I found The Personal Librarian to be both enjoyable and educational, which in my opinion is what historical fiction should be. The book’s protagonist is a most remarkable woman, Belle da Costa Greene. Why was she remarkable? In 1905 at age twenty-six she became the personal librarian of J. P. Morgan for his new Pierpont Morgan Library. Morgan had at the time one of the world’s premier collections of rare books and illustrated manuscripts. Ms. Greene soon became much more than a librarian for Morgan, becoming his agent at auctions in the U.S. and overseas. Her drive, intelligence, determination, and Morgan’s money soon made the collection one of the best in the world. This was at the time when women were rare in the rare book world.
But, Belle da Costa Greene was even rarer. She was born Bell Marion Greener to a black father and mother. Her father, Richard Theodore Greener, was the first black student and graduate of Harvard in 1870. Upon her parents’ divorce, her mother chose to pass as a white of Portuguese heritage. Her fair complected sisters could do this easily. For the somewhat darker-skinned Belle this was more of a challenge.
Much of the book deals with the social and emotional costs of passing for white, including her relationship with black family members. The events of the book take place against the regression away from racial equality that occurred during this time period, a regression of which I was only vaguely aware.
Other interesting aspects of the book were the portrayal of J.P. Morgan, and the intricacies and duplicities of the artworld.
An ongoing theme of the book is Greene’s evident romance with art historian Bernard Berenson, who, ironically, was a Lithuanian Jew posing as a Catholic Bostonian. I gave the book four stars, instead of five, as it seemed it could have been more alive and visceral. By all accounts when you were in a room with Belle, you knew she was there. Reading about her, I didn’t get the same feeling. The third person approach used was a little too distant for me, and I think the story would have benefited by a first person narrative.
I visited the library many years ago, and didn’t then fully appreciate it. A return visit is now in order.
Upon publishing my review of The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, I checked out the other reviews on Goodreads. There are lots of good reviews, but I was surprised to see some readers had rated it extremely low. Fortunately, they also wrote lengthy essays justifying doing so. I understand that not all books are for all people, nonetheless I believe these reviewers are misguided in their opinions.
The issues brought up seem to center on the following:
The book has no plot and is repetitive, at least until the end.
Addie lived for over three hundred years through fascinating historical times, yet the narrative barely reflects these.
There is only one person of color mentioned in the book.
Books generally have a plot and character development, but these characteristics will vary in their emphasis from book to book. For example, the James Bond books and DaVinci Code books have vigorous plots, yet James Bond and Langston are basically the same person at the end of the book as they were at the beginning. The Harry Potter and Game of Thrones books have both intricate plots and strong character development, at least for their younger protagonists. Books that predominantly focus character development over plot are somewhat rarer, but V.E. Schwab’s book is a prototypical example of one. It should be noted that this book does have a strong plot in regards to Addie’s relationship with the old god, which changes in interesting ways over the decades.
The book is somewhat repetitive, because Addie’s life was repetitive. Due to her condition of invisibility, she was consigned to a life on the fringe on society. How do you live without have meaningful, contractual relations with other people? She managed, but mostly through theft, artifice, and, to a degree, sex. The book explores how she managed to do so better over time, giving her a more meaningful, yet still stunted life.
Yes, this book could have delved into the historical eras through which Addie lived. It was the author’s choice to not do so other than in a passing way, and, in my opinion, she made the correct choice. Delving into historical subplots would have been a distraction from the prime focus of the story: how does one survive if you are effectively invisible. Also, being that Addie operated on the fringe of society, she wasn’t generally well positioned to observe many historical events. Lastly, as to their only being one person of color, for most of Addie’s life she lived in places without many people of color. I don’t believe a book should be penalized for this. I will soon review a book, The Personal Librarian, that deals extensively and predominately with issues of people of color. There is room enough for both books to happily coexist in this world.
