THE ARCHITECTURE OF GALICIA
The beginnings of archæology--Caumont--The power of the Church in
the Middle Ages--Montalembert--A despot who never dies--The age of
cathedral-building--The architecture of Galicia--_Mudejar_
architecture--Byzantine art--The horseshoe arch--Tombstones with
Roman inscriptions--The ruins of Segobriga--The Mosque of
Cordova--The Puente de Pinos--San Juan de Baños--Santa Comba de
Bande--The circular arch--French students of Spanish
architecture--Moorish architects--St. Isidore and the Visigoth
kings--Two streams of influence--Moorish relief work--Transformers,
not originators--The immense power of the monasteries--Traces of
the Moors in Galicia--The rise of Gothic
architecture--Viollet-le-Duc--The origin of cathedrals--Gothic art
in Galicia--The Byzantine cupola--Michael Angelo--A
transition--Origin of the term “plateresque”--Origin of the term
“churrigueresque”--The façade of Santiago Cathedral
Archæology is a comparatively modern branch of study; it can hardly be
said to have existed as such before the third decade of the nineteenth
century, when Caumont,[96] the first real archæologist, began to awaken
the interest of his countrymen in the architecture of past ages and in
the science and customs of antiquity. Since Caumont there have been many
workers in the field, not only in France but in every civilised country,
and splendid have been the results of their earnest and conscientious
labours. Among the most brilliant of these may be reckoned the strong,
clear light which has dissipated the darkness that so effectually hid
from our eyes the degree of civilisation attained in the Middle Ages. It
is only during the last thirty years that we have become aware that the
ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries were not a stagnant period
in the world’s progress. Buckle would not have written as he did about
the Middle Ages had he come into the world a couple of decades later;
or, putting it in another way, had he lived a few years longer and not
been suddenly cut off in his early manhood, he would certainly have
modified his caustic strictures upon the times which so nearly preceded
our own.
Like Buckle, many other writers of his day believed implicitly that the
power of the Church during the Middle Ages was such that it destroyed
all individual liberty; but now we know that though religion governed
all, she stifled nothing.[97] Our ancestors were religious, they were
even superstitious to a very high degree, but they loved their
individual liberty with a passion that the bulk of our socialistic
contemporaries would be puzzled to understand. “Our proud ancestors
ignored the very idea of that unlimited power of the State which is now
so ardently appealed to,” wrote Montalembert, one of the greatest
students of the Middle Ages, after twenty-five years of study. “A dead
level has been regarded (in the nineteenth century) as a mark of
progress, and identity of yoke as a guarantee. God forbid that we should
assert equality to be incompatible with liberty; but up to the present
time the art of making them live together has not been discovered in any
of the great countries of the great European continent.... I remain
sadly impressed by the spectacle of the debasement, feebleness, and
growing impotence of each individual man in modern society. Does not
this stupid and servile apotheosis of the wisdom and power of the masses
menace us with the extinction, at once, of every personal initiative and
all strong originality, and with the annihilation, at the same time, of
all the proud susceptibilities of the soul and the genius of public
life?”
The study of archæology did not cease with Montalembert; since his day
it has made enormous strides. We know now that he was right. The men who
lived in the Middle Ages did not recognise, as we do now, the
“omnipotence of numbers,” hence the glorious originality shown in their
architecture, its dignity, its liberty, and its nobility. We have only
to look a little way to note that “in those countries where the
sovereignty of the State is most absolute, the originality of art is
nearest to its vanishing point, diminished by the State, that despot who
never dies, who already extends everywhere his irresistible and pitiless
level, over prostrate human dust.” The music, poetry and painting,
sculpture, as well as the architecture of the Middle Ages, all point
with unerring finger to the individuality of the Middle Ages. The songs
of the Gallegan _trovadors_, the _Cancionero Gallego_, are full of tales
that bear witness to the liberties taken by individuals in those days
even with their religion. Have we not already repeated in this very
volume tales in which nuns and gallants freely appealed to the Virgin
for her assistance in designs which they knew to be immoral!
The age of cathedral-building is not over. We see new cathedrals rising
in Russia, in England, in America. Huge and massive and costly they are,
but have they the spiritual and subtle beauty of the Gothic or the charm
of the Renaissant architecture? Can they be judged by the same standard?
