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THE people about Granada have always held that the Palace of the Alhambra was built under a magic spell. To their minds human workmanship and the power of wealth are too feeble for the erection of a structure so enduring and magnificent. Indeed, great architects can hardly conceive the skill that balanced those halls and gardens and towers one against the other with perfect symmetry, or the patience that worked out each interlaced design without error in either the art or the chiseling.
Pains and expense were not spared in the construction, and it is no wonder that the Spaniards should have thought the work supernatural. Slim pillars of the rarest white marble give grace to every court of the palace. The carvings and designs are everywhere gilded, and where these are painted between the gilding, blue, red, and yellow, the purest colors only are used. The blue is ultramarine, made from a precious stone, the lapis lazuli of the Egyptians, which never fades.
Besides warmth of color and grace of form, the Moorish architects worked for durability. The aqueducts they built still bring an abundant supply of water from the mountains to fill those baths, fountains and marble-bordered ponds for which the courts and gardens of the Alhambra are famous. In spite of earth-quakes the columns and arches have nearly all held their place and their perfect form. The palace that Charles V built there in a vain effort to rival the Moorish masterpiece, and for which he made room by removing part of the Alhambra palace, stands today an uncompleted and roofless ruin; while the much older Alhambra is still clothed in a glory of bright, fresh color.
The Alhambra is not one building, but a collection of buildings on a high plateau. Long before the erection of the great palace the hilltop was surrounded by a wall with many towers for defense, and the Alcazaba, the first palace built on the Alhambra hill, was used as a residence by the early kings of Granada. Older than all, the "Vermilion Towers" stand on a neighboring hill, some distance outside the now ruined Alhambra wall.
The Palace of the Alhambra is said to have been started by Mohammed: but the foundations were probably laid by Calif Al Hamar, who is also distinguished for having begun to pay a yearly tribute to the kings of Castile. The construction went on during several reigns, and was completed by Yusuf with the building of the Gate of Justice in 1348. All the later kings of Granada lived in it until 1492, when the Moorish power fell before Ferdinand and Isabella, and Boabdil was banished forever from the home of his fathers.