Читать книгу The Alhambra. The Arabian conquest of the Peninsula with a particular account of the Mohammedan architecture and decoration онлайн

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Al-makkarí wrote at the close of the sixteenth century. His life was spent in literary pursuits, and in the society of the learned. He appears to have resembled our own John Aubrey in his genius for taking the greatest pains to collect his material from the most authentic sources at his command; and, if he sometimes falls into slight inaccuracies, his editor—Don Pascual—promptly sets the matter right in a note of profound and judicious scholarship. That portion of Al-makkarí which most concerns the present volume is contained in the second part of his work, and consists of extracts from various Arab authors relating to the history of the kingdom of Granada. In a note upon the etymology of the name “Andalus,” Al-makkarí derives it from Andalosh, a Moorish corruption for Vandalocii (Vandals), with which attribution Don Pascual seems to agree. Al-makkarí concludes his history with a pious ejaculation for the re-occupation of the country: “May Allah restore it entire to the Moslems!”

It is to be lamented that an ungenerous spirit actuated the authorities in Madrid at the time Gayángos was preparing his monumental work (circa 1840). In his own land, the assistance he had every right to expect, was withheld! He tells us that he petitioned the Ministers of Her Catholic Majesty for permission to visit the Library of the Escorial, and he finds himself called upon to disclose a fact very painful to his feelings. Don Pascual’s own words are: “Strange to say, notwithstanding repeated applications, and the interference of persons high in rank and influence, my request was positively denied, professedly on the plea that the Library could not be opened, a contention having arisen between the Government and the Royal Household as to the possession of it!” Under the enlightened rule of King Alfonso XIII. such treatment has become impossible: all that remains of the literature, the splendid monuments of Arabian architecture, indeed everything which exhibits memorials of the graceful people who have passed away, is now open to the antiquary or the artist, and zealously guarded with the most reverent care. No longer is there danger of wanton spoliation of the ancient palace of the Moorish Kings of Granada. The effort now is to retard the inevitable process of decay. The late Señor Raphaél Contreras occupied himself for thirty-seven years in an attempt to restore the defaced or partially-destroyed arabesques of the Alhambra. In the course of his labour of love, it was his good fortune to be rewarded, from time to time, by the discovery of inscriptions which had long lain hidden; and his exertions were further recompensed by the happiness of lighting upon and replacing parts of mutilated ornament and portions of the edifice itself which had become dislodged by accident or rapine, thus saving somewhat from the deluge of time.