No; for, to use the words of Spain’s great architect, artistic
collectivism has succeeded personal art, just as personal art once
succeeded symbolic art.[98] And architecture, according to the eternal
laws of its being essentially an interpretative, not an imitative art,
it interprets the soul-language of the human beings amongst whom it
rises into existence.
Galicia of the twentieth century has inherited from Galicia of the
Middle Ages poetry, sculpture, and architecture, each of which, in its
own line, is absolutely unrivalled. These offer a wide and fascinating
field of research to all those who seek to understand the civilisation
of that period in the world’s history. The architecture of Galicia can
be said to be exclusively Christian, for Moorish influence, which,
penetrating into every other part of Spain, mingled itself with
Christian art and produced what Spaniards cell _el estilo mudejar_,
never gained any footing in this province. Perhaps it may be well to say
a word about this style in passing, in spite of the fact that Galicia is
not the province in which to study it. The Moors, it will be remembered,
began to invade Spain in the year 712, and they remained in the
Peninsula for the space of four hundred years. As Señor Lamperez has
remarked in his interesting series of lectures, this branch of the art
was the natural outcome of the mingling of two distinct civilisations,
the civilisation of Spanish Christendom and that of the Oriental
followers of Islam, during the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh
centuries of the Christian era. It resulted from a fusion of the art of
two distinct races, and the highest point of development was reached
during the period which began with the reign of Ferdinand I. and ended
with that of Alfonso X. (the eleventh to the thirteenth century), and
that which began with Alfonso X., and ended with Ferdinand and Isabella
in the fifteenth century; it had its birth and development in the first
of these periods, reached its climax, and declined in the second.
_Mudejar_ architecture, according to Lamperez, was the work of Moorish
architects employed in the service of Christians: it exhibited the
elements of both peoples. In some instances, indeed, it has been the
work of Christian artisans superintended by Moorish architects. There
still exist churches in Spain whose plan is Christian (basilical), whose
structure is of the simplest, showing avoidance of all the difficult
problems of equilibrium, and whose materials are of the smaller order
(tiles, etc.), with much plaster gypsum and excessive subdivision of
excessive and artificial ornamentation dominated by geometrical ideas.
The Ordinances showing how the corporations of artisans were formed and
what specifications were required of the men who took the position of
_alarif_ (skilled) and _maestro-al-arif_ (Arabic) are still preserved at
Seville.
_Mudejar_ architecture was no mushroom style--on the contrary, it had
its slow rise and fall, and it evinces a state of constant and continual
transformation. The oldest edifice now in existence is perhaps the
church of San Roman at Toledo. Those who would study the manner in which
the _mudejar_ architecture has been modified in turn by Roman,
Byzantine, and Gothic influences, would do well to follow the advice of
Lamperez, and group their researches on geographical lines. Catalonia,
Castille, Andalusia, Aragon and Toledo, and so on. In Aragon are to be
found the strongest and most splendid Mohammedan influences that Spain
can show; while in Galicia these influences are, as it were, but
momentary. Even Granada can show nothing to compare with the glories of
Aragon, with its towers of Teruel, Daroca, and Saragossa, and with its
churches of Calatayred.
But before Spain gave birth to her _mudejar_ architecture, and long
before the Moors set foot upon her shores, her Christian art owed more
to the East than to the West, for it was as much Byzantine as Roman.
Byzantine art dates its origin from the year 330, when Constantine moved
his court from Rome to Constantinople, to a town on the borders of Asia
and Europe. Constantinople, by its geographical position, was the
natural meeting-point of Persians, Indians, Armenians, and Syrians. All
these influences, as well as those of Asia Minor, were now brought to
bear upon the Christianised pagan art of Rome. The result was the birth
of Byzantine art.
How Byzantine art was carried to the furthest corners of the Christian
world it is not difficult to see. Constantinople had become the centre
of the Roman Empire. From her shores there poured forth warriors,
traders, missionaries to every part of the earth.