I’ve been reading more books lately, including the excellent The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, but I’ve also been writing less since the completion of Drake’s Botanist. One reason was for this is that with Covid becoming less virulent, my wife and I are willing to travel. Our first big trip, as posted in this blog last year, was to Spain and Portugal. This was a special treat as I was able to visit locales of scenes in Magellan’s Navigator and a not-yet-published sequel to Drake’s Botanist. More recently we sailed from Sydney, Australia to Seattle, Washington, via New Zealand (I love the place), Tahiti (a tropic beauty), and Honolulu (I climbed Diamond Head!). Next up is a planned cruise in the Mediterranean where we will visit many locales of The King’s Galley and The Sultan’s Galley.
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue is a favorite of my more recent reads. Its premise has an original aspect, the protagonist Addie Larue is sympathetic, there are intriguing twists to the story, and the prose is excellent. The basic premise of this magical realism book is an old one. Addie Larue sells her soul to the Devil, or a devil, or an old god, or maybe simply a magical being. It never is clear. From this initial start, the story is all original.
Addie is a uniquely independent French girl, born 1691 in the provincial town of Villon-sur-Sarthe. She yearns for more than a life of bearing children and married subservience. She eludes that fate for some years, until it is decided she must be wed. On the wedding day she runs. About to be caught she meets a man, or an old god. She pleads with him, “I want a chance to live. I want to be free…I want more time.” He asks “How long?” She doesn’t know. He becomes frustrated, and explains that he deals in souls. He will wait for her soul, but not forever. She tells him, “…take my life when I am done with it. You can have my soul when I don’t want it anymore.” This is a deal the old god will do. Addie accepts, not realizing the old god has rigged the game in his favor. No one will ever remember Addie. She can knock on a door and have a conversation, but when the door closes and reopens, the person has no recollection of her. Even her mother and father don’t remember her being their daughter.
This would make life impossible for most people, but Addie persists and finds a way to manage over the years without going insane. She seems to be immortal. I found it fascinating how she forges a life for herself. Periodically the old god visits her, hoping to take her soul. Their changing relationship over the centuries is an interesting subplot of the book. Finally, in New York in the present, she meets a man who remembers her. That leads to the climax of the book, although not necessarily the end of Addie’s story. Or maybe it is the end of her story. I don’t want to spoil the finale for you. Once I always finished a book once I started it. Now, I finish a minority of the books I start. I am a tough grader of books, but on a scale of one to five, I give this book a six.
Madrid is the third largest city in ‘traditional’ Europe behind London and Berlin, larger than Paris and Rome. I liked the feel of Madrid. It has wide boulevards and expansive plazas, while largely avoiding ugly high rises. It also doesn’t have the cramped historic medieval areas of other Iberian cities…because Madrid never was a city in medieval times. Its population was barely four thousand in 1530. Its growth only took off when King Philip II adopted it as a primary residence around 1562.
We didn’t see enough of Madrid to do it justice…just an hour-long bus tour of the city with a walking tour around the National Palace.
The Prado was the highlight of our time. An excellent tour guide helped us make the most of our visit there, although there is so much more that we could have seen. I have no art training, although I understand something of composition and the evolution of artistic styles over the years.
My main interest in art is using it to get a glimpse into the people, places, and ideas of the past. There were four paintings that I especially wanted to see. The oldest of these was Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights from around 1500.
It is as weird to see in person as it was in books. Yes, it’s theme is something about Adam and Eve, earthly delights, and Hell. But what is Bosch trying to tell us? I don’t know. What I didn’t realized until researching the picture for this blog is that the triptych actually folds up. There is another picture on the wood of a world without people when the painting is closed.
The second painting I sought out was Titian’s Equestrian Portrait of Charles V from around 1548.
Commissioned by Charles’s sister, it depicts him at the Battle of Mühlberg, where his markedly larger army utterly defeated the hated Protestants. Charles looks every bit the majestic emperor. The pose is purely propaganda. Charles was a more effective ruler than most of the inbred nobility of his, and our, day. But in actuality he was carried into the battle on a litter due to gout plaguing him. Nonetheless, Titian’s work captures the essence of the ruler who ruled one of the greatest empires in mankind’s history.
The third painting that has always intrigued me is Velázquez’s Las Meninas from 1656.
