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1. The Illustrious House of López de Mendoza
- The Catholic University of America Press
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25 [ 1 ] T HE ILLUSTRIOUS HOUSE OF LóPE Z DE M E NDOZA villAberMeJ A, as has already been said, is a town that has bordered the land of the Moors for more than two centuries. Still standing there is the castle or fortress that belonged to the duke, the town’s most prominent citizen. The massive black walls of rough stones, the towering battlements, the cylindrical turrets—they’re all still in one piece. An arch, through whose span runs a passage, connects the castle with the church. The latter is, however, much more modern than the castle, and considerably later than the Villabermejans’ martial period. When they were battling the Moors of Granada nonstop, they most likely commended themselves to God in the castle itself or in the middle of open fields. It was only after the conquest of Granada, no doubt, that thought was given to the church, and the sons of the glorious father Saint Dominic then built it. From this point on the bellicose disposition of Villabermejans gradually knuckled under to the yoke of monkish theocracy, which gave rise, in my opinion, to the joke that made them descendants of Father Bermejo. During the centuries of absolute monarchy that town of fighting hidalgos settled down, turned plebeian, and became democratized . The duke went off to court and no one ever saw him there again, and as he was neither loved nor hated no one ever gave him another thought either. It was the duke’s steward who leased or let his lands. At the beginning of this century, save for the absent and in- 26 HOUSE OF LóPE Z DE MENDOZA visible duke, there were scarcely, even in spirit, three or four noble families in Villabermeja. All the rest were common people, the glory of their heroic ancestors a thing of the past. From the beginning of this century until some thirty years ago, the period in which our story begins, those same noble families , overwhelmed by poverty, had either been absorbed by the common people or had emigrated, God knows where, in search of better fortune. There remained only the López de Mendozas, perpetual castellans of the fortress since the times of Alamar the Nazarita and the saint king Don Fernando. The beautiful ancestral home of these Villabermejan López de Mendozas rests on the very walls of the castle. The simple and elegant façade, which dates from the sixteenth century, is of masonry, and both the door and the balcony in the middle of the second floor are adorned with graceful columns of white marble. Crowning this same balcony in splendor is the pure, complex coat of arms of the illustrious family, exquisitely sculpted also on white marble. Although not as much as the family itself, the house has gone into decline and shows clear and sad signs of the owners’ financial straits. In many balconies panes of glass are missing; the ancient doors, meticulously carved and covered with attractive bronze studs, exhibit the ravages of time and neglect; and the yellow hedge mustard publicizes the affront to that architectural edifice , sprouting as they do between the fissures that opened when several ashlars separated. These fissures are so wide and deep in some places that they offer ample room as concealed nests for lizards, repulsive geckos, and ugly, timid bats, and as sites where not a few wild fig trees and grasses and weeds can spring up, take root, and flourish. This parasitic vegetation grows abundantly in the spring and gives the façade the appearance of a vertical garden. The eaves of the roof are so wide that they leave a big space between the edges and the wall where swallows have a favorite spot to build their rustic nests. Above the second floor of the house there is another floor given over to granaries and poky little rooms, but since for some time now there has been scarcely any grain to take to those granaries, they’re inhabited only by a few melancholy barn and horned owls and a couple of ascetic mice. All the houses in the town, even the poorest, are whitewashed three or four times a year, and are whiter than driven snow. The Mendozas’ house presents, as a result, a great contrast in comparison with them, seeing that it has a somber appearance with stones that, if somewhat gilded by the sun, have also been thoroughly blackened by rain, the owners’ neglect, the...