198 Unexplored Spain 
The career of the bull-fighter to-day is absolutely wanting 
in such virtue. Lagartijo and Frascuelo staked their lives each 
afternoon, through a love of their art, by the impress of honest 
nature, perhaps by inspiration of a woman’s eyes. Into their 
calculations, ideas of lucre did not enter, money had no value. 
Then came on the scene (1887) that bright particular star, 
Rafael Guerra (Guerrita) celebrated and adriirad—and with justice. 
But his coming destroyed for ever the legend of the disinterested 
toréro. The lover of the art for its own sake was no more, 
Guerrita was a mercenary of the first water. Admittedly first 
of modern bull-fighters, the aspiration of his soul was the possession 
of bank-notes, to be the clipper of many coupons! Neither passion, 
nor blood, nor favour of the fair inspired his sordid soul. At the 
supreme moment of danger, money, only money, was the motive 
which actuated him. In his desire for wealth, he succeeded. 
His unexpected retirement from the arena in the very apogee of 
his glory, and carrying away the accumulation of his thrift, was a 
shock to this warm-hearted people. very vestige of the romantic 
halo with which personal prowess and graceful presence had 
surrounded him was destroyed. Guerrita as a player of bulls 
(toréro) was the first in all the history of thering. Asa “matador” 
also he was the most complete and certain. Unlike the majority 
of his compeers, he was reserved in his habits, and lived apart 
from the bizarre and tempestuous life of the ordinary bull-fighter, 
with its feminine intrigues and excitements. For that reason 
he had many enemies amongst his set; but of his claim to be in 
the very first rank there has never been a question. To see 
Guerrita wind the silken sash around his ribs of steel, as he 
attired himself for the arena, was a sight his patrons considered 
worth going many a mile to witness.’ 
Since his retirement, the show has fallen greatly, in the 
quality of the bull-fighter. 
Luis Mazzantini created a temporary revolution in the annals 
of toromaquia (1885), lighting up anew the enthusiasm for the 
fiesta. He came not of the usual low, half-gipsy caste, but of 
the class which entitled him to the Don of gentle birth. Don 
Luis Mazzantini, the only professional bearing such a prefix, 
acquired at an unusually late period of life sufficient technical 
knowledge of bull-fighting to embolden him to enter the lists in 
The authors personally assisted at this totdet, Talavera, May 1891. 