At first glance it is a portrait of little Infanta Margaret Theresa, the daughter of King Philip IV and his wife Mariana of Austria. These people are largely footnotes in history. But look at the painting more closely. In the background we can see the artist Velázquez at work at his easel, and reflected in a mirror Philip and Mariana are visible. There is so much going on here.
Finally, in less than two hundred years we go from the majesty and competence of Charles V to The Family of Charles IV as depicted by Goya in around 1800.
Like in Las Meninas, Goya paints himself in the background. There the similarity stops. The royal family presents themselves as buffoons, which subsequent history would show to be the fact. Ironically, the subjects don’t see that themselves. Other of Goya’s works in the Prado are more visceral, especially those dealing with the atrocities of the war against France.
I’ve barely touched on the masterpieces of the Prado. Other masters with their work there are Dürer, El Greco, and Rubens. I would like to go back and spend a day there as well as to see what else Madrid has to offer.
And so ended our journey through Portugal and Spain. I learned and experienced so much, but it was time to go home, especially because on the plane flight back I began to realize I likely had Covid. Fortunately, it turned out to be a mild case.
Five-hundred-year-old buildings abound in Europe despite the destruction of wars and the natural tests of time. Some cities, like Porto and Seville, have entire districts of Renaissance and older buildings. Toledo is one of the few cities almost entirely of such edifices.
There are two reasons for this. First the Tagus River clings to three of Toledo’s sides, literally leaving no room for new construction. The Tagus here is a long way from when we first met it at Lisbon, but it is still a wide, fast-moving river.
Spanish King Philip II also indirectly bears responsibility for Toledo’s preservation. Philip’s father, Charles V, didn’t have a capital city, but rather traveled throughout Spain, the Low Countries, and the rest of his empire. Nonetheless, he ruled from Toledo no less than fifteen times, making it a primary residence. Toledo also was the seat of one of the oldest archdioceses in Spain, dating back to 313 A.D.
Philip II moved his main residence from Toledo to Madrid in 1562, six years after his father abdicated and Philip became king. (Madrid at this time had perhaps twenty thousand inhabitants and was a fraction of Toledo’s size.) Philip’s reasons for doing so are still debated. He was probably motivated in part by a desire to distance himself from the church’s influence. Also, Madrid’s weather is more moderate than that of Toledo.
Toledo remained largely unchanged after the court’s departure, and Toledo’s buildings and art gives us a glimpse into the past.
Toledo’s natural defenses led to its being founded centuries before Christ. Its strategic location in Iberian led to it being one of the first Moslem cities to fall in 1085 during the Reconquista.
Toledo Cathedral was worth the visit. Yes, another church. I was getting a bit tired of churches. This cathedral, however, was different than those visited before. It was built on the site of a mosque, but unlike in Seville and Cordoba, no evidence of the former mosque remains, although the cloister exhibits a Moorish influence. Also, it is one of the few cathedrals in Spain in the Gothic style. I could write for pages about the church, but this blog is not meant to be a travelogue. What best captured my attention were two things.
First, a unique aspect of the church is its stained-glass windows, which range from four hundred to seven hundred years old. These are magnificent to see, and we are blessed that they have survived all these years. Years ago, I did some stained-glass work, which makes me appreciate the effort put into the windows.
Second is a Baroque altarpiece call El Transparente. Cathedral altarpieces by their nature are over-the-top, each seemingly attempting to outdo one another. What makes this one special is that in the 1700’s a skylight was constructed to illuminate the Italian marble altarpiece. The streaming light seems to explode upon the altarpiece. Evidently two Cardinals must have thought the same, as their tombs are there. Suspended from the ceiling in mid-air above their tombs are their red cardinal hats…which for some reason makes me think of Harry Potter magical hats. The half hour I spent in a chapel of the church of Santo Tomé was some of my best spent time of the trip. This bare room had an alcove at one end with a tomb. Above the tomb is a masterpiece of Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos, best known as El Greco. The huge nearly sixteen-foot-high by twelve-foot-wide painting The Burial of Count Orgaz captivates me. There is so much happening in the painting with heaven above and earth below. Its style seems thoroughly modern to me.
