E-text prepared by Chuck Greif and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the numerous original illustrations.
See 31966-h.htm or 31966-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31966/pg31966-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31966/31966-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
http://www.archive.org/details/cathedralsofspai00gadeiala
CATHEDRALS OF SPAIN
[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
NEW CATHEDRAL]
[Illustration: SALAMANCA]
CATHEDRALS OF SPAIN
by
JOHN ALLYNE GADE
Fully Illustrated
[Illustration]
Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1911
Copyright, 1911, by John A. Gade
All Rights Reserved
Published February 1911
TO
THE LAST CHÂTELAINE
OF FROGNER HOVEDGAARD
IN REVERENCE, GRATITUDE
AND AFFECTION
PREFACE
In the last dozen years many English books on Spain have appeared. They
have dealt with their subject from the point of view of the artist or
the historian, the archæologist, the politician, or the mere sight-seer.
The student of architecture, or the traveler, desiring a more intimate
or serious knowledge of the great cathedrals, has had nothing to consult
since Street published his remarkable book some forty years ago. There
have been artistic impressions, as well as guide-book recitations, by
the score. Some have been excellent, though few have surpassed the older
ones of Dumas, père, and Gautier, or Baedeker's later guide-book. A year
ago appeared the second and last volume of Señor Lamperez y Romea's
"Historia de la Arquitectura Cristiana Española en la Edad Media," a
work so comprehensive and scholarly that it practically stands alone.
It has seemed to me that certain buildings, and especially cathedrals,
cannot be properly studied quite apart from what surrounds them, or from
their past history. To look comprehendingly up at cathedral vaults and
spires, one must also look beyond them at the city and the people and
times that created them. In some such setting, the study of Avila,
Salamanca the elder and the younger, Burgos, Toledo, Leon, Segovia,Seville, and
Granada is here attempted, in the hope it will not prove
too technical for the ordinary traveler, nor too superficial for the
student of architecture. The cathedrals selected cover nearly all
periods of Gothic art, as interpreted in Spain, as well as the earlier
Romanesque and succeeding Renaissance, with which the Gothic was
mingled. All the great churches were the work of different epochs and
consequently contain several styles of architecture. The series here
described is very incomplete, but the book would have grown too bulky
had it included Santiago da Compostella with its heavenly portal, and
Barcelona or Gerona, Lerida or Tudela.
Whether we read a page of Cervantes, or gaze on one of Velasquez's
faces, or wander through one of the grand cathedrals of Spain, we
realize that this great world-empire has never ceased to exist in
matters of art, but still in the twentieth century must rouse our wonder
and admiration. In barren deserts, on parched and lonely plains, amid
hovels crumbling to decay, still stand the monuments of Spain's
greatness. But if nowhere else in the world can one find such glorious
works of art surrounded by such squalor, let us draw from the past the
promise of a revival in Spain of all that constitutes the true greatness
of a nation. In the fourth century, Bishop Hosius of Cordova was, from
every point of view, the first living churchman--Cordova itself became,
under the Ammeyad Caliphs in the tenth century, the most civilized, the
most learned, and the loveliest capital in Europe. Three hundred years
later, Alfonso X of Castile was not only a distinguished linguist and
poet, but the greatest astronomer and lawgiver of his age. When the
Spanish people have once more made education as general as it was under
the accomplished Arabs, and adopted the division of power insisted on
in a letter from Bishop Hosius to the Emperor Constantius, "Leave
ecclesiastical affairs alone.... We are not allowed to rule the earth,"
they will take the rank their character and genius deserve among the
nations. Their cathedrals will then stand in an environment befitting
their grandeur, a society which will help them to transmit to coming
generations the noblest, imperishable hopes of humanity.
JOHN ALLYNE GADE.
NEW YORK CITY.
CONTENTS
I. SALAMANCA 1
II. BURGOS 31
III. AVILA 65
IV. LEON 89
V. TOLEDO 119
VI. SEGOVIA 165
VII. SEVILLE 189
VIII. GRANADA 237
BOOKS CONSULTED 267
INDEX 269
ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW CATHEDRAL OF SALAMANCA (page 24) _Frontispiece_
CATHEDRALS OF SALAMANCA: The towers of the old and new buildings 3
CATHEDRALS OF SALAMANCA: Plans 6
THRESHING OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF SALAMANCA 10
CATHEDRAL OF SALAMANCA: The Tower of the Cock 16
SALAMANCA: From the Vega 28
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: West front 33
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: Plan 36
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: View of the nave 40
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: Lantern over the crossing 46
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: The Golden Staircase 50
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: The Chapel of the Constable 54
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: The spires above the house-tops 58
CATHEDRAL OF AVILA 67
CATHEDRAL OF AVILA: Plan 68
CATHEDRAL OF AVILA: Exterior of the apse turret 72
AVILA: From outside the walls 80
CATHEDRAL OF AVILA: Main entrance 86
CATHEDRAL OF LEON: From the southwest 91
CATHEDRAL OF LEON: Plan 94
CATHEDRAL OF LEON: Looking up the nave 98
CATHEDRAL OF LEON: Rear of apse 104
CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO 121
CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO: Plan 124
CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO: The choir stalls 140
CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO: Chapel of Santiago, tombs of Alvaro
de Luna and his spouse 158
CATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA 167
CATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA: Plan 170
CATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA: From the Plaza 176
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE: The Giralda, from the Orange Tree Court 191
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE: Plan 194
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE: Gateway of Perdon in the Orange Tree Court 210
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE AND THE GIRALDA 228
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: West front 239
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: Plan 242
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: The exterior cornices of the Royal Chapel 248
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: The reja enclosing the
Royal Chapel and tombs of the Catholic Kings 256
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: The tombs of the Catholic Kings,
of Philip and of Queen Juana 262
I
SALAMANCA
[Illustration: Photo by Author
CATHEDRALS OF SALAMANCA
The towers of the old and new buildings]
CATHEDRALS OF SPAIN
I
SALAMANCA
In quella parte ove surge ad aprire
Zeffiro dolce le novelle fronde,
Di che si vede Europa rivestire.
