Part 17
This seems to have incited that greedy monarch, James I., to refuse the succession to Sir Robert, whom he forced to consent to a nominal sale of the property to Henry, Prince of Wales, at one-third of its value, and even that was never paid. Dudley, in disgust, withdrew from England, and lived in much honour at Florence, when he died about the year 1650.
When the place fell into the hands of Oliver Cromwell, a sort of commission of army officers was sent to Kenilworth to divide and share the property between them, and they, caring nothing for historical associations, the splendour of the structure, or the richness of the furniture and plenishing (it was but seventy-five years after the entertainment of Elizabeth there) proceeded to strip the place, to cut the timber, kill the deer, and even to sell the walls and roofing, for the value of the bare materials.
At the restoration, Charles II. granted the reversion of the manor to Lawrence, Lord Hyde, second son of Chancellor Clarendon, whom he created Baron Kenilworth and Earl of Rochester. His grandson leaving only a daughter, the lands and ruins came by marriage to the Essex family and, afterwards, by marriage to Thomas Villiers, the second son of the Earl of Jersey, created, in 1756, Baron Hyde, in whose family they still continue.
At Kenilworth was immured Eleanor Cobham, the wife of Humphrey, Earl of Gloucester, after the performance of her penance on a charge of practicing witchcraft against Henry VI. and here she ended her days.
As in most other cases the Norman baron founded his castle on the site of a Saxon home with a fortified burh; a square keep was built on the most commanding position, perhaps on the mound, and a large walled enclosure was made, defended on the west, south and east sides by a lake and by a deep ditch across the north front. Somewhat on the west side of this was formed the inner ward a rectangular enclosure, nearly one and one-half acres in area, the north-east corner of which was occupied by Clinton’s keep. This is a plain late Norman edifice with a forebuilding on the west side, and containing a vaulted basement and one upper floor only, the former being entirely filled with earth. The main floor formed one immense room thirty-four feet by sixty-four and about forty feet high. The forebuilding contained the staircase of approach to the entrance doorway, and above was a room, possibly an oratory. Large corner turrets, three containing mural chambers and one large spiral stair, cap the angles of the keep, the walls of which are of immense thickness. There is no evidence as to what was the nature of the Norman buildings in this ward, since they have been replaced by the work of the Earls of Lancaster, and of John of Gaunt, and are called by their name. West from the keep are the ruined kitchens, showing a huge fireplace and baking ovens. At the north-west angle is the Strong Tower, of three stages, which was, perhaps, used as a prison for persons of consequence. Adjoining this is the Hall, a pure Perpendicular building, due to John of Gaunt, beyond which was the white hall, and next the State rooms, which are connected with a large garderobe tower. Then at the south-east corner comes the range to which the name of Leicester’s Buildings has been given, and the east face to the keep is made up by the site of Dudley’s Lobby and Henry VIII.’s lodgings, but all this has perished.
The outer ward is a large oblong enclosure, 270 yards long from east to west by 174; at its east end were domestic offices, the entrances and the chapel. Originally this ward was divided by a ditch seventy feet wide running north and south with a bridge for access to the inner ward, part of it remaining in front of Leicester’s buildings, and the rest having probably been filled in by Dudley after the visit of Elizabeth. This outer ward contains about nine acres, having a circumference of 750 yards; it is formed by a strong curtain wall embracing six important buildings; namely, the octagon Swan Tower on the north-west, Mortimer’s Tower, or the gatehouse, at the head of the dam across the lake, called either after Lord Mortimer of Wigmore (temp. Edward III.), or from Sir John Mortimer, imprisoned here in the reign of Henry V. Then towards the east came the Warden’s Tower, and next the Water Tower at the south-east corner, a complete mural bastion of Early Decorated style; whence the curtain runs to Lunn’s Tower at the north-east angle, a round building thirty-six feet in diameter and forty high. At the back of this part of the wall is a long range of stabling and farm buildings, with an upper half-timbered storey, said to have been built by the great Earl Thomas of Lancaster, in the reign of Edward II., but some part is Late Perpendicular. Next to this is the chapel. West of Lunn’s Tower is the building called Leicester’s Gatehouse, built in 1570, a rectangular tower with octangular corner turrets. On the north side of the great ditch, which is cut through the rock and forms the north defence, is Clinton’s green, where are still banks of earth, probably survivals of the great siege by Henry III.