Picture is of Teresa and I at an overlook of Toledo.
The morning after the flamenco performance we set out into the center of Spain with a two-hour drive to Cordoba. Our eventual destination that day would be Madrid. I doubt many non-Spanish people could place Cordoba on the map, or even know of its existence. I didn’t. A thousand years ago it was the second largest city in Europe with up to four hundred thousand inhabitants. Which city was the largest? It was Constantinople at half a million people. The Moors ruled Cordoba then. Previously, like most Iberian cities, it had been Roman and then Visigoth.
Today it is a largely forgotten city on the Guadalquivir River, the same river that later flows through Seville. Its most apparent attraction is the over thousand-year-old Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba. The original mosque is huge with a comparatively small church planted in its middle upon the order of Charles V. Exposed under a portion of its floor is a Visigoth church that preceded both mosque and cathedral.
What I found particularly interesting is that the mosque was expanded three times over a period of two centuries. The initial construction extensively used recycled Roman or Visigoth stone columns and capitals. Once these were exhausted new columns were fashioned. By the time of the third expansion the quality of the columns and painting on the arches had decisively deteriorated in quality.
The historic Jewish quarter of Cordoba dates to Medieval times. It was fun to walk its narrow streets. Some of our group were Sephardic Jews, and welcomed a chance to have a sense of their origins before their ancestors were exiled from Spain. Of particular interest was one of the few synagogues in Spain surviving from the Medieval period. It had at one time been converted to a church, likely explaining its avoiding destruction. Interestingly, its decorations included Moslem ones in addition to the Jewish and Christian ones, reflecting the onetime coexistence of all three religions in at least a semblance of peace.
Once our morning in Cordoba was done, we boarded a train for Madrid. The train trip fascinated me for two reasons.
The first was olive trees. Lots of olive trees. Thousands and millions of olive trees out to the horizon. Spain produces more olive oil than the next three countries, Italy, Morocco, and Turkey, combined…although this past summer’s searing heat produced a poor harvest.
Secondly, I found the absence of small towns and villages striking. Our director once commented that the people of Spain are city people. Over eighty percent of the population lives in urban areas. Six hundred years ago this wasn’t true. That changed with the inflow of silver and riches from the New World. All this wealth flowed into Seville and then onto Madrid. Why do back breaking working a farm when you can get rich in the city? Literally the countryside was depopulated over the next hundred years as people migrated to the cities. And they never went back. We reached Madrid that night. The next day we backtracked to Spain’s spiritual center, Toledo.
We left Marbella for Granada, but went there by a round-about-route. The road climbed into the foothills through a Spanish national park until finally the picturesque city of Ronda came into view. It’s an ancient town inconveniently split by an over hundred-yard-deep river canyon. Looking into the canyon, I would swear it is deeper. See the picture above. Conveniently, three bridges span the canyon, connecting the two sides of Ronda. One, the Roman Bridge, was first built in Roman times. I would like to have been there to see how they did it.
Like Granada, where we would finish the day, Ronda has strong literary connections. It, and its bullfighting ring, was a favorite place for Ernest Hemingway to summer, as well as later Orson Welles and earlier the renowned German poet Rainier Maria Rilke. Our tour guide hopes, if she hits the lottery, to live in Ronda someday. We toured the bullfighting museum and followed that with a walking tour of town and a visit to a residence perched on the canyon’s edge. It was spectacular.
By late afternoon we descended into the southern Spanish city of Granada. It sits in a fertile basin in the foothills of Spain’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. Like most cities in Iberia, it was settled in Roman times, if not before. Granada fell to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, the last Moorish kingdom to do so. The emir surrendered peacefully. His terms included that Moslems in Granada could continue to their faith. This promise was broken eight years later, contributing to the bitter Christian versus Moslem strife that is a backdrop to The King’s Galley.
The night of our arrival in Granada was my only bad meal in Spain, an oversalted mush of a paella. I know paella. I can make a decent one and I’ve eaten a paella made by a native Spaniard. This paella was a travesty.
