by Pedro Ansúrez, and rebuilt in the reign of St. Ferdinand. A doorway,
still standing, and the various scattered pillars are in the Romanesque
style, but there are also traces of Gothic work. A cloister existing at
the end of the sixteenth century is described as one of the finest in
Spain, containing many sculptures, all coloured, and tombs of notable
people. Part of this cloister has gone to form a room called the
Library, but that it still contains books I was unable to ascertain.
The Iglesia Mayor is said to have been built at the same time as the
church of Santa Maria la Antigua, on the other side of the square, and
both by Count Ansúrez. Comparing conflicting testimony, and the opinions
of various architects, the conclusion would appear to be that the church
was founded before the Count’s time (for it is mentioned in documents as
far back as 1088, and was in his day called the Ancient), and that the
existing fabric dates mainly from the reign of Alfonso IX.
(1230-44)--not from the time of the alleged restorer, Alfonso XI. Santa
Maria is, beyond doubt, the most interesting church in the city. Its
lofty steeple, with tiled roof and semicircular windows in all its four
stages, is one of the few prominent landmarks of the wayfarer to
Valladolid. The side apses are Romanesque, but the nave terminates in an
apse, Gothic in style, and pierced with lancet windows. The buttresses
taper off into graceful finials, with crockets and gargoyles. The main
apse and transept are both pierced near the roof with an elegant
openwork balustrade. The steeple is thoroughly Lombard in character.
The interior exhibits an interesting blending of the Romanesque and
Gothic styles. On the outer door, defaced by a modern portico, formerly
hung the knockers wrenched off the gates of the Mezquita at Cordova by
the first Count Armengol. The mouldings of the arch are Romanesque, but
Gothic is the beautiful groining of the interior. At the west end of the
church is a gallery for the choir, with stalls and organ. In the days
when this was built churches were built for the laity, and the clergy
did not insist on taking up the greater part of the nave, as they did in
after years. The chapel of the Counts of Cancelada contains some good
paintings. The most valuable accessory is, however, the reredos by the
celebrated Juan de Juni, begun in 1551 and finished in 1557. The work
betrays an extraordinary degree of skill and vigour, but it is
over-elaborate and in parts fantastic.
On the north this venerable church is flanked by a very beautiful
Romanesque cloister of fourteen semicircular arches in three bays. The
shafts, says Street, are moulded and wrought in imitation of the coupled
columns of early Italian artists. This cloister, together with the
steeple, makes up the most picturesque group of buildings in Valladolid,
and is well worth careful preservation, if not restoration.
We will visit the University on the south side of the square another
time, and will now thread our way northwards to the Plaza de San Pablo,
a very interesting site. At the corner of the Calles de las Angustias
and San Martin is the house where the Andalusian painter Alonso Cano is
said to have killed his wife. He fled (so we are told) in consequence to
his native city of Granada, where he became a prebendary of the
cathedral, and executed his finest work. The church of San Martin is a
very ordinary seventeenth-century structure; but it was founded soon
after the resettlement of the city, and preserves its steeple, in the
same style as that of Santa Maria la Antigua, and dating from about
1200. There was a baseless story that this was originally a Moorish
watch-tower.
The Dominican monastery of San Pablo was founded in 1276 by Queen
Violante, the rebellious consort of Alfonso XI. Maria de Molina showered
favours on the community, whose friendly rivals, the Franciscans, were
established in the Plaza Mayor. Later on, as we have said, Juan II. made
the building his home, and died here in 1454--near to, if not in, the
odour of sanctity. Here, too, the Cortes often used to sit. The present
building may be considered the creation of Cardinal Juan de Torquemada
(not the notorious Inquisitor), whose death took place in 1468. The
façade was constructed in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and
restored in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries; it is a debased
late-Gothic style, the main object of the architects being evidently to
multiply evidences of their skill. In this they succeeded, for no one
can question the merit of the execution. The riotous exuberance of the
decoration renders a description difficult. The doorway is placed within
an arch of a curious waved line. On either side are shown saints of the
order, standing on pedestals, with pinnacle-like canopies above them.