In front of Mortimer’s Tower is the dam, eighty yards long, across the valley, having at its further end the remains of a flood-gate and outer gatehouse, or the gallery tower, with a drawbridge here over the outer ditch. This was the point at which Queen Elizabeth made her entry. Beyond it was called the Brayz, where tournaments were held, as they also were on the dam itself. On both sides of the dam extended a lake, half a mile long on the west, and some twelve feet deep, upon which the attack by ships was made by Henry III. Finally, beyond the Brayz was a great curved outwork forming a tête-du-pont in front of the entrance.
The keep, or Clinton’s Tower was perhaps built between 1170 and 1180. Lunn’s Tower may be the work of King John. Henry III. expended large sums at Kenilworth, and to him is ascribed the great dam, the Water and Warden’s Towers, and much of the curtain on the south and east. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, altered the keep into Tudor Style, and besides the buildings called by his name, added the Gallery Tower and the gatehouse at the north-east, “a very fine example of a declining period in English architecture.” John of Gaunt certainly built the great Hall (circ. 1390), “one of the most beautiful examples of Early Perpendicular work in the kingdom,” and he is said to have built the portion called Lancaster’s Buildings, between Cæsar’s Tower and the hill. It was at Kenilworth, during one of her visits in August, 1572, while out hunting, that Queen Elizabeth read, as she rode, the terrible news of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.
SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE
JOHN RUSKIN
“SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE,” Our Lady of Health, or of Safety, would be a more literal translation, yet not perhaps fully expressing the force of the Italian word in this case. The church was built between 1630 and 1680, in acknowledgment of the cessation of the plague:--of course to the Virgin, to whom the modern Italian has recourse in all his principal distresses, and who receives his gratitude for all principal deliverances.
The hasty traveller is usually enthusiastic in his admiration of this building; but there is a notable lesson to be derived from it, which is not often read. On the opposite side of the broad canal of the Guidecca is a small church, celebrated among Renaissance architects as of Palladian design, but which would hardly attract the notice of the general observer, unless on account of the pictures by John Bellini which it contains, in order to see which the traveller may perhaps remember having been taken across the Guidecca to the Church of the “Redentore.” But he ought carefully to compare these two buildings with each other, the one built “to the Virgin,” the other “to the Redeemer” (also a votive offering after the cessation of the plague of 1576): the one, the most conspicuous church in Venice, its dome, the principal one by which she is first discerned, rising out of the distant sea; the other, small and contemptible, on a suburban island, and only becoming an object of interest, because it contains three small pictures! For in relative magnitude and conspicuousness of these two buildings, we have an accurate index of the relative importance of the ideas of the Madonna and of Christ in the modern Italian mind.
[Illustration: SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE, ITALY.]
The Church of Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand Canal, one of the earliest buildings of the Grotesque Renaissance, is rendered impressive by its position, size, and general proportions. These latter are exceedingly good; the grace of the whole building being chiefly dependent on the inequality of size in its cupolas, and pretty grouping of the two campaniles behind them. It is to be generally observed that the proportions of buildings have nothing whatever to do with the style or general merits of their architecture. An architect trained in the worst schools, and utterly devoid of all meaning or purpose in his work, may yet have such a natural gift of massing and grouping as will render all his structures effective when seen from a distance: such a gift is very general with the late Italian builders, so that many of the most contemptible edifices in the country have good stage effect so long as we do not approach them. The Church of the Salute is farther assisted by the beautiful flight of steps in front of it down to the Canal; and its façade is rich and beautiful of its kind, and was chosen by Turner for the principal object in his well-known view of the Grand Canal. The principal faults of the building are the meagre windows in the sides of the cupola, and the ridiculous disguise of the buttresses under the form of colossal scrolls; the buttresses themselves being originally a hypocrisy, for the cupola is stated by Lazari to be of timber, and therefore needs none. The sacristy contains several precious pictures: the three on its roof by Titian, much vaunted, are indeed as feeble as they are monstrous; but the small Titian, “St. Mark, with Sts. Cosmo and Damian,” was, when I first saw it, to my judgment, by far the first work of Titian’s in Venice. It has since been restored by the Academy, and it seemed to me entirely destroyed, but I had not time to examine it carefully.
At the end of the larger sacristy is the lunette which once decorated the tomb of the Doge Francesco Dandolo; and at the side of it, one of the most highly finished Tintorets in Venice, namely _The Marriage in Cana_, an immense picture, some twenty-five feet long by fifteen feet high, and said by Lazari to be one of the few which Tintoret signed with his name.