Byzantine architecture borrowed her massive cupolas, supported by square
pillars over a square edifice, from Persia, and from Syria she borrowed
her floral ornamentation; while her love of colour, of brasses and
mosaics, is traceable to the influence of all the Oriental centres where
wealth and ostentation abounded. The greatest monument of Byzantine art
is, of course, St. Sophia’s (now a mosque) at Constantinople, which the
Emperor Justinian erected between 527 and 565. Here we see the decadent
art of classic Rome transformed and vivified by Asiatic influences. In
the seventh century, the agitation against the Iconoclasts (destroyers
of images), in the reign of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian[99] (813-821),
resulted in a wide diffusion of Byzantine influences throughout the
western provinces of the great Roman Empire. Spain, herself a province,
became affected.[100]
There are numerous indications that between the decadence of Roman
architecture and the invasion of the Moors, Spain produced a phase of
architecture quite her own,[101] of which the most striking
characteristic was the horseshoe arch. It has been suggested that this
kind of arch was introduced from Constantinople; but students of Spanish
architecture have long tried in vain to ascertain with certainty either
the date of its appearance or the source of its introduction. It is
known to have existed centuries before the Christian era in Persia,
India, and other parts of Asia, without, however, characterising any
special style of architecture.
Almost until the close of the nineteenth century it was erroneously
believed that the horseshoe arch entered Spain for the first time with
her Moorish invaders. We now know for a certainty that Spain had it long
before--that she had it already in the second century. Tombstones with
Roman inscriptions have been found with horseshoe arches sculptured
upon them,[102] and it has even been found sculptured on pagan
tombstones whose inscriptions point unerringly to the second
century.[103] As Christian architecture began to rise on Spanish soil,
with it there _reappeared_ the horseshoe arch. It is visible upon the
sepulchral tomb, in Mértola, of a man named Andrew, which bears these
words, “_Princeps cantorum sacrosancte aeclisae Mertillane_,” and the
date 525. This arch has also been found in two white marble windows, the
one, now in the Museum of Merida, has barbaric ornamentations; the
other, with three horseshoe arches more pronounced, exists in the church
of St. Martin de Nieble.[104] A church discovered in 1789, close to the
ruins of Segobriga, and which contains the epitaph of Bishop Sephronius,
who died in 550, has four somewhat oval horseshoe arches in its chancel.
It was thought until quite lately that there were no traces of this arch
having existed in Andalusia before the arrival of the Moors, but Señor
Gomez-Morenno believes he has discovered three edifices in which it was
used: one of these is the western entrance of the town of Cordova, which
the Moors called _Bibalatarin_. The Arab historian relates that the
Visigothic nobility and garrison escaped by it in 711 A.D., to take
refuge in the church of San Acisclo; and this circumstance alone is
sufficient to verify its antiquity.
“Everybody believes,” says Señor Gomez-Morreno, “that the Grand Mosque
at Cordova was the work of Abderrahmen I., with successive
amplifications, and that in order to build it the Moors completely
destroyed the church of St. Vincent. I do not think this is correct.” He
then points out how, to begin with, the Mosque of Abderrahmen was
constructed in a single year, between 169 and 170 of the Hegira (786
A.D.). Now to have built that edifice as it stands in one year would
have been an utter impossibility; but to have transformed the Christian
cathedral already there into a mosque within that time would be quite
feasible. The western wall and façade with horseshoe arch of the old
Christian church is still visible; its style is pure Byzantine. “I
believe,” says Gomez-Morreno, “that this façade is a remnant of the
basilica of San Vincent, and that it dates from the middle of the sixth
century.” Another proof of the anteriority of the horseshoe arch to the
Moors is the Bridge of the Pines, _Puente de Pinos_, in Granada, over
the river Cubillas; this bridge, which the Moors found there on their
arrival, has three horseshoe arches. The Moors, admiring it, called it
by its Latin name, _Ponte-Pinos_.
When, in the sixth century, the entire nation of the Visigoths had been
bodily converted from Arianism to Catholicism under Recared, son of
Leovigild, Christian churches began to rise in all parts of Spain; and
in these the horseshoe arch once more appeared. One of the most ancient
of these is supposed to have been St. Roman de Hornija (Valladolid),
mentioned by Morales. Then there is the famous little church, St. Juan
de Baños (Palencia), within ten minutes’ walk of the important railway
junction Venta de Baños, which we all pass through on our journey from
Paris to Madrid. There are French archæologists who refuse to believe
that St. Juan de Baños really dates from the seventh century; and I have
even heard a great Spanish authority suggest that the name of King
Recesvinto, and the date 661, may have been added later. For years this
church, first discovered by Quadrado, was thought to be the only
Visigoth church preserved in Spain;[105] but now there are known to be
others, as we shall see in due course, for one of the most unique
specimens of this kind of architecture is standing to-day in Galicia,
and in a state of remarkably good preservation. I allude to the little
church of Santa Comba de Bande, in the province of Orense.