Above the arch is an indifferent relief of the Coronation of the Blessed
Virgin, attended by Cardinal Torquemada with his patron saints, the
Baptist and the Evangelist. All this part of the decoration is enclosed
within an ugly flattened arch. Above is the figure of Christ Enthroned,
and on each side of Him a trefoil arch containing the figures of the
Four Evangelists. These arches frame windows with exquisite traceries,
such as fill the circular window above the Christ. The upper part of the
façade is in three stages, each filled with figures of saints and
heraldic devices. ‘Every vacant space,’ says Street, ‘seems to have a
couple of angels holding coats-of-arms, so that it is impossible not to
feel that the sculptor and the founder must have had some idea of heaven
as peopled by none with less than a proper number of quarterings on
their shields, or without claim to the possession of _Sangre Azul_.’ The
arms displayed on the lower part of the façade are not, however, those
of Torquemada, but of the Duke of Lerma, the favourite of Philip III.,
by whom the church was restored. Here he celebrated his first Mass in
the year 1618, having sought refuge in the church from the cares of
state, or the disappointments of a courtier’s life; and here, too, he
was ultimately buried. The church was plundered and dismantled by the
French during the Peninsular War, and the interior is now inaccessible
to visitors.
On the other side of the Plazuela is the palace built by Lerma on the
site of the house where Don Carlos was born, and sold by him to Philip
III. for thirty-seven million maravedis. The façade is simple, not
undignified, and adorned with the royal arms over the doorway. The
patio, or inner quadrangle, is decorated with busts of the Roman
emperors and the arms of the old provinces of Spain. Here, says Ford,
Napoleon took up his quarters on that memorable visit to Spain which at
once altered the complexion of affairs. The building is now the
Audiencia, or Law Court.
Philip II. was born in the house at the corner of the square and the
Calle Cadesa de San Gregorio, and baptized in the church of San Pablo.
Except for its associations, the house is uninteresting.
Next to San Pablo is the Colegio San Gregorio, built by Alonso de
Burgos, Isabel the Catholic’s Confessor, in remembrance of his student
days at the former establishment. The work, elaborate as it is, occupied
only eight years--1488 to 1496. The architect, Matias Carpintero, for
some unknown reason committed suicide before its completion in 1490. The
façade of the main entrance resembles that of the older foundation. The
design displays more originality, but the execution is by no means as
good. The lintel and jambs of the square doorway are decorated by a
relieved pattern of fleur-de-lys, and enclosed within an arched canopy
of fanciful outline. On either side of the doorway are statues of wild
men--possibly an allusion to the discovery of America--and over the
lintel a relief represents the founder kneeling before the patron saint.
From the canopy, twisted tapering pillars soar upwards and divide the
upper stage into three parts. The middle one is occupied by the relief
of a pomegranate tree springing from a basin, and sheltering children
and birds among its branches; it supports the coat-of-arms of Ferdinand
and Isabel. The lateral divisions contain figures supporting
escutcheons, the whole being ‘even more extremely heraldic in its
decorations’ than San Pablo. The open-work, cusping at the top, looks as
if made of coarse wicker-work, and is happily fast disappearing under
the corrosive effects of frost and rain. The interior of San Gregorio
wearies the eye with its excess of heraldic decoration. The inner
court, notwithstanding, is noble and spacious, with a double gallery of
six arches on each side springing from spirally-fluted columns. The
fleur-de-lys appear on the arms of the founder; the yoke and sheaf of
arrows are the well-known devices of the Catholic kings. The chapel was
stripped by the French of all of value that it contained, including the
sepulchral effigy of Alonso de Burgos. The college is now one of the
municipal buildings.
The secularised church and convent of San Benito on the west side of the
town were founded by Juan I. on the site of the old Alcazar, in
reparation for a Benedictine house destroyed by his father. The actual
fabric was commenced in 1453, and hardly completed three centuries
later. The plan of the church reminds one of Santa Maria la Antigua. The
interior is lofty and impressive. There are two choirs--one in the
western gallery, and the other, as usual in Spain, in the middle of the
church, and enclosed by brick walls. The church was very strongly built,
and is, appropriately enough, occupied by the military.
In the church of La Magdalena is buried Bishop Pedro de la Gasca, who
recovered Peru for the monarchy from the clutches of Pizarro. His tomb
in the centre of the transept was chiselled by Esteban Jordán in 1577.