Today Granada is a modern city, albeit with historic districts. I believe lush, verdant farms once filled the landscape instead of the present apartment buildings. However, as it has for over five hundred years, the Alhambra sits on a hilltop dominating the city.
Isabella and Ferdinand were taken in by the beauty of Granada and the Alhambra. Previously they’d prepared their final resting place in the holy town of Toledo, but having seen the grandeur and magnificence of Alhambra they determined to be interred there. Which is where their remains rest today in the Royal Chapel of Granada next to the Cathedral of Granada in the center of the old town.
What is the Alhambra? It’s one of the most visited sites in Spain. Walls surround thirty-five acres that include a Moorish fortress, the Palace of King Charles V, extensive gardens, and, in my opinion, the crown jewels, the three Nasrid Palaces built by the Moors. I won’t detail these as I don’t have enough room to do them justice. I urge you to read about it elsewhere.
The Alhambra’s more recent past, that is to say the last two-hundred and fifty years, is interesting. The French occupied the Alhambra during the Napoleonic wars in Spain. Like elsewhere in Spain and Portugal, they looted everything that was moveable and, in the case of the Alhambra, blew up part of it when forced to retreat back to France. The Duke of Wellington’s victory at the Battle of Vitoria, the battle that finally booted the French out of Spain, was due in part by the French being slowed by an immense wagon train of pilfered loot. Then followed sad times for the Alhambra, with it falling into disrepair.
Its resurrection is due in part to writers and poets of the Romantic Movement. Lord Byron wrote a poem about it. Washington Irving wrote a popular book, Tales of Granada, after a three-month residence in the Alhambra. (We saw what is now called the Washington Irving room.) This book, along with his other books about Spain, did much to publicize this treasure.
Today Washington Irving is mostly known for his short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and its headless horseman. However, Irving was one of the most prolific and famous American authors of his day as well as a diplomat, including ambassador to Spain.
It was about this time that the Spanish began a multi-decade effort to preserve and restore the Alhambra. I thank them for their efforts. Having done a morning tour of the Alhambra, we had a delightful lunch on the balcony of the Alhambra Palace Hotel. Our table gave us a panoramic view of the city. For entertainment that evening we enjoyed a rousing flamenco dance and music display.
I looked forward to seeing the famous sunny Costa del Sol even though it didn’t have any of the historic buildings of Lisbon, Seville, or any of the other cities we visited in Spain and Portugal.
No historic buildings? Well, there are some at Málaga, but in general this was a dangerous place to live.
One theme of my book The King’s Galley is about why that is so. In the early 1500’s the Mediterranean shore wasn’t a safe place unless you were in a substantial fortified port like Cádiz or Cartagena. The galleys of Moslem corsairs ranged the western Mediterranean robbing, pillaging, and enslaving people wholesale. Some corsairs, like Barbarossa, had large fleets, while there were many small operators as well. Many, probably most, of the Moslems evicted by Spain after the Reconquista ended up in Northern Africa. They didn’t harbor warm and fuzzy feelings about the Christians who had kicked them out. North Africa is only a day or two sail from the Costa del Sol, making the latter easy pickings. Hence this coastline was essentially uninhabitable.
Times are different now. Condos and hotels line the coast for miles as Europeans flock to the area in season to enjoy the sun. We were there in mid-late October and there were still a generous number of tourists even though there was only a bit of sun.
European temperatures in early October had been unseasonably high in the hundreds. Fortunately, they fell just before we arrived in Porto, but with the lower temperatures came rain. Lots of rain. And wind. Most our sightseeing was indoors so the rain didn’t impact us too much, although our poor driver had to penetrate a deluge on the drive from Lisbon to Seville. While in Marbella our hotel room gave us a front seat to a few storms that moved along the coast.
We had one full day and two nights in Marbella to…do nothing. It was a day to decompress and give our bus driver a day off. We needed it. For a week most days we were on the bus by seven or seven thirty and busy for much of the day. The Gran Melia don Pepe Hotel in Marbella was the perfect place to relax. Every room fronted the ocean! The food, like for all the trip, was excellent. Our dinner the first night was room service on our balcony looking out to the sea. Dinner the second night was in the hotel restaurant. See the picture of my delicious “apple” dessert. I took advantage of a sun break to take a relaxing stroll down the boardwalk to “old’ Marbella.
