| Note of the etext transcriber: View any of the artist's one hundred imagesat full size by clicking directly on it. |
PRINCIPALLY ILLUSTRATING THE
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF THAT COUNTRY.
BY
M. DIGBY WYATT, M.A.
SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, &C.
WITH ONE HUNDRED OF THE AUTHOR'S SKETCHES,
REPRODUCED BY THE AUTOTYPE MECHANICAL PROCESS.
LONDON:
AUTOTYPE FINE ART COMPANY (LIMITED),
36, RATHBONE PLACE.
TO
OWEN JONES, ESQ.
KNIGHT OF THE ORDERS OF SAINTS MAURICE AND LAZARUS OF ITALY, AND OFLEOPOLD OF BELGIUM, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF SAINT FERDINAND OFSPAIN, &C., &C., &C.
My dear Owen,
The last book I wrote I dedicated to my brother by blood; the present Idedicate to you—my brother in Art. Let it be a record of the value Iset upon all you have taught me, and upon your true friendship.
Ever yours,
M. DIGBY WYATT.
37, Tavistock Place, W.C.
October, 1872.
| CONTENTS |
BEFORE quitting England for a first visit to Spain in the Autumn of1869, I made up my mind both to see and draw as much of theArchitectural remains of that country as the time and means at mydisposal would permit; and further determined so to draw as to admit ofthe publication of my sketches and portions of my notes on the objectsrepresented, in the precise form in which they might be made. I wasinfluenced in that determination by the consciousness that almost fromday to day the glorious past was being trampled out in Spain; and thatwhatever issue, prosperous or otherwise, the fortunes of that muchdistracted country might take in the future, the minor monuments of Artat least which adorned its soil, would rapidly disappear. Theirdisappearance would result naturally from what is called "progress" ifSpain should revive; while their perishing through neglect and wilfuldamage, or peculation, would inevitably follow, if the ever smoulderingembers of domestic revolution should burst afresh into flame. Such hasbeen the invariable action of those fires which in all history havemelted away the most refined evidences of man's intelligence, leavingbehind only scanty, and often all but shapeless, relics of the richestand ripest genius.
It is difficult to realise the rapidity with which, almost under one'seyes, the Spain of history and romance "is casting its skin." Travellingeven with so recent and so excellent a handbook as O'Shea's of 1869, Inoted the following wanton acts of Vandalism and destruction, committedupon monuments of the greatest archæological and artistic interest sincehe wrote. At Seville, the Church of San Miguel, one of the oldest andfinest in the city, was senselessly demolished by the populace as a sortof auto-da-fé, and by way of commemoration of the revolution ofSeptember, 1867. In exactly the same way the fine Byzantine churche