_Paradiso_, c. XII, l. 46.
I
Nowhere else in Spain, and certainly in few places outside her borders,
can one take in the whole architectural development of successive styles
and ages so comprehensively as in Salamanca. Byzantine and Romanesque,
Gothic from its first fire to the last flicker and coldness of the
ashes, and the triumphant domination of the reborn classicism,--all are
massed together here.
Contrasts are eloquent to belittle or magnify. Here two cathedrals stand
side by side, the older from the days of the Kingdom, a mere chapel in
size compared to the larger and later expression of Imperial Spain. A
David beside a Goliath, simple power by the side of ponderous
self-assurance. Rude in its simplicity, seemingly unconscious of its
great inheritance and the genius it embodies, the old church stands a
monument of early virile effort, in strength and poetry akin to the
wind-swept rocks round which still whisper mysterious Oriental legends.
The huge bulk that overshadows it betrays exhausted vigor and a decadent
form. Here is simplicity by complexity, majestic sobriety close to
wanton magnificence, poise by restlessness; each speaks the language of
the age that conceived and brought it forth. Proximity has compelled the
odiousness of comparison, for you can never see the later Cathedral
apart from the old. You are haunted by the salience of their divergency,
the importance of their contrasts, until their meaning becomes so far
clear to you that the solid blocks of the ancient temple seem to
symbolize the Church Militant and Triumphant. That indomitable spirit
did not meet you under the mighty arches of the newer church, but go
into the hushed perfection of those abandoned walls and walk along the
dismantled nave and you will repeat the old epithet coupled with the
city, "Fortis Salamanca!"
This once famous town lay in a curious setting as seen from the
cock-tower in the month of August. Here and there were rusty,
copper-colored fields, where the plow had just furrowed the surface.
There were vineyards in which the sandy, white mounds were tufted by the
deep emerald of the grape-vines, but the prevailing color was the yellow
straw of harvested fields. These were a busy scene,--laborers were
driving their oxen harnessed to primitive carts and treading out the
grain as in olden times. They made their rounds between the high yellow
cones built up of grain-stalks and filled the hot air with golden dust.
This is Salamanca of to-day, seemingly robbed of all but her rich
vowels. The whole city, like her two cathedrals, bears traces of the
dynasties that have swept over her. Their footprints are everywhere.
Hannibal's legions passed through Roman Salmantica on their victorious
march to Rome, and the city soon afterwards became a military station in
the province of Lusitania. Plutarch praises the valor of her women. Age
after age generals have built her bridges and the towers and walls that
surround the valley and the three hills, on one of which stands her
supreme mediæval creation.
From the eighth century Salamanca became an apple of discord between
Moslem bands and the forces of early Castilian kings, Crescent and Cross
constantly supplanting each other on her turrets. Not until the latter
half of the eleventh century, in the days of King Alfonso VI, were the
Moors driven south of Leon, and Salamanca could at last claim to be body
and soul Christian. The safety of the city was finally assured by
Alfonso's conquest of Toledo.
The university, destined to become so famous, was founded by Alfonso IX
about 1230. Among the Arab rulers in Spain, there were not a few as
eager as their co-believers in eastern Islam to learn all that the
civilized world could teach in art and science. The Caliphate of Cordova
had from the tenth century drawn to its schools and academies
proficients in astronomy, mathematics, and jurisprudence, as well as in
the more graceful arts of music, rhetoric, and poetry. The monks of
Cluny, belonging to the Order of Saint Benedict, then the most
influential in Europe, now became domiciled in Salamanca under the
protection of King Alfonso. They contributed the arts of France,
preëminently architecture, and the training of their order as
instructors and veracious compilers of historical annals to the learning
and skill already established by the followers of Mahomet in several
cities of the Spanish Peninsula. Thus the science and arts of the Orient
joined forces with those of the Occident within the strong walls of
Salamanca and founded there an illustrious seat of learning. Only three
universities, Oxford,[1] Paris, and Bologna, could boast a greater age,
but Salamanca soon attained such eminence as to rank with these by papal
decree among the "four lamps of the world." In the sixteenth century,
she numbered over seven thousand scholars. Among those destined to
become famous in the world's history were Saint Dominic, Ignatius
Loyola, Fray Luis of Leon, and Calderon.