The other churches of Valladolid hardly repay a visit. We may now turn
our attention to the University, close to the Antigua Church. Founded in
the eleventh century, this institution rose into importance only on the
decline of the University of Salamanca. The statues of its
patrons--Alfonso VIII., Alfonso XI., Juan I., and Enrique III.--surmount
the grotesque and extravagant façade, which is in the worst baroque or
Churrigueresque style. Older and more interesting are the English and
Scots Colleges. The former was founded by Sir Francis Englefield in 1590
or thereabouts, for the education of young Englishmen for the Catholic
priesthood. The Scots College is an analogous institution, founded by
Colonel Sempill at Madrid in 1627, and transferred hither in 1771. The
Irish College is at Salamanca. Both seminaries are still resorted to, to
some extent, by youths from the United Kingdom, though a novitiate in
Valladolid might not seem an adequate training for parochial work in
English cities or Highland glens.
Sculpture is the art that has been least cultivated in Spain.
Exceptional interest attaches, therefore, to the Museum of Valladolid,
which contains a valuable collection of the works of native sculptors,
or rather carvers. The building itself is the old College of Santa Cruz,
built in 1486 by the famous Enrique de Egas, and intended by the
founder, Cardinal Mendoza (_el tercer Rey_) to harbour impoverished
genius. The exterior is surmounted by a balustrade, and strengthened
with buttresses tapering into pinnacles. The principal façade is a fine
example of Plateresque work, with much that is Gothic about the detail.
The coats-of-arms of the Catholic kings and of the founder appear, of
course, in the decoration, and the cardinal is shown adoring the cross
upheld by St. Helen. The inner court is surrounded by a triple tier of
galleries, with semicircular arches, octagonal pillars, and elegant
balustrades.
Within these walls have been collected treasures from the demolished,
dismantled, and disused churches, convents, and palaces of the city,
many of the objects now here having been removed from their original
positions by the French and left behind them in the hurry of flight.
Here we find the retablo executed between 1526 and 1532 for the church
of San Benito by Alonso Berruguete. Street, who disliked all the works
of the Renaissance, denounced this altarpiece in unmeasured terms; but
no impartial critic can deny the beauty of certain of the figures,
notably those of Abraham and St. Sebastian. In the museum may also be
seen the choir stalls from the same church, carved by the master in
1528--ten years before he designed the _silleria_ of Toledo. The work
displays marvellous imagination and great delicacy in the execution.
The genius of Juan de Juni, who was living at Valladolid in 1570, is
best represented by his wooden statue of the Dead Christ, from the
convent of San Francisco. So ghastly is the realism of this figure, that
looking at the rigid limbs--more like those of a gladiator than of the
Crucified--we feel that corruption is about to take place, and avert our
eyes in horror. One is tempted to hold one’s nose, as Murillo is said to
have done while contemplating a canvas by Valdes Leal. Not less vigorous
and infinitely more attractive is the noble statue of St. Bruno by the
same sculptor.
Gregorio Hernandez was the last of the trio of carver-sculptors who
lived and worked at Valladolid. He was an indefatigable and prolific
worker, and never doubted that the sole mission of art was to serve the
purposes of religion. He died in 1636, in Juni’s old house, at No. 37
Calle de San Luis. He is well represented in this museum. St. Teresa is
perhaps his best work, but shows his want of vigour as compared with his
two predecessors. It was Hernandez who unfortunately set the example of
draping statues with nets and fabrics, since followed with such unhappy
results.
Few artists on canvas, or in stone or wood, have so well expressed the
evil passions of the mob as the unknown sculptor of Christ bearing the
Cross. The multitude is composed, of course, of local types--of those
ferocious bravos and audacious picaros who abounded in Spain at that
time, and whose ugliest characteristics are here caught and rendered
with astonishing realism. A different genius is exemplified by the
beautiful statues in bronze gilt of the Duke and Duchess of Lerma, which
once decorated their tombs at San Pablo. They were begun by an Italian,
Pompeio Leoni, but completed, it is believed, by another hand.