Seville was my one ‘must see’ city when planning our Portugal and Spain trip. Early in both Magellan’s Navigator and The King’s Galley are several scenes in Seville. I spent hours studying Renaissance maps of the city before drafting these. Much has changed in the city since then, but importantly the Cathedral and Royal Alcázar still remain and the Guadalquivir River still bisects Triana and Seville while making its way to the sea.
Today a grassy lawn and busy street border the east side of the Guadalquivir, but I found it easy to imagine Magellan’s five ships being outfitted along the shore with warehouses and work sheds where there is now grass and pavement. Workers would have bustled about, the clanging of the blacksmiths at work filled the air, while the smell of hot tar assaulted the nose.
The Nao Victoria Museum along the river was of particular interest to me. The museum is small, but its exhibits do a superb job of illustrating the circumnavigation of the globe from the preparation of Magellan’s fleet through to the return of the Nao Victoria to Seville. Tied up at the river’s edge is a static display of the Victoria. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go aboard as high winds the previous day caused parks and other outside exhibits throughout the city to be closed. There is also a seaworthy Victoria, which on the day we were in Seville was enroute to Sardinia.
Spain’s Casa de Contratación, House of Trade, was based in Seville from its founding by Queen Isabella in 1503 until in moved in 1717. The Casa oversaw ALL activities of Spain’s colonies throughout the world. No ship sailed without its approval. It assessed all taxes on imports to Spain. In Magellan’s time literally nothing happened in the colonies or upon the sea without the Casa’s approval. The Spanish were voluminous documenters of everything. The records of the Casa are in the Archive of the Indies in Seville which was near our hotel. These were a key source for my friend Tim Joyner’s book, Magellan.
Sevilla Cathedral dominates the old part of Seville. It is huge. Only St. Peters at the Vatican and St. Paul’s in London are larger. It’s so large that its disorientating. If you visit get a good guide or audio. Don’t miss the half-ton silver monstrance carried on the select holy days, Columbus’s tomb, or the high altar. These are only the highlights of a host of chapels, paintings, and altarpieces.
Another can’t miss building is the Royal Alcazar, the former Moorish palace that has been a Spanish Royal palace since 1248. Well, actually, we did miss seeing it. There is only so much a person can do in a day. I’ll see it next time in Seville.
The Barrio Santa Cruz directly east of the cathedral is a survivor from the Renaissance. It’s twisted, narrow alleys give an excellent feel for how in Magellan’s time the entire city must have looked and felt, although I suspect it smells much better now than when the streets weren’t as clean. I would visit Seville again to see the Alcazar and visit the Nao Victoria. However, beware, as it was overrun with tourists like ourselves even in October. I don’t think I could stand it during the height of tourist season. People must then be shoulder-to-shoulder with temperatures flirting with a hundred degrees.
What do earthquakes have to do with Lisbon you ask?
An earthquake came in many ways to define Lisbon. The Great Earthquake of 1755 utterly destroyed most of historic Lisbon. After the quake, three tsunamis and a huge fire completed the job. So, central Lisbon is quite unlike other historic European cities with broad, logically laid-out streets lined by utilitarian, almost military buildings. Unfortunately, the earthquake erased much of the city’s charm…at least for me. Keep in mind, though, that when I look at a city, I’m always trying to imagine how it looked five hundred years ago in the Renaissance. As a sidenote, the fire also destroyed most written records of Portugal’s Age of Discovery, including Magellan’s records confiscated when the Portuguese captured his flagship in the East Indies.
Fortunately, twenty minutes away is Belém, the port on the Tagus River from whence most of Portugal’s maritime adventures were launched. Belém’s buildings largely escaped the 1755 earthquake. Sights we saw here were the 1960 Monument to the Discoveries, Belém Tower, the Monastery of Jerónimos, the Maritime Museum, and the National Coach Museum.