To-day solitude and intellectual stagnation reign in the halls and
courts of this once renowned university. In a few half-empty
lecture-rooms the rustic now receives an elementary education, as he
listens to the cathedral chimes across the sunlit courtyard.
Within the crumbling crenelations of the ancient battlements twenty-four
once large parishes are more or less abandoned or laid waste with their
convents, monasteries, and palaces.
[Illustration: KEY OF PLANS OF NEW AND OLD CATHEDRALS OF SALAMANCA
A. Old Cathedral.
B. New Cathedral.
C, C. Crossing.
D. Cloisters.
E. Choir.
F. Apse.
G, G. Apsidal Chapels.
H. Altar.]
The history of Salamanca's ecclesiastical architecture is connected with
the campaigns which were carried on in Castile and Leon at the end of
the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth centuries. These had
established the dominion of King Alfonso VI, and the great influence
of the distinguished immigrant prelates of the French orders. King
Alfonso left Castile to his daughter Urraca, who, with her husband,
Count Raymond of Burgundy, settled in Salamanca. The old city, which had
suffered so long and terribly from the successive fortunes of war and
its quickly shifting masters, was once more to feel the blessings of law
and order. To replace its sad depopulation, Count Raymond allotted the
various portions of the city to newcomers of the most different
nationalities,--Castilians, Gallegos, Mozarabes, Basques, and Gascons.
Among them were naturally pilgrims and monks, who played an important
part in every colonizing enterprise of the day, introducing new ideas,
arts, and craftsmen's skill. After his conquest of Toledo, Alfonso VIplaced on
the various episcopal thrones of his new dominion Benedictine
monks of Cluny,--men of unusual ability and energy. The great Bernard,
who had been crowned Archbishop of Toledo, had brought with him many
brethren from the mother house, whose patrimony was architecture. Among
them was a young Frenchman from Périgueux in Aquitaine, Jeronimo
Visquio, whose ability as organizer and builder, up to the time of his
death in 1120, left great results wherever he labored, and most
especially in Salamanca. He was the personification of the Church
Militant of his time,--fighting side by side with the most romantic hero
of Spanish history and legend, confessing him on his death-bed, and
finally consigning him to his tomb. Jeronimo was transferred from the
See of Valencia to that of Zamora, to which Salamanca was subject, and
shortly afterwards Salamanca was elevated to episcopal dignity by Pope
Calixtus II, Count Raymond's brother. Even in the days of the Goths, we
find mention of prelates of Salamanca who voiced their ideas in the
Councils of Toledo, and later followed, for such scanty protection as it
offered, the Court of the early Castilian kings. In calling Jeronimo to
Salamanca, Raymond had, however, a very different purpose in mind from
that of attaching to his court an already celebrated churchman. He
understood the vital importance of building up within his city a
powerful episcopal seat with a great church. Grants and other assistance
were at once given the churchman and were in fact continued through
successive reigns until, with indulgences, benefices, and privileges, it
grew to be a feudal power. As late as the fifteenth century, the workmen
of the Cathedral were exempted from tributes and duties by the Spanish
kings.[2] During the first years of Jeronimo's activity and the earliest
work on the building, we find curious descriptions of how the Moorish
prisoners were put to work on the walls, even to the number of "five
hundred Moslem carpenters and masons."
The Cathedral stands upon one of the hills of the old city. The exact
date of its inception, as well as the name of the original architect, is
doubtful, but it is certain that it was begun not long after the year
1100. At Jeronimo's death it could not have been far advanced, but the
crossing and the Capilla Mayor could be consecrated and employed for
services in the middle of the century, and the first cloisters were
built soon after. The nave and side aisles followed, their arches being
closed in the middle of the thirteenth century. The lantern was probably
placed over the crossing as late as the year 1200. Following an order
inverse to that pursued by later Gothic architects, the Romanesque
builders finished their work with the eastern end.
Its building extended over long periods marked by a gain in confidence
and skill and a development of architectural style, so that in its
stones we may read a most interesting story of different epochs, and to
serious students of church-building, the old Cathedral of Salamanca is
possibly the most interesting edifice in Spain. It is magnificent in its
early, virile manhood. The tracing of the many and varied influences is
as fascinating as it is bewildering. Every student and authority on the
subject has a new conception or some definite final conclusion in regard
to its many surprising elements. No student of Spanish architecture has
studied its origin with greater insight or knowledge than Señor Don
Lamperez y Romea in his recent luminous work on Spanish ecclesiastical
architecture.