The circular arch, which the Spaniards claim to have received from the
East at least five centuries before the invasion of the Moors, and which
is supposed to have had its origin in the bending of twigs and branches,
differs somewhat from the genuine Moorish arch, its curves being less
pronounced. The earliest example of the Mussalman arch is thought to be
that of the Grand Mosque of Cairuan.[106] It is extremely interesting
to trace the changes through which this Spanish Mussalman arch passed
during the four centuries of Moorish supremacy in the Peninsula. Those
of my readers who have watched the evening sun gradually disappear
behind the horizon of the sea, can easily picture to themselves the
curves of this arch in its early stages. As the golden ball first dips
itself, as it were, into the water, its outline forms a circular arch;
but one which is neither the Roman arch nor the later horseshoe arch,
but what may be called the _archaic circular arch_. Then, as it dips
deeper and deeper, the curves gradually disappear, till exactly half of
the ball is hidden: at that moment the outline is that of what is
usually styled _a Roman arch_ (early Norman). About the beginning of the
eleventh century, Moorish architecture showed a tendency to lengthen the
curves of its circular arch, and at the same time began to make it
pointed instead of circular. That is to say, the circular arch and the
pointed arch were fused into a new kind of arch, a _pointed horseshoe
arch_.
It is the first of these, the _archaic_ circular arch, which we find on
the pagan tombstones of the second century preserved in various Spanish
museums, which we find traced in the illumination of ancient Spanish
parchments, which we find in the bridge over the river Cubillas, and,
finally, which we find in the extremely rare relics of Visigothic
architecture, of which two of the most interesting are in the province
of Galicia.[107]
The foreigners who have devoted the most careful study to Spanish
architecture are the French; but they have all without exception
approached the subject with the preconceived idea that all the best
architecture in Spain is the work of French architects; and, under this
unfortunate delusion, they have misled almost every one, even Spaniards!
Street is still the best English authority on Spanish architecture,
though, of course, his work is somewhat antiquated;[108] but he saw
comparatively little--too little to enable him to be a competent judge
of Spanish national art.
The Moorish architects who constructed the Great Mosque at Cordova, as
we see it to-day, adopted and improved the style of architecture which
the Visigothic Christians had employed there before their arrival. It
must be remembered that the Visigoths were the most cultured of all the
barbarians of the north, and they were Arians long before they became
Roman Catholics.
Until quite recently, even English and French historians fell into the
common error of believing that Spain lay buried in uncivilised darkness
during the whole dominion of the Visigothic kings.[109] Yet there has
existed all the time, from their day to ours, irrefutable documentary
evidence to the contrary, the writings of St. Isidore of Seville. This
illustrious bishop, to whom we have already alluded in a former chapter,
and who died in 636, wrote a treatise on _Etymology, or The Origin of
Things_, and _A History of the Gothic Kings_. Montalembert calls him
“the last philosopher of the ancient world, and the first Christian who
arranged for Christians the knowledge of antiquity.” The Visigothic
kings had their seat in Toledo, and the writings of St. Isidore bear
incontrovertible testimony to the degree of culture to which Spain
attained under their rule. There is also plenty of proof that many
beautiful buildings were erected in Toledo under the Visigoth monarchy.
The Moors, according to their own historian, looked with admiration on
the churches, palaces, and mansions which greeted their eyes on their
entrance into Toledo. There they found sumptuous palaces, with
magnificent porticoes (St. Isidore calls them _aulas regias_).[110] Not
only were these buildings beautiful, but their appointments, and the
treasures they contained, were equally dazzling to the eyes of the
invaders. One of the palaces had twenty-four strong rooms for storing
articles of priceless value, among which were certain mysterious amulets
and magic figures upon whose safe custody the safety of Ataulf’s
kingdom[111] was superstitiously believed to depend. The palaces, too,
of the Metropolitan bishops were most sumptuous. The Visigothic kings
showed a strong predisposition to adopt the civilisation of decadent
Rome, and to break for ever with their own past; they freely adopted
Roman customs and usages, and even their architecture was not pure
Visigothic, but Gotho-Roman: it had two distinct sources, one Roman, one
Byzantine. Art entered Spain for the first time after the conquests of
Julius Cæsar, while Byzantine art was brought from Constantinople in the
train of the Christian religion.
