Vandals. They held possession of the country until they were conquered
in 711 by the Moors, who, after crossing the strait between Africa and
Europe, gradually spread northward through the Iberian peninsula. The
Goths made Hispalis out of the Roman Hispalia, and the Arabians in their
turn, unable to pronounce the p, formed the name into Ixbella, of which
the Castilians made Seville.
To the Moors, Andalusia was the Promised Land flowing with milk and
honey. What was lacking, their genius and husbandry soon supplied. The