To say that the old Cathedral was wholly a French importation would be
unjust; to speak of it as sprung entirely from native precedents and
inspiration would show equal ignorance. No, there were many and subtle
influences affecting its original conception and formation; first of all
and naturally, those derived from Burgundy, now only partially visible,
as for instance the vaulting of the nave. These precedents have been
altered or concealed in the evolution of the building. Byzantine
influences follow,--most obvious in the magnificent dome crowning the
crossing. The School of Aquitaine of course made itself felt through
Bishop Jeronimo as well as several of his successors. Great portions are
Gothic, slightly visible in some of the later exterior work, but
throughout in the last interior portions of the great arches and vaults.
After carefully considering all these influences and going to their
roots, we may conclude that the old Cathedral of Salamanca is both in
plan and structure a Romanesque church of the Burgundian School built on
Spanish soil by French monks from Cluny, who in their new surroundings
were strongly affected by Byzantine and Oriental influences and possibly
by the original Spanish or Moorish development of the dome. At a later
date, under Aquitaine bishops, certain forms of vaulting characteristic
of their region were adopted as well as devices to bring about the
transition between the circular dome and the square base.
Strange to say it is a Romanesque church erected at the time when what
are regarded as the finest Gothic cathedrals were being built in France.
The Spaniard clung more tenaciously to the older style, which in many
ways adapted itself better to his climate and requirements, while it
easily flowed into native streams of inspiration to form with them a
mighty whole. The church is neither French nor Spanish nor Arab nor
Italian in its various composition, but distinctly Romanesque in
spirit.
[Illustration: Photo by Author
THRESHING OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF SALAMANCA]
The plan is in general that of the old basilica: a nave with side aisles
of five bays, a crossing prolonged one bay to the south beyond the side
aisle, while to the east the nave and side aisles all terminate in a
semicircular apsidal chapel. A portion of the southern wall of the huge
new Cathedral replaces the northern one of the old church by encroaching
on its side aisle. A flight of eighteen broad stone steps occupies the
northern bay of the old Cathedral's crossing and leads from its
considerably lower pavement up to the level of the new one. To the south
lie the great cloisters. It was a plan which for its time was
undoubtedly as magnificent in scale as it seemed diminutive and
insignificant in the sixteenth century when the new Cathedral was built.
The massiveness on which the old Romanesque builders depended to obtain
their elevations and support the great weight is most impressive. The
outer walls have in some places a thickness of ten feet and the piers
are much larger in section than those of the new Cathedral which carry
vaults soaring far above the roof of the earlier structure. The choir
had formerly blocked the clear run of the nave; to the good fortune of
the old church and the injury of the new, this was removed to the latter
when it was sufficiently advanced to receive it. Unfortunately, the plan
of the west front was very radically disturbed by the building of the
new Cathedral, the two old towers flanking the entrance being removed
and a narrow passage, which leads into the nave through the immense
later masses of masonry, taking the place of the old entrance. The nave
is 33 feet wide, 190 feet long and 60 feet high; the side aisles are 20
feet broad, 180 feet long and 40 feet high, thus surprisingly high in
proportion to the nave.
The main piers which subdivide nave and side aisles are most
interesting, as their greater portion belongs to the original structure.
They are faced by semicircular shafts which carry simple, unmolded,
transverse ribs in the central aisle. A small additional columnar
section is seen in the angles of the piers, supporting in an awkward
position, with the assistance of the interposed corbel, molded, diagonal
vaulting ribs. Columns, reaching to about two thirds of the height of
the tall shafts of the nave, carry the arches separating nave from side
aisles. The undecorated base-molds of the total composite piers are all
supported upon a heavy, widely projecting, common drum, a curious
remnant of the earlier single Byzantine pillar of but one body and base.
The capitals are among the great glories of the edifice. They are
remarkable from every point of view, and among the finest Byzantine
extant, comparable to the best of Saint Mark's or of Sancta Sofia. The
acanthus leaves are carved with all the jewel-like sparkle and crispness
and the play of light and shade of the best period; the life and spring
of a living stem are in them. Their oriental parentage is apparent at a
glance. Much of the carving is alive with all the fancy and imagination
of the day,--beasts and monsters, real and mythical animals, masks and
contorted human figures and devils interlace on the bells and peer out
from the foliage. The execution is quite unrestrained. It has a
divergency which must have had its unconscious origin in the different
antique caps serving again in the early Byzantine edifices. The ancient
carvers must have realized the full importance of sculptural relief in
their poorly lighted edifices. Again, the corbels which carry the
diagonal ribs are formed by crude contorted beings and animals, in some
instances bearing figures leaning against the lower surfaces of the
diagonal ribs and intended still further to conceal its faulty spring.
At the intersections of the diagonal ribs are bosses with figures at the
salient points.
With an astonishment verging on incredulity, we look up at the vaulting
supported by these piers. In place of the great Burgundian barrel vaults
above the nave and semicircular arches between nave and side aisles,
there are pointed Gothic transverse arches and quadripartite vaulting of
low spring and simplest sections, but nevertheless ogival. It is evident
both by the appearance of shafts, as well as by other indications, that
it could not have been the original construction, but rather one reached
at a later day when the new art was supplanting the old, a substitution
for the original Romanesque vaulting; the upper windows and the most
glorious lantern are all constructed in the Romanesque style to which
the Spanish builders clung so long and tenaciously in preference to the
subtle and nervous French Gothic which suited neither their temperament
nor conditions. The church must originally have been carried out in
their more native art, which they better understood.