Wait. Did I say a National Coach Museum? Sounds boring. It wasn’t. The oldest coach belonged to King Philip II, Queen Elizabeth’s antagonist, Queen Mary’s husband, and the man who launched the Spanish Armada in 1588. This carriage had wheels with metal rims and basically no suspension. Riding in it must have been like going through the Inquisition. At the museum you can see the evolution of coaches through to modern times.
Belém Tower is a rustic stone fort built in Magellan’s time to protect the harbor. The Monastery of Jerónimos is a huge sixteenth century building inland a bit from the river. Its church, and its predecessor on the same site, is where Vasco da Gama and other explorers would have worshiped before setting out. Da Gama’s tomb is inside. Unfortunately, an event prevented us from seeing it, leaving it as a ‘must do’ for my next trip to Lisbon. The Maritime Museum fills the west wing of the monastery. It has excellent exhibits treating navigation and ships during the Age of Discovery as well as more modern ships. Finally, the Monument to the Discoveries on the river’s edge is a huge sculpture built in 1960 honoring Prince Henry the Navigator and the other men, and one woman, of Portugal’s maritime past.
Nestled into the hills fifteen miles to the northwest of Lisbon is the little town of Sintra. Portuguese royalty traditionally spent their summers there to escape the heat in Lisbon. Three castles dot the hills above Sintra: the remains of an ancient Moorish castle, the Pena Castle, a ‘modern’ idealistic palace built roughly two hundred years ago, and finally the National Palace.
We had limited time in Sintra. While I would like to have seen all three castles, we focused on the National Castle. An early draft of Magellan’s Navigator had several scenes in this castle with Vasco da Gama giving advice to King Manuel I as to how to handle the upstart Magellan.
Originally a Moorish castle was on the site. In Portugal the Reconquista, the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, generally preceded that in Spain. Sintra was captured by a Christian king in the twelfth century, who converted the castle to his own use. The castle we see today was constructed mainly in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Despite its age, it is in excellent condition, due in part to restorations. It illustrates a common theme that I saw time and again in Portugal and Spain, which is that an originally Moslem Moorish structure was taken over by Christian regents and then modified to their wants. However, the architects and craftsmen that made these changes were by necessity the local ones, who were Moslem Moors. Hence, the enhancements made by the new Christian tenants inevitably had a Moorish character to them. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising, as by many accounts for the first few hundred years of the Reconquista Christians and Moslems, and to a lesser extent Jews, lived together in relative harmony. This gradually changed, culminating with the onset of the Spanish Inquisition under Queen Isabella, and the eventual expulsion or conversion of the Jews and Moslems.
The Sintra palace is actually a castle, with defendable walls and a small inner courtyard. One thing I found fascinating was the tilework on the inner walls. Portugal is known for its tiles, mostly blue tiles. (When in Porto be sure to check out the tile mosaics in the train station foyer.) Sintra’s National Palace exhibits some of the earliest examples of this delightful decoration. What I found interesting was that the tiles in one room were set in decorative squares of four, with all four making up a pattern, with each tile having a separate, but related design. A close examination reveals the four separate patterns were painted by different people, with each type having a distinctive style.
The most impressive room, in my opinion, was the Blazons Hall, which I believe was used as a reception hall. The usual blue tiles adorn the lower walls. The ceiling is a tall dome with King Manuel’s coat of arms at its peak. Around the king’s coat of arms are those of his children. Lower yet on the dome are the over sixty coats of arms of the main Portuguese noble families of the time. Finally, between these and the wall tiles, are different tiles depicting hunting scenes.
Another interesting room is the large kitchen. This has two large conical chimneys, which gives the outside of the castle its distinctive look.
The National Palace in Sintra is a must see if you are visiting Portugal and are interested in its historic buildings. I’ve focused on the buildings of Portugal, but it has so much more to offer. If you are a seafood lover like me, you’ll enjoy the many dishes featuring the fruit of the sea. At the other extreme is pastel de nata, a tasty egg custard tart pastry. Each town seems to have its own version of this, with the Pastel de Belém being arguably the king of the breed.
The first photo is of the Sintra National Palace courtesy of WikiCommons. The second photo is of the Blazons Hall dome.
kennethdschultz 