While characteristics of the real Visigothic art became more and more
indistinct, those of Roman and Byzantine art gradually amalgamated and
formed a style of architecture which the Spaniards have called
Latino-Byzantine. The Visigoths, enchained by the prestige of the
ancient civilisation, and dominated by the irresistible force of the
Catholic religion, offered no resistance to the development of the new
art; their gold work,[112] as well as their architecture and their
literature, became Latino-Byzantine. The Courts of Recared and the other
Gothic kings were in constant commercial communication with
Constantinople. The two streams of Roman and Byzantine influence thus
flowed together, and became the channel by which the Renaissance[113]
was eventually reached.
The Moors in their earlier buildings in Spain show traces of Roman
influence, and even of Byzantine influence; for, as we have seen, they
admired the handiwork of the Visigoths, and often adapted it to their
own uses. The art of Granada is in reality the result of a fusion of
Roman, Byzantine, and Arab influences. Moorish relief work is much
deeper than that of Rome or Constantinople; that is to say, their
sculptured designs project much farther from their base. The Moors, in
the words of Lamperez, did not bring a new style of architecture with
them into Spain, but, by the peculiar way in which they adapted to their
own temperament the art which they found waiting there, a new style was
produced.[114] Neither under the Visigoths nor under the Moors can
Spanish soil be said to have produced a national architecture. The
Spaniards of the Middle Ages were great transformers, but they were not
originators or inventors. Lamperez seems to think that Spain would have
produced from the days of the Visigoths onward a distinctly original and
national style of architecture had she been allowed sufficient time. A
glance at her history is enough to show us that this was not permitted
to her.
As we have said, the Moors did not conquer Galicia; her examples of the
Latino-Byzantine and Romanesque styles are consequently free from
Moorish influences;[115] but they are nevertheless hybrid in character,
as all art which is nothing but a combination of several foreign styles
must necessarily be. The widespread belief that the world would come to
an end in the year 1000, having been proved erroneous, the building of
churches and monasteries suddenly increased, and a period of remarkable
architectural development was the result.[116] The monasteries
represented a sort of reaction against the brutality of feudalism, by
offering refuge to the oppressed, and to those who sought a safe retreat
in which to dedicate themselves to intellectual pursuits. The immense
power to which the monasteries afterwards attained began in this way.
Cluny became, as it were, the focus of that power, and from its
sheltering walls there poured forth armies of monks, who propagated
their arts along with their religion in all parts of Europe. Thus the
Latino-Byzantine or the Romanic styles of architecture reached from Rome
to Scandinavia and from Palestine to Galicia. It is to Galicia that we
must bend our steps if we wish to look upon the chief monument of
Romanic architecture in Spain, for that monument is no other than the
Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
The rise of Gothic architecture began in the early part of the eleventh
century, which forms one of the most important epochs in the annals of
the Roman Catholic Church; it began at a time when civilisation, fleeing
from the brutalities of feudalism, had taken refuge in the
cloister.[117] It was then that the sap of a new life began to rise in
the old tree,--a life thirsting for liberty, and open to all development
and progress. It was between the beginning of the last decade of the
thirteenth century and the end of the first part of the fourteenth that
the sap rose highest. The work of civilisation passed from the hands of
the monks to the hands of the newly formed middle classes. Before that
time all the architects and even stone-masons were monks. Montalembert
tells us how our own English monk of the seventh century, St. Wilfrid,
brought stone-masons (_coementarii_) from Rome to build his beautiful
conventual church at Ripon.
The king, formerly only a figurehead, now recovered his regal
power;[118] the bishop, formerly subject to the abbot, now stood above
that dignitary; the city became a municipal community, struggled for its
rights and privileges, erected its own municipal buildings; the
artisans, no longer feudal serfs, formed themselves into guilds,
corporations and fraternities so exclusive, that none might be initiated
into the secrets of their trade without undergoing long years of
apprenticeship.[119]
With all these changes, architecture kept pace. “It felt in its soul a
burning life which urged it to the most daring conceptions.”[120] Gothic
architecture represents not a revolution in art, but an evolution. The
sap rose in the old trunk, and the buds burst forth from the old
branches. It is a mistake to think that Gothic architecture was
introduced into Europe from the East by the Crusaders; these soldiers
did not, as Viollet le Duc has remarked, bring back art in their
knapsacks--they had other things to think of.[121] The constructors of
Romanesque art had struggled with a double problem--how to support wide
vaultings, and how to let light in upon dark naves. Merchants of the
ninth century, pilgrims of the tenth and eleventh, Crusaders of the
twelfth, all had their influence. Larger churches with wider vaultings
became urgently needed. The new cathedrals were to play a civil as well
as religious part--quite different from that which had been played by
the conventual churches. These are some of the elements which
contributed to the development of Gothic architecture.