The western termination of the church is formed by three semicircular
apses crowned by semicircular vaults. In the central one, closed from
the transept by a simple iron reja, stands the high altar backed by a
great Gothic retablo of fifty-five panels and crowned in the vaulting by
a most remarkable painting. In the walls of the niches is a series of
tombs of persons with varying claims to our interest and esteem. Its
original exclusiveness in the reception of royal princes of pure lineage
gave way in the thirteenth century to admit princesses and bastards.
Here lies the Dean of Santiago and Archdeacon of Salamanca, a natural
son of the King of Leon. His mother, owing to her short-comings, got no
farther than the cloister vaults. Some one has extracted from the
archives of the old Cathedral the origin of the ancient mural decoration
above the high altar. On the 15th of December, 1445, the Chapter engaged
the services of Nicholas Florentino, painter, who for a consideration of
75,000 maravedis "of current white Castilian money, which is worth two
old white ones and three new," promised to complete the painting "from
top to bottom." On a rich blue background the Supreme Judge stands in
the centre; to the right, is a regiment of the dead clad in white
raiment, graciously welcomed by angels with trumpets; on the left, the
damned are being hustled into hell by devils. As a well-preserved
example of very ancient Spanish painting, it certainly is of intrinsic
value and interest and recalls the naïve representations of early
Italian artists.
It is unusually well lighted for a Romanesque church, which is naturally
owing to the dome and not to the various windows or roses. There is no
triforium, but the side walls, transepts, and apses are pierced by
openings of true Romanesque type. The thick masonry has been most
timidly pierced for narrow, round-headed slits of light, with splayed
jambs and colonettes engaged to their sides carrying the typically
ornamented archmolds enframing the whole. The stone mullions of the two
remaining roses are equally timid and typical, but have not suffered
like the windows from the encroachment of the new edifice.
The pavement undulates like that of Saint Mark's. High above the
crossing of nave and transepts rises the tower flooding the church with
light and internally as well as externally expressing one of the
grandest architectural conceptions of the Spanish Peninsula.
Superlatives can alone describe the Torre del Gallo,--truly a product
and glory of Spanish soil. Many writers have argued its similarity to
the domes of Aquitaine churches, to Saint Front of Périgueux and others,
but it is distinctly different from and far superior to those with which
it has been compared in the magnificently interposed members of the
drum, which shed light into the church through their openings and raise
the cupola high enough to make of it a finely proportioned, crowning
member. The cupola alone, certainly not the general disposition, may be
regarded as a copy of earlier examples.
The internal and external cores have been admirably managed, the outer
one being much higher to be in correct proportion to the surrounding
masonry which it crowns. The interior transition from the square to the
round base, twenty-eight feet in diameter, is rather clumsily managed.
The successive masonry courses of the angles step out in Byzantine
fashion in front of each other. The four piers of the crossing, upon
which the pendentives descend, are no larger than the main piers of the
nave. Above the pendentives which stand out, in their undecorated
masonry, the circle is girdled by a carved cyma, above which rises a
double arcade of sixteen arches, each arch flanked by strong and simple
columns with Byzantine caps of barely indicated foliage. Powerful,
intermediate columnar shafts separate the superimposed arcades and carry
on their caps the sixteen ribs that shoot upwards and meet in the great
floral boss at the apex of the inner dome. The lower arcades are
semicircular, the upper, trefoiled, while the intermediate shafts are
broken by two band-courses. All the moldings, and especially the
energetic, muscular ribs, are splendidly simple and vigorous in their
undecorated profiles. The lower arcade is blind, the upper admits light
through timidly slender apertures, with the exception of every fourth
arch, which coincides with an exterior turret.
[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
CATHEDRAL OF SALAMANCA
The Tower of the Cock]
Externally the lantern is even more remarkable than internally. As seen
from within, it is faced alternately by four tympanums and four turrets.
These are broken by long, narrow, round-headed openings, vivified by
ball moldings ornamenting the heavy rounding of their splays. The
tympanums, as well as the windows between them, and the turrets are
flanked by a series of Romanesque columns. Their grouping, the deep
reveals and resulting shadows, the play of light and shade brought out
in the foliage of their various caps, which is but indicated in the
simple manner of the style, and the adjacent moldings, all give a most
archaic impression. The roofing of the turrets, as well as that of the
outer dome, suggests a stone coat-of-mail. The flags are laid in
scallops or stepped rows, like the scales of a fish, giving a far
tighter joint than the stone channels covering the roofing of Avila
Cathedral. The outline of the dome is that of a cone with a slightly
modulated curve, perhaps unconsciously affected by a Moorish
delineation. The angles are marked by bold crockets. Above, crowning the
apex, perches the cock, gayly facing whatever part of the heavens the
wind blows from. There is an everlasting triumph in it all, reminding
one not a little of that won at a later date in Santa Maria del Fiore.
