Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and it is said that he used to fence against the wall, like a second Don Quixote, with cut and thrust, in order to heat his imagination. ANDALUSIAN SCHOOL. Two local schools, as we have already said, arose about the same time as that of Seville, one at Cordova, the other at Granada. Let us choose the most illustrious master from each: at Cordova, it will be Cespedes ; at Granada, Alonzo Cano. Pablo De Cespedes (1538-1608) was not merely a painter; his was one of those gifted minds which are capable of grasping everything—science, literature, and the fine arts—and which only fail in attaining to the first rank in each from the division of their labor and intellect amongst several pursuits of equally difficult attainment, instead of bringing their whole powers to bear on one alone. On leaving the university, Pablo de Cespedes set out for Rome, was charmed with the works of Michael Angelo, felt a fresh impulse, and resolved to cultivate the arts, although without abandoning the culture of letters. Provided, on his return from Italy, with a canonry in the chapter of Cordova, he did not again leave his native town, and gave up his time peacefully to the different studies to which his taste and knowledge led him. This eminent man possessed a thorough knowledge of Italian, Latin, and Greek, and was able to converse in Hebrew and Arabic. Such a knowledge of languages, then rare, gave him great assistance in his labors of pure erudition.Amongst his works of this kind may be mentioned a dissertation on the cathedral of Cordova, tending to prove that this beautiful mosque was built in the latter half of the eighth century, by Abderrahman I., the founder of the Ommeyade dynasty in Spain, and of the Caliphate of Cordova. This mosque, which is the most precious religious monument left ...