Just as the cathedrals were the expansions of the conventual churches,
the universities were expansions of the monastic schools; and, as
Preissig has observed, this transformation was due in the main to the
great reputation for learning enjoyed by the schoolmen, “who attracted
such multitudes of students that it was found necessary to recognise the
schools on a broader basis.”[122] Our own oldest university, that of
Oxford, owes its foundation to a mandate from the Holy See. The first
university to be founded in Europe was that of Paris. The second was
that of Bologna.
Though Spain possesses some of the finest specimens of Gothic
architecture in the world, she has never made that style her own. Her
grandest Gothic cathedrals were designed by foreign architects; and in
her remote corners, like Galicia, that style never reached perfection.
We will tell our readers at once that there is no example of pure Gothic
art in the whole of Galicia, in spite of the fact that it struggled hard
to find a footing.
In the fifteenth century, when the rules of Gothic architecture were
being followed by all the greatest architects of Europe (except the
Italians), it had already passed its highest stage of development, and
its glories were beginning to decline. Italy was already turning to the
past for fresh inspiration. Nicolas of Pisa was already copying the
sculpture of pagan sarcophagi; Petrarch was unearthing the classic
literature of Greece and Rome; Giotto was appropriating the pictorial
art of the Byzantine Church, and Brunelleschi was replacing the Gothic
pillar by a classical column. Sculpture had opened the way, literature
and painting had followed in her footsteps, and it only remained for
architecture to do likewise. The Renaissance originated in Italy, and in
Italy it attained to its highest development.[123]
Gothic architecture had been the work of men who only valued their
handiwork as an expression of religious faith, it was nothing if not
symbolic; but with the Renaissance the spirit of faith, reverence,
superstition, or whatever we may choose to call it, was changed into
something quite different. In the Renaissance, as Lamperez has forcibly
expressed it, men began to value their work intrinsically, and
individuals began to claim their personal rights. Buildings began to be
admired for the grandeur of their conception, the delicacy of their
form; the amount of labour they had cost, and their symbolism were
forgotten. In the age of St. Bernard, cathedrals were raised for the
glory of God; during the Renaissance, they were raised to enhance human
glory.
The architects of the Renaissance retained the Byzantine cupola, the
basilical plan, and the plan of the Greek cross; they also retained the
gallery over the naves, the two towers of the façade and the portico
(_narthex liturgico_) of the Gothic style; but the sublime in
architecture had disappeared, the magnitude of the mass, the imposing
length of the line, the grandeur and simplicity of the conception, were
gone for ever.[124] Florence was the cradle of Renaissance architecture,
and Brunelleschi the first of its architects; he constructed, in 1425,
the cupola of the Duomo at Florence, where ornamentation plays so great
a part. It was not till the sixteenth century that the new style
appeared in France, under the name of “Francis I.,” in Spain as
“Plateresco,” and in England as “the style of Queen Isabella.” St.
Peter’s at Rome (begun as a basilica and completed as a Greek cross) is
looked upon as the great model of this style.
But the Gothic style of architecture died hard in France, Germany,
England, and Spain; for Christianity still clung to its mystic ideals.
The change, to Italy, was merely a change of dress; but to those
countries where the Gothic style had taken deeper root, it was a much
more serious affair. That is why they did not begin to build their
churches in the Renaissance style till the second half of the sixteenth
century. “Gothic architecture was the child of the Romanesque style,
from which it gently evolved; but that of the Renaissance was
revolutionary, it despised the past, to which it did not feel itself a
successor. The architect of the Middle Ages worked anonymously for the
general good; the architect of the Renaissance was a personage, and his
name has always been preserved along with his work.” We never forget
Michael Angelo when we speak of St. Peter’s at Rome,--St. Peter’s the
grand prototype of Renaissance architecture--the most perfect copy of
which is perhaps our own St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was Michael Angelo who
said, “Trifles make perfection, and perfection is not a trifle.” Neither
the architect of Seville Cathedral nor the architect of Canterbury would
have said that. But who will deny that the perfection of the Duomo, to
take only one example, is the result of patient and trifling detail?