Salamanca holds the religious triumph of a militant age; Florence, the
sacred glory of an artistic one. The lofty aspiration, boldly hewn in
the Spanish fortress, is no less admirable than the constructive genius
rounded in Brunelleschi's dome.
The remainder of the interior is now singularly undecorated and severe.
The entrance has been so much transformed by later additions that, in
place of the original portal and vestibule, there remains only a
vestibule considerably narrower than the nave, compressed on one side by
the huge towers of the new Cathedral, and on the other by later
alterations. The two older towers which contained, one the chimes and
the other the dwelling of the Alcaide, have quite disappeared. The
vestibule has excellent allegorical sculptures and Gothic statuary.
The northern aisle still has a few mural paintings, but the larger part
of those which once illuminated the bare walls were washed off by a
bigoted prelate in the fifteenth century and the present gray of the
stone, as seen in the dim light, looks cold compared to the rich gold of
the exterior masonry bathed in sunshine. The excellence of the vaulting
is such that to-day hardly a fissure or crack is visible. The old
pavement consists of great rectangles marked by red sandstone borders
and bluestone centre slabs, the size of a grave, with central dowels for
lifting and closing. In the southern transept-arm leading to the
cloisters, some of the original windows are still preserved with their
fine columns, archivolts, and carved moldings. The ribs of the vaults
are decorated by zigzag ornamentation, and here a few magnificent old
tombs remain intact in their ancient niches.
There is, properly speaking, no exterior elevation of the whole
structure. The western front is hidden by the modernization, the north
and south, by the new Cathedral, the cloisters, and squalid, encumbering
walls and chapels. From the "Patio Chico" alone, the old structure can
be seen unobstructed. The curves of the apses bulge out like
full-bellied sails, their great masonry surfaces broken by the small
windows, which are cut with enormous splays and encased and arched by
typical Romanesque features, the windows protected by heavy Moorish
grilles. Engaged shafts run up the sides of the central apse to below a
quatrefoil gallery, originally a shelter for the archers stationed to
defend the building. Two fortress-towers formed the eastern angles north
and south; the one to the north was removed in building the new
Cathedral. A scaled turret, broken by later Gothic pediments, crosses
the one remaining. Above all soars the dome, the inspiration of our
greatest American Romanesque temple, Trinity Church in Boston.
At the end of the twelfth century the houses of a sacrilegious Salamanca
gentleman were confiscated and given to the Cathedral Chapter, who
forthwith began the cloisters upon their site. They lie to the south and
thus came to be planned and built into the original fabric and with
Romanesque arches and wooden roof. They were practically entirely
rebuilt in the fifteenth century and again restored in the eighteenth.
Curious, elaborate, vaulted chapels--in one of which the Mozarabic rite,
the ancient Gothic ritual prolonged under Moslem rule, is still
occasionally celebrated--adjoin it to the east and south. Recently, old
Byzantine niches and tombs, some of great interest, have been uncovered
in the outer walls.
II
"Most Reverend Father in Christ, Lord Cardinal, our much beloved and
very dear Friend; We the King and the Queen of Castile, of Leon, and of
Aragon, Sicily, etc., send this to salute you, as one whom we love and
esteem highly, and to show we desire God may give life, health, and
honor, even to the extent of your own desire. We inform you that the
City of Salamanca is one of the most notable, populous, and principal
cities of our kingdoms, in which there is a society of scholars, and
where all sciences may be studied, and to which people from all states
continually come. The Cathedral Church of the said city is very small,
dark, and low, to such an extent that the divine services cannot be
celebrated in such a manner as they should be, especially during
feast-days when a large concourse of people streams to the Cathedral,
and by the Grace of God, the said city increases and enlarges day by
day. And considering the extreme narrowness of the said Church, the
Administrator and Dean and Chapter have agreed to rebuild it, making it
as large as is necessary and convenient, according to the population of
the said city. This furthermore as the form and the fabric of the said
Church cannot be rebuilt without disfigurement. And in order to build
better and promptly, as the said Church has a very small income, it is
necessary that our most Holy Father concede some indulgences in the form
that the Bishops of Vadajos and Astorga, our agents and emissaries to
your Court, will tell your Reverend Fatherhood, and we request you to
beseech His Holiness to concede the said indulgences. Therefore we
affectionately beg you to undertake the matter in the manner which we
affectionately supplicate, because our Lord will be served, and the
Divine Service increased, and we will receive it from you in peculiar
gratitude. Regarding this, we wrote details to the said bishops. We beg
you to give them credit and favor. Most Reverend Father in Christ, Lord
Cardinal, our very dear and beloved friend, may God our Lord at all
times especially guard and favor your Reverend Fatherhood.
"I, THE KING, I, THE QUEEN.
SEVILLE, the 17th day of February, in the ninety-first year."
That was the way the Catholic Kings wrote to the Cardinal of Angers to
make plain to him that the plain, dark, small, old Cathedral was no
longer in keeping with their glory or the times, and to begin the
movement for a larger edifice. The stern simplicity of the ancient
Church was indeed out of harmony with the brilliance and craving for
lavish display and magnificent proportions which characterize the age of
Ferdinand and Isabella.
