at his approach, and was caught in the end only by a stratagem, the king following him along the top of an unfinished wall, which afforded no way of evasion. the course of his duties, he had his share of the hard knocks, and hair-breadth escapes, which are apt to occur among scaffoldings and cranes. Later in life, he was afflicted with a dangerous swelling in the arm, for which the surgeon threatened amputation. But one night, as he lay awake with the pain, he felt a pair of hands rubbing and kneading the diseased limb, which forthwith began to recover, and was as sound as the other in a few days. Fray Antonio then confided the fact to the prior Siguença, who agreed with him in believing that the mysterious manipulator was none other than the blessed St. Lawrence himself. When the huge monastery was completed, the eyes of Villacastin were attacked with cataract, which, not being operated upon by the saint of the gridiron, rendered the sufferer quite blind. He died in 1603, aged ninety, and he was interred, by his own desire, beneath the cloister-pavement, at the door of the cell in which he had so long lived and laboured. In the church of the Escorial, Luca Cambiaso has introduced the pale grave face of Villacastin, very near his own, in the group on the threshold of the glory of heaven, which he painted, in fresco, on the vaulted ceiling of the choir. From Yuste, Juanelo Torriano went to Toledo, where he was employed by the corporation to supply the city with water from the Tagus, which flows beneath its rock-built walls. Of this work he had, many years before, in Italy, constructed a model, at the suggestion of his patron, the marquess del Vasto, who had come from Spain enchanted with the noble old capital, and grieving for the dearth of water which it endured, though girdled with a deep and abundant stream. The merit of the plan belonged partly to Roberto Valturio, but many improvements were added by Torriano; the water being raised to the height of the alcazar by an ingenious combination of wheels, placed in an edifice of brick built on the margin of the river. The learned Morales left a long description of the work, or artificio, as it was called, and lauded it as a miracle of mechanical genius. He likewise furnished a Latin inscription for a statue of the artist, with which it was at one time intended to crown the building, and a copy of verses which conclude with these extravagant lines, Aerias rupes jubet hunc transcendere; paret; He bids the Tagus scale the rocks, and lo! In the middle of the seventeenth century the work was still in use, and was noticed by Quevedo in a Castillian lyric of a very different cast, in which some bantering praise is thus given to Torriano,— Flamenco dicen que fué Morales: Antig. de España, fol. 92. 2 Itinerario desde Madrid à su torre, Obras, 3 tom. 4to. Brussels: 1660-1. Poesias: p. 420. Juanelo, 'tis clear, was fond of his beer, And drank his schnaps neat, like a Fleming; The Tagus-stream, however, soon rested from its labours; for the mechanism falling to decay was never repaired; and Toledo returned to her old Tantalus-state, and that simpler hydraulic machinery, of mules and water-jars, to which she still adheres. A few ruined brick arches on the right bank of the river, below the bridge, and immediately beneath the towers of the alcazar, are the sole remains of the work of the ingenious Lombard. He was afterwards engaged at Madrid, in making some draw-wells on an improved principle. But Toledo continued to be his home, and he died there, leaving a daughter, in 1585, and was buried in the convent of the Carmen. The street in which he lived is still called 'the street of the wooden man,' 'calle del hombre de palo,' in memory, says tradition, of a puppet, of his making, which used to walk daily to the archiepiscopal palace, and return laden with an allowance of bread and meat, after doing ceremonious obeisance to the donor.1 The city of Toledo honoured Torriano with a medal, bearing his head, shaggy, bearded, and stern; on the reverse was a gushing fountain, supported on the head of a nymph, and surrounded by thirsty ancients, with the inscription, VIRTVS. NVNQVAM.DEFICIT, the mechanician's favourite motto. His bust, finely executed in marble, perhaps by Berruguete, still adorns the cabinet of natural history in the archbishop's palace at Toledo. His portrait, inscribed with his name and the medal-motto, likewise hangs in the smaller cloister of the Escorial.3 Ponz: Viage, i. 161-2, where the medal is engraved. J. Amador de los Rios: Toledo Pintoresca, 8vo. Madrid: 1845, p. 201. Descripcion del Escorial, sm. 8vo. Madrid: 1843, p. 225. |