The place shows traces of its masters--Romans, Goths, Saracens, and Christians. It is, indeed, as much Moorish as Christian--the narrow streets, high, narrow houses often windowless, the inner court replacing the open squares that are to be found in Seville. Miscalled the "Spanish Rome," Gautier's description still holds good: Toledo has the character of a convent, a prison, a fortress with something of a seraglio. The enormous cathedral, which dates back to Visigothic Christianity, is, next to Seville's, the most beautiful in Spain. Such a façade, such stained glass, such ceilings! Blanco Ibañez has written pages about this structure. The synagogues, the Moorish mosque, the Alcázar are picturesque. And then there are the Puente de Alcántara, the Casa de Cervantes, the Puerta del Sol, the Prison of the Inquisition, the Church of Santo Tomé--which holds the most precious example of Greco's art--the Sinagogo del Transito, the Church of San Vicente--with Grecos--Santo Domingo (more Grecos); the Convent, near the Church of San Juan de los Reyes, contains the Museo Provincial in which were formerly a number of Grecos; many of these have been transferred to the new Museo El Greco, founded by the Marquis de la Vega-Inclan, an admirer of the painter. This museum was once the home of Greco, and has been restored, so that if the artist returned he might find himself in familiar quarters. Pictures, furniture, carvings of his are there, while the adjoining house is rebuilt in a harmonious style of old material. Remain various antique patios or court-like interiors, the sword manufactory, and the general view from the top of the town. El Greco's romantic portrayment of his adopted city is as true now as the day it was painted--one catches a glimpse of the scene when the contrasts of light and shadow are strong. During a thunderstorm illuminated by blazing shafts of Peninsular lightning Toledo resembles a page torn from the Apocalypse.
The cathedral is the usual objective; instead, we first went to the church of Santo Tomé. It is a small Gothic structure, rebuilt from a mosque by Count Orgáz. In commemoration of this gift a large canvas, entitled El Entierro, depicting the funeral of Orgáz, by El Greco, has made Santo Tomé more celebrated than the cathedral. It is an amazing, a thrilling work, nevertheless, on a scale that prevents it from giving completely the quintessence of El Greco. No doubt he was a pupil of Titian; Gautier but repeated current gossip when he said that the Greek went mad in his attempt to emulate his master. But Tintoretto's influence counts heavier in this picture than Titian's, a picture assigned by Cossió midway between Greco's first and second period. Decorative as is the general scheme, the emotional intensity aroused by the row of portraits in the second _plan_, the touching expression of the two saints, Augustine and Stephen, as they gently bear the corpse of the Count, the murky light of the torches in the background, while overhead the saintly hierarchy terminating in a white radiance, Christ the Comforter, His mother at His right hand, quiring hosts at His left--all these figures make an ensemble that at first glance benumbs the critical faculty. You recall the solemn and spasmodic music of Michael Angelo (of whom El Greco is reported to have irreverently declared that he couldn't paint); then as your perspective slowly shapes itself you note that Tintoretto, plus a certain personal accent of morbid magnificence, is the artistic progenitor of this art, an art which otherwise furiously boils over with Spanish characteristics.