Pope Innocent VIII answered the appeal in the year 1491, granting
permission for the transference of the services to a larger edifice more
fitting the congregation of Salamanca, now at the zenith of its
prosperity and academic renown. In 1508 Ferdinand passed through
Salamanca, and was again sufficiently fired by religious zeal to issue
the following order: "The King to the Master Mayor of the works of the
Church of Seville. Since it has now to be decided how the Church of
Salamanca may be made, in order that its design may be made as it ought,
I consent that you be present there. I charge and command you instantly
to leave all other things, and come to the said City of Salamanca, that,
jointly with the other persons who are there, you may see the site where
the said Church has to be built, and may make a drawing for it, and in
all things may give your judgment how it may be most suited to theDivine Worship
and to the ornature of the said Church; which, having
come to pass, then your salary shall be paid, which I shall receive
return for in this service. Done in Valladolid, the 23d day of November,
1509."
The famous Master of Toledo, Anton Egas, received a similar summons
(served in his absence on his two maids), but neither architect seems to
have been over-zealous in carrying out the royal commands, for next year
Queen Juana, Ferdinand's daughter, growing impatient, writes again: "Ifind it
now good, as I command you, that immediately that this my letter
shall be made known to you, without making any excuse or delay, you go
to the said City of Salamanca."
This produced the desired result, for the two delinquent architects
hurried to the city, studied the conditions, and, after considerable
squabbling with each other and the Chapter, many drawings, and a lengthy
report, agreed to disagree. This was too much for the Bishop, and
without further ado he summoned on the 3d of September, 1512, a famous
conclave of all the celebrated architects in Spain to pass on the report
of Egas of Toledo and Rodriguez of Seville and settle the matter. Here
sat besides Egas, Juan Badajos, Juan Gil de Hontañon, Alfonso
Covarrubias, Juan de Orazco, Juan de Alava, Juan Tornero, Rodrigo de
Sarabia and Juan Campero. The matter was thrashed out both as to site
and form and a final report sent in, stating the result of their
deliberations, "and as they were much learned and skilful men, and
experienced in their art, their opinion ought certainly to be acted on."
However, to leave no further doubt, every one of them swore "by God and
Saint Mary, under whose protection the Church is, and upon the sign of
the Cross, upon which they all and each of them put their hands bodily,
that they had spoken the entire truth, which each of them did, saying,
'So I swear, and Amen.'" This settled the business. Three days
afterwards, Juan Gil de Hontañon, the later builder of Segovia and
rebuilder of the dome of Seville, was named Maestro Mayor and Juan
Campero, his apprentice.
On a stone of the main façade there still stands an inscription
recording the solemn laying of the corner-stone on the 12th of May,
1513. It was dedicated to the Mother and the Saviour. The wisest of the
resolutions passed by this wisest of architectural bodies was the
recommendation to leave the old edifice undisturbed.
Work was immediately started on the western entrance front and continued
with untiring energy by Juan Gil until his death in 1531. His two sons
assisted him, and they were all constantly guided and aided by a body of
the most eminent Spanish architects who yearly visited the edifice. On
the death of Maestro Alvaro, six years later, Juan's son, Rodrigo Gil,
was selected as Maestro Mayor. He naturally tried to carry out all his
father had planned, building with equal rapidity and no less excellence.
By 1560 the work had been carried as far towards the east as the
crossing. Amid immense popular rejoicing, and with ecclesiastical pomp,
the Holy Sacrament was moved from the old Basilica to the new. "Pio III
papa, Philippe II rege, Francisco Manrico de Lara episcopo, ex vetere ad
hoc templum facta translatio xxv mart. anno a Christo nato MDLX." This
of course gave a new impetus to the work, and arch after arch, chapel on
chapel, rapidly grew through the next decades. The bigoted Philip
naturally looked on with favoring eye.[3] Twice the work languished, but
was resumed through the waning period of the Gothic style. The new
classicism was triumphantly replacing the dying art, and the builders of
Salamanca were sorely perplexed whether or not to make a radical
departure to the newer style. Most fortunately, the conclave called
together at this critical moment remained loyal to the original
conception, and the Renaissance only took possession in ornamentation
and the dome. Not until 1733 was the final "translation" celebrated.
Later, earthquakes and lightning shook down both dome and tower, so that
practically it was not till the nineteenth century that the last mortar
was dry. The building spanned a long and glorious epoch in the city's
history, from a time when her imperial master ruled the world until a
foreign upstart trampled her under foot.
The plan of the new Cathedral, like that of Seville, is an enormous
rectangle of ten bays, resembling a huge mosque, 378 feet long by 181
feet wide. It consists of nave and double side aisles without projecting
transept; square chapels fill the outer aisles as well as the bays of
the eastern termination. After much discussion it was decided that the
nave (130 feet high) should be about one third higher than the first
side aisles; the chapels are 54 feet in height.