The pictures in the museum are not of great importance. The Assumption
and two other works by Rubens are in bad condition, and almost surpassed
in interest by some pleasing productions of the modern Spanish school.
Not far from the museum is the house where Columbus died (No. 7
Cristobal Colon). He came hither on his return from his last voyage in
1504, and languished here, absolutely neglected by the cold-hearted
Ferdinand, for eighteen months. From Philip and Joanna he hoped to
obtain a fuller recognition of his services, and upon their landing in
Spain he sent them the assurance of his homage and respect. Philip
acknowledged this in a generous and kindly spirit--an act which,
together with his oft-expressed disapprobation of the Inquisition,
should be remembered to the handsome Burgundian’s credit. But on the
21st May 1506, Columbus went on a longer voyage than any he had made to
the Indies--to the undiscovered country whence no traveller returns. He
left two sons--Hernando, who, like his father, lies in the cathedral of
Seville, and Diego, the ancestor of the present Duke of Veragua.
The house of Cervantes, of which I have already spoken in the historical
chapter, is in the Calle de Miguel Iscar, leading from the Acero de
Recoletos to the Mercado.
Interesting old houses are not uncommon in Valladolid. Besides those
already mentioned are the Casas del Cordon and de los Duendes, built in
part in the reign of Juan II.; the palace of Fabio Neli, the great
patron of art and letters in Valladolid, with its classical doorway; the
archiepiscopal palace, once the residence of the Marquises of
Villasante; and the house of the unfortunate Calderon, minister of
Philip III., in the Calle de Teresa Gil. Berruguete’s workshop may be
seen near the convent (now barracks) of San Benito.
These memorials of the city’s golden age having been inspected, you may
ruminate on its past and future (for Valladolid _has_ a future) in the
beautiful shaded promenades by the Pisuerga or beneath the trees of the
Magdalena park; and thus refreshed may possibly be ready to investigate
the archives of the kingdom at Simancas, seven miles away. Considerable
time and patience will, however, be required, since the collection
consists of upwards of thirty-three millions of documents, arranged in
eighty thousand bundles.
II
OVIEDO
The province of Asturias is, for all men of Spanish blood, holy ground.
Its fastnesses sheltered the last little remnant of the nation which
refused to bow before the foreign yoke, its mountains proved an
impregnable bulwark against the invader. At Covadonga, Spain, beaten to
her knees, with broken sword and buckler, struck back wildly,
despairingly. Her adversary recoiled; in that instant she recovered her
breath, and, rising to her feet, pressed him steadily, stealthily,
irresistibly backwards. Asturias was not the cradle, but the asylum of
the Spanish nation. Here, to use familiar expressions, she found
salvation in the last ditch; she was saved at the eleventh hour.
How dreadful was the peril of the nation we may understand when we read
that the coast of Asturias itself was overrun by the Moors, and that a
Muslim governor ruled at Gijon. Only a few glens in the wild Cantabrian
mountains can boast a soil never profaned by the tread of the infidel.
Oviedo can claim no such distinction. The ground on which she stands
was, beyond all doubt, within the Moorish dominions. And she was not, as
it is a very common error to suppose, the first capital of the reborn
monarchy. It was at Cangas de Onis that Pelayo held his primitive court,
and to Pravia, nearer the ocean, that Silo transferred the seat of
government. Not till the reign of Alfonso the Chaste (791-842) did
Oviedo become the capital of the infant monarchy.
The town was younger even than the kingdom. It sprang up round a
monastery founded by King Froila I. on the spot where in 760 the Abbot
Fromistano had dedicated a humble church to St. Vincent. Before the
monastery was built, the first stones were laid of the famous basilicas
of the Salvador and of Saints Julian and Basilissa. Alfonso was born
here, and partly out of affection for his native place, partly perhaps
from an aversion to the capital of his enemy, Mauregato, he established
his court here, beside the churches he loved. He girded the town with
walls, and raised the bishop to the rank of primate of his dominions.