It is important to remember that architecture is a science in which each
style must be studied geographically. To understand the history of
Gothic architecture in England, for instance, is not necessary, though
helpful, to understand the history of its development in Spain, France,
or Italy. Each of these countries has produced varieties peculiar to
itself for which special names have been found; such, for instance, as
the “Perpendicular” style peculiar to England. We may even say that
architecture should in some cases be studied provincially, and certainly
in the case of Galicia. “To understand the architecture of Galicia is
not an easy thing,” is a remark I have heard from the lips of some of
Spain’s most distinguished architects as well as from her archæologists.
Professor Lamperez, whom I have quoted so often in this chapter, tells
me he has dealt very fully with the subject of Gallegan architecture in
his great work on Christian architecture in Spain; but, unfortunately,
it has not yet been given to the public.
Our readers must bear in mind the fact that the Middle Ages embraced two
great architectural epochs, the Romanesque and the Gothic. The
Romanesque epoch, in which the Latino-Byzantine style predominated, may
be divided into three periods, the first from about the year 400 A.D. to
the year 1000,--the second from 1000 to 1100,--and the third--commonly
known in Spain as the Transition Period--from 1100 to 1200. The Gothic
epoch may also be roughly divided into three periods, the first, that of
the Lancet Window, from the year 1200 to the year 1300; the second, that
of the Circular Window, from 1300 to 1400; and the third the Ornamental
Gothic, from 1400 to about 1520.[125] Then followed the Renaissance.
Galicia was very slow to adopt Gothic architecture, and it will be found
that nearly all her churches, even when the influence of Gothic
architecture is very decided, partake more of the Latino-Byzantine than
of the Gothic style. Another noticeable point with regard to Galicia is
that she continued to build in a particular style even after it had
become quite antiquated in other parts of the Peninsula; consequently
many of her churches look at first sight much older than they really
are. In Spain, more perhaps than in any other country, the Renaissance
began with a Transition--a Transition, to quote Lamperez, in which the
_spirit_ was Gothic still, though the _details_ were classic. After a
while the classic details took the name of _plateresco_; then, after the
great mathematical architect, Herrero, had introduced a mathematical
precision in the detail of ornamentation, _plateresco_ gave place to, or
rather, was transformed into _churrigueresco_, which in due course
brought about a reaction which resulted in the _neo-clasica_. These are
the three principal periods of the Spanish Renaissance.
The word _plateresco_, or plateresque (from plata silver), is derived
from the idea of silver filigree. The stone lacework of the Burgos
cathedral, to take a well-known example, is _plateresque_. The word
_churrigueresque_ is derived from the name of José Churriguera, though
Churriguera was not the first to introduce it, Pedro Ribera and Narciso
Tomé having been before him. Between the middle of the seventeenth
century and the middle of the eighteenth, the Churrigueresque style of
decoration was looked upon as the most perfect in creation.
“Along with all the contradiction, all the praise and the censure with
which this style of architectural decoration has been heaped,” says
Lamperez, “we must consider what are the eternal and unchanging laws of
architecture; we must remember that this art is not one of initiation,
but of interpretation. Its form must be judged in relation to the end it
has in view; it has both active and passive elements. It may seem hard,
but we are compelled to pronounce the verdict that the so-called
_churrigueresco_ style does not meet these requirements of true
architecture. It may do honour to the man who executed it, but it does
not bring honour to the architect who designed it.”
The period during which the Churrigueresque style predominated was that
which began with the year 1669 and closed about the middle of the
eighteenth century. José Churriguera was born and educated at Salamanca.
He made his name by work on the tomb of Queen Maria of Savoy, who died
in 1489. Pedro Ribera exaggerated the defects of his master in the
fountain of Anton Martin; so also did Narciso Tomé, who let the light
through the roof of Toledo Cathedral by inserting an architectural
filigree of Churrigueresque work. “The idea,” remarks Lamperez, “was
bold in the extreme, and the conception grandiose; but--it produces
optical illusions, a panoramic, not an architectural effect.” No art
should ever be permitted to overstep its limits, and the architecture of
Spain commits this crime in its most excellent examples of the
Churrigueresque style. The examples of this style in Spain are very
numerous, but of them all the most beautiful and sumptuous, the most
truly magnificent and monumental, example in the whole of the Peninsula
may be seen in the façade of the Cathedral of Santiago in Galicia, which
was the work of Casas y Novea in 1737.