Gate of Justice, Granada, Spain
This is my painting of the Puerta de la Justicia (Gate of Justice), one of the entrances to the Alhambra complex in Granada, Spain.
The Alhambra palace and fortress sits atop a hill across from the the main town of Granada. To reach it, we walked up Cuesta de Gomérez from Plaza Nueva on a cold and foggy December morning, passing first through the Puerta de las Granadas (Gate of the Pomegranates) and then taking a narrower path through this more imposing gate, constructed in 1348.
Since our visit in 2017 I have read and enjoyed Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhamabra, a book that merges fact and legend loosely based on the half-year he spent living inside the Alhambra in 1829. Irving described the Gate of Justice at that time:
Ascending the steep and shady avenue, we arrived at the foot of a huge square Moorish tower, forming a kind of barbican, through which passed the main entrance to the fortress. Within the barbican was another group of veteran invalids, one mounting guard at the portal, while the rest, wrapped in their tattered cloaks, slept on the stone benches. This portal is called the Gate of Justice, from the tribunal held within its porch during the Moslem domination, for the immediate trial of petty causes.
The great vestibule, or porch of the gate, is formed by an immense Arabian arch, of the horseshoe form, which springs to half the height of the tower.
On the keystone of this arch is engraven a gigantic hand. Within the vestibule, on the keystone of the portal, is sculptured, in like manner, a gigantic key. Those who pretend to some knowledge of Mohammedan symbols, affirm that the hand is the emblem of doctrine, the five fingers designating the five principal commandments of the creed of Islam...
Irving also touched on some of the associated legends:
The Moorish king who built it was a great magician, or, as some believed, had sold himself to the devil, and had laid the whole fortress under a magic spell. By this means it had remained standing for several years, in defiance of storms and earthquakes, while almost all other buildings of the Moors had fallen to ruin and disappeared. This spell, the tradition went on to say, would last until the hand on the outer arch should reach down and grasp the key, when the whole pile would tumble to pieces, and all the treasures buried beneath it by the Moors would be revealed.
Notwithstanding this ominous prediction, we ventured to pass through the spell-bound gateway, feeling some little assurance against magic art in the protection of the Virgin, a statue of whom we observed above the portal.