Sovereign of two of the smaller provinces of Spain, he is said to have
been emulous of the splendour of his contemporary Charlemagne. He
endeavoured to restore the state of the old Gothic court. He revived the
laws, the customs, and the ritual of his ancestors, and imported
precious woods and marbles from afar for the embellishment of his little
capital. His successors imitated not only the ceremonial and luxury of
the Byzantine Emperors, but also their intriguing and methods of
punishment. Putting out the eyes was as popular a means of ridding
oneself of an opponent at Oviedo as at Constantinople. Alfonso el Magno
avenged himself in this way on his four brothers, Veremundo, Nuño,
Odoario, and Froila, whom he detected conspiring against him. Veremundo,
notwithstanding, escaped to Astorga, where the inhabitants espoused his
cause and defended him against his brother. Another conspiracy proved
more successful, and Alfonso was driven from the throne by his own son.
One day the dethroned sovereign presented himself before his successor
and craved a boon. It was to lead the Asturian hosts once more against
the infidels. The request was granted, and victory, as it had always
done, attended the old king’s banners. And he had no sooner laid aside
his arms, than, crowned with laurels in place of a diadem, he passed
away at Zamora, December 20, 910.
The dominions of Alfonso were dismembered at his abdication, and Oviedo
for the brief space of twenty years remained the capital of the kingdom
of Asturias alone. Ramiro II. reunited the monarchy, and at the same
time transferred the capital to Leon. Oviedo became again the temporary
seat of government, when Al Mansûr’s ever-victorious host swept over
Spain, submerging all the Christian conquests, and breaking only against
the impenetrable barrier of the Asturias. Leon was not restored to its
rank till the reign of Alfonso V. (999-1027). This second period of
residence of the kings at Oviedo was marked by the miraculous
intervention of Heaven on behalf of an innocent man--if the chroniclers
may be credited. Ataulfo, Bishop of Santiago, was accused of enormous
crimes, and, having been summoned to the court, was condemned on
insufficient evidence by Veremundo II. to be exposed to the fury of a
wild bull. The prelate, strong in the knowledge of his innocence,
celebrated Mass, and presented himself in the arena clad in his
pontifical vestments. The furious animal entered, and lo! at once
prostrated himself before the devoted man, offering his head and horns
to be caressed. Nay, more, he threatened the spectators with his fury.
Amid the plaudits of all, the holy bishop withdrew, and retired to a
church in the valley of the Pravia, where he died in the odour of
sanctity. Oviedo was known as the city of the bishops, as it was the
residence of a great many prelates whose Sees were _in partibus
infidelium_--that is to say, had passed under the control of the Moors.
The history of the city, and indeed of the province, from the tenth
century onwards, is of scant interest. Asturias was erected by Alfonso
VII. in 1153 for a brief space into an independent kingdom in favour of
the Infanta Urraca, his natural daughter by a lady of the province; but
on her death it was reunited to the monarchy of Castile and Leon. Oviedo
was too remote from the scene of the long campaign against the Muslims
and from the later seats of government to take any prominent part in the
nation’s affairs. But it did not escape the assaults of the French in
the Peninsular War. The town was remorselessly sacked by General Bonnet,
in spite of a resistance not unworthy of the posterity of Pelayo’s
unconquerable warriors.
A quiet, clean city, swept unceasingly by wind and rain, Oviedo at
first sight recalls but faintly its glorious past. Yet when we look
carefully about us, we find that time has been kind to those early
sanctuaries which were the cause of the town’s existence, and which have
merited for it the title of ‘the holy.’ Approaching more as a pilgrim
than a critic, in no sceptical frame of mind, you will find few places
in Spain more deeply interesting. And though it is neither the oldest
nor the most interesting architecturally of the local monuments, your
steps will turn at once to the Cámara Santa, attached to the
cathedral--the Palladium of Spain.
In the seventh century (so runs the legend) when the hosts of Khosru
threatened the Holy Land, an ark or coffer, worked by the disciples of
the Apostles and full of relics of ineffable sanctity, was conveyed by
pious hands to Egypt. Thence it was transported to Cartagena, thence to
Toledo; and when that city in its turn was menaced by the ever-advancing
Saracen, it was taken by King Pelayo to the cave of Monsagro, ten miles
from Oviedo. When the chaste king and his architect, Tioda, re-erected
the basilica of San Salvador, founded by Froila, in the year 802, a
chapel dedicated to San Miguel, and now called the Cámara Santa, was
built expressly to receive this venerated reliquary.