TAUROMACHIA, THE FIGHTING BULL OF SPAIN. 59 



sport of bull-fighting was taken up by the Spanish people. 

 It was at this period (towards the end of the eighteenth 

 century) that the Corridas de Toros, as now practised (with 

 slight variations), were established and organized. Bull- 

 rings and paid matadorcH took the place of the city square 

 and the knight. Many additions to the original corridas 

 were inaugurated, and the sport assumed more diversified 

 and even more dangerous forms. 



The first professional matadors were the brothers Juan 

 and Pedro Palomo, followed by the celebrated names of 

 Martinez Billon (el Africano), Francisco Eomero and his 

 son Juan, Jose Delgado Candido (better known as Pepe 

 Hillo), who died in the Plaza of Port St. Mary on the 24th 

 June, 1771, and, later on, Piodriguez Castellares, Geronimo 

 Candido, son of Jose (Pepe Hillo), who fell mortally 

 wounded at Madrid, 11th May, 1802, and many more of 

 high tauromachian fame.* 



Most of the Plazas de Toros, or bull-rings, of the first 

 class, were erected at this period — that at Madrid in 1741, 

 at Seville, 1763, at Aranjuez, 1796, Saragoza, 1764, Puerto 

 S'"*. Maria, 1771, Pionda, 1785, and Jerez de la Frontera, 

 1798. 



The master-hand who directed and perfected this re- 

 organization, on popular lines, of the national _AV'.s'fa, after 

 the Bourbon influence had alienated the aristocracy from 

 their ancient diversion, was Pepe Hillo : who established 

 the rules and etiquette and drew up the tauromachian 

 code of honour, written and unwritten, which, in the main, 

 prevails at the present day. None more fully recognize 

 the ability and prowess of this ' gran maestro ' of old than 

 the famous matadors who are to-day the highest living 

 exponents of tauromachian art — men such as Frascuelo, 

 Lagartijo and Mazzantmi, whose names are household 

 words from the Bidasoa to the Mediterranean. 



Andalucia has always been, and still remains, the 

 province where the love of the bull and all that pertains to 

 him is most keenly cherished, and where the modern bull- 



* De Bedoya's "Historia del Toreo" (Madrid, 1850) gives Francisco 

 de Romero as the first professional lidiador of tlie modern epoch. 