The choir blocks the third and fourth bays of the nave, while the
Capilla Mayor occupies the eighth. Over the sixth soars the lantern. The
platform of the Patio Chico separates the sacristy and the old Cathedral
that practically abuts the entire southern front. At the southwestern
angle, the intersection of the two cathedrals is hidden by the gigantic
tower. The northern front is admirably free, the whole structure being
visible on its high granite platform. The western front is entered
through the great triple doorway, the central being that of the
Nacimiento; the northern, through the Puerta de las Ramos, the southern,
through the Puerta del Patio Chico.
Glancing at the plan as a whole, one cannot but deplore that a
conception of such daring proportions with no limitation of time nor
money, having centuries and the wealth of the Indies to draw on, was not
conceived with that most perfect of all Gothic developments, the
semicircular apsidal termination. The Spanish, as well as the customary
English eastern end, can never, from any standpoint of ingenuity or
beauty, be comparable to the amazing conceptions of Rheims or Amiens or
Paris.
The interior effect is expressed in one word,--"grandiloquence." It is a
true child of the age which conceived it, and the spirit which informed
its erection. If the fabric of the old Cathedral is essentially
Romanesque, with later Gothic ornamentation and constructional features,
the new is entirely Gothic, with Renaissance additions. The spirit and
form are Gothic,--Spanish Gothic,--and one of its last sighs. The fire
was extinct. By display and sculptural fire-works, by bold flaunting of
mechanical mastery, a last trial and glorious failure were made in an
attempt to emulate the marvelous structural logic and simplicity which
had marked the Gothic edifices of an earlier age.
The blending of the two styles does not jar, but has been effected with
a harmony scarcely to be expected. If one were not hampered with an
architectural education, one could admire it all, instead of criticizing
and wondering why a Renaissance lantern is raised upon a Gothic crown,
and why a fine Renaissance balustrade above Gothic band-courses
separates the nave arches from its clerestory, while those of the side
aisles are separated by a Gothic one. The interior fabric itself is
fine: it is more in detail, in the stringiness and multiplicity of
moldings, in the fineness, subdivision, and elaboration of carvings and
ornament that one feels the advancing degeneration. From being frank and
simple, it has become insincere and profuse.
The Gothic window openings, which had been steadily developing larger
and bolder up to their culmination in the glorious conservatory of Leon,
had again grown smaller and more fitted to the climate. In Salamanca
they are small and high up. Nave and side aisles both carry
clerestories; that of the nave consisting of seventy-two windows in
alternate bays of three windows and two windows with circle above, that
of the side aisle, of one large window subdivided within its own field.
The chapel walls are also pierced by smaller openings. Some have good
though not excellent coloring.
The form of the Renaissance lantern is not infelicitous, either from the
inside or outside. It was first built by Sacchetti. The double base is
octagonal, with corners strengthened by columns and pilasters and
executed with much artistic skill. Were it not for the vulgar interior
coloring and ornamentation of cherubs, scrolls, and scallop shells,
contorted, disproportionate, and unmeaning, its high, brilliantly
lighting semicircle might be pleasing. Horrible decoration fills the
panels of the octagonal base. The dome itself is almost as gaudily
colored.
The interior is built of a clear gray stone on which sparing employment
of color in certain places is most effective. Thus in the bosses of the
vaulting ribs throughout, in the capitals of the piers of nave and
transept, in the very elaborate fan-vaulting of the Capilla Mayor, and
in the soffits of nave-clerestory, the blue and gold contrasts finely
with the cold gray surfaces. Renaissance medallions decorate the
spandrels of the nave, but those of the side aisles bear the
coats-of-arms of the Cathedral and the City of Salamanca. A differently
designed fan-vaulting spreads over every chapel. Great rejas enclose
choir and Capilla Mayor from the transept. The rear of the choir is
badly mutilated by a Baroque screen, while the sides and back of the
high altar still consist of the rough blocks which have been waiting for
centuries to be carved. The choir-stalls are very late eighteenth
century, a mass of over-elaborate detail, as fine as Grinling Gibbon's
carving, and if possible even more remarkable in the detail.
The west and north façades are, for a Spanish cathedral, singularly free
and unencumbered. The west faces the old walls of the university. The
entire composition is overshadowed by the tremendous tower that looms up
for miles around in the country. It is indeed "Salamanca qui érige ses
clochers rutilants sur la nudité inexorable du désert." Though it has
nothing to do with the rest of the composition, it is a happy mixture of
the two styles; the massive base is as high as the roofing of the nave,
blessedly bare and severe beside the restlessness of the adjoining
screen. A clock and a few panels are all that break it. Classical
balconies run round it above and below the first bell-story, the sides
of which are decorated with a Corinthian order and broken by round
arched openings. A similar order decorates the drum of the cupola, while
Gothic crocketed pyramids break the transition at angles. At the peak of
the lantern, three hundred and sixty feet in the air, soars the
triumphant emblem of the Church of Christ. That man of architectural
infamy, Churriguera, erected it, showing in this instance an
extraordinary restraint.