[Illustration: THE RAMPARTS OF CARCASSONNE, FRANCE.]
THE RAMPARTS OF CARCASSONNE
A. MOLINIER
To what race shall we attribute the foundation of the city of Carcassonne? We cannot say exactly, so many races having occupied this part of the valley of the Aude in turn; the first in point of time was that of the Iberians, that mysterious people, who had colonized Southern Europe long before the coming of the Aryan race. Without taking any more account than is necessary regarding the hypothesis of the etymologists, we may recall the fact that the celebrated William von Humboldt attaches the vocable _Carcaso_, as well as many others from the south of Gaul and the north of Spain, to the Iberic language.
Erected into a Latin colony by Cæsar himself, or by his adopted son, Augustus, Carcassonne vegetated obscurely for three centuries until the day when the invasion by the Barbarians and the civil wars brought about the ruin of the Empire. At this moment she was shorn of her ancient glory; and from a Latin colony, she became a simple _castrum_, which many manuscripts of the _Notitia dignitatum_, written about the year 400, do not even mention. But if the old city lost her importance with regard to civil life, she gained it in military life. At the moment the Germans, those hereditary enemies of Rome, spread over the whole of Gaul, the cities repaired their too long neglected fortifications in great haste; open spaces they surrounded with high walls; the ancient citadels were reinforced; and in their haste, just as happened later during the Hundred Years’ War, many sumptuous buildings erected by Latin architects, were sacrificed to make the defences. Carcassonne is now furnished with a strong enclosure, the honour of which many archæologists, among them Viollet-le-Duc, wish to give to the Visigoths; but it seems more prudent to attribute them to the last engineers of the expiring Empire. This enclosure, of which some parts still exist to-day, is composed of curtains of medium height, surmounted by a parapet without projections and flanked at intervals with semicircular towers opened at the gorge, or closed by a flat wall.
The towers were bare up to the level of the circling road, higher they comprised two or three stories. Viollet-le-Duc supposes that they were covered with a roof, and restored one according to this hypothesis. Much more elevated than the curtain, these Gallo-Roman towers commanded it from above, and on each of their flanks the curtain is interrupted by a gap connected by a narrow bridge, which was easy to destroy in case of an attack.
One must imagine the city of Carcassonne, with this enclosure composed of high curtains with parapets and turrets, and, at intervals, high towers, dominating the country and commanding the neighbouring defences. Such she was at the end of the Empire and such she remained for several centuries. Occupied by the Visigoths, vainly besieged several times by Clovis and by the successors of that prince, she was not forced before the Eighth Century. At this date, she fell into the hands of the Arabs, with all of the surrounding country. The domination of the Mussulmans, however, was very ephemeral; occupied by them about 720, Carcassonne again became Christian thirty years later, in 759.
Carcassonne became an important town. The city remains a fortress of the first order, almost impregnable, with its towers, its curtains and its vast _château_; but around it, on the slopes and at the base of the hill between the Aude and the city, extensive and flourishing boroughs are forming. These _bourgs_ are mentioned in 1067; more recent discoveries tell us that the two principal ones were Saint-Vincent and Saint-Michel. The latter was a commercial town inhabited by common people and workmen whose turbulent character caused great embarrassment to the viscounts during the Twelfth Century. From the beginning of that century, the notables of Carcassonne took the side of the enemy of their legitimate master, the Count of Barcelona, gave him their oath, and on two different occasions the Viscount, Bernard Aton, was chased by them from his capital. When he returned, in 1125, he took rigorous measures to assure his rule in the future. Each tower on the wall was confided to the care of a faithful noble who had to live in it with his family and his men, to do what was called _le service d’estage_. The feudal acts have preserved for us the name of several towers, the _turris monetaria vetus_, for example, but it would be difficult to state precisely to which of the existing towers the old names were given.
To the same viscount, Bernard Aton, is attributed the construction of a great part of the present wall of the city, and almost the entire _château_; from the reign of the same prince dates also the old part of the church Saint-Nazaire. Let us begin with the _château_. An act of the year 1034 already mentions the residence of the Counts of Carcassonne, and the _sala_, in which the Bishop of Gerona, Pierre Roger, lived; it speaks of the kitchens, the chambers, the stables and the chapel Saint-Marcel. Later, the _castellum Carcassonne_ is always carefully distinguished from the citadel; the acts, in mentioning a _camera rotunda_, speak of the elm that ornamented the court and under which the feudal lords rendered justice, as Saint Louis did later at Vincennes. But these give very meagre information which the study of this building will happily permit us to complete.
The ordinary residence of the suzerain, the _Château de Carcassonne_, like the donjons of the North, was designed to protect him against all attacks that came from outside as well as from within the town. A last refuge for faithful defenders, it had to be a shelter during a regular siege, or a personal attack, and to protect the suzerain against enemies without and traitors within. Therefore, a special wall was erected against the town and against the country. The _Château de Carcassonne_ was no exception to the general rule. Supported by the exterior wall on the side of the town, it is defended by a wide moat and by a circular barbican over the end of a bridge that was thrown over the moat; it forms a parallelogram, flanked by towers and high curtains. The masonry is the same and is composed of yellowish stones placed in regular layers of from fifteen to twenty centimetres in height. The domes have the form of hemispherical caps, with regular arches and are unornamented. The bays are semicircular without mouldings, or projections; nowhere is there any sacrifice to decoration, with the exception of certain upper openings that are inaccessible to attack, and these have received a few ornaments,--mouldings and little columns of marble that garnish the corners of the windows. The principal entrance towards the city was defended by two portcullises and two successive gates; after having passed these obstacles, you find yourself in a large court of honour which was flanked on one side by the walls of the city, and on the other by dwellings, shops, and light wooden buildings, that have disappeared to-day, or have been restored in the style of the Thirteenth Century. A few halls of the Twelfth Century have, however, survived; they are not very attractive, with their surbased vaults and their narrow openings.
Let us now turn our back on the _château_ and enter the _lices_, for this is what they called the space circumscribed by the two walls of the City. We have seen above that from 1240 the town had a double wall, but the first, probably much damaged by the lords of Trencavel, was doubtless reconstructed in, and appears to date almost entirely from, the reign of St. Louis. It is composed of curtains elevated upon the rock and which never could have been of a great height: since the ground of the _lices_ was made, it has gained in height. Sometimes the two curtains were quite far apart, sometimes, on the contrary, they are close together, and the straight passage between them was formerly closed by walls with battlements and solid gates. Most of the towers which flank the exterior wall are very simple and are quite low; as a rule, they are composed of two storeys and their platform is covered with a pointed roof covered with slate.
The interior enclosure, which is much stronger and better preserved than the exterior, dates only in part from the Thirteenth Century, but if the royal architects have respected the work of their predecessors as scrupulously as possible, they have never hesitated to transform the defective or insufficient portions, whenever they felt it practical. This second enclosure is at once higher and stronger than its neighbour, the towers are closer together and better arranged for defence. The elevated and spacious curtains still carry traces of the _hourds_ which surmounted them in times of war; in many of those near the _château_, the base dates from the time of a remote epoch,--perhaps the time of the Romans, but the tops were remodelled in the Thirteenth Century by Saint-Louis, or Philip the Bold. Moreover, these princes made no other changes in the whole wall that extends from the _château_ to the Tower of the Inquisition; you particularly notice the Tower of Justice, a beautiful building with four stories of the feudal period, and the Visigoth Tower, cleverly restored, too cleverly perhaps, by Viollet-le-Duc, but an interesting example of the military system of the Gallo-Romans of the Decadence.
The Tower of the Inquisition appears to date from the reign of Philip the Bold. It is a beautiful building of four storeys which in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, sheltered the ecclesiastical tribunal the name of which it bears.
Before the Revolution, the city was deserted; in 1744, the bishop followed the general example and left his old palace of the Thirteenth Century. The new _régime_ was not equally just. For a long time, the city remained a military post, mutilated by military genius, on the pretext of maintaining and improving it; a great number of towers were razed and transformed into low curtains, absurd defences which could not have held out two hours against a strong attack. This admirable collection of mediæval military art was exposed to the greatest danger; let us thank the archæologists who interested the State in the preservation of these venerable remains. Restored to-day with a reverent care, the old citadel is assured a long life. As for the City herself, she can never become what she was in the Thirteenth Century, a rich and populous town, but she will certainly remain forever an admirable museum, where everyone who is interested in national history will come to study the military art of old France.
THE CATHEDRAL OF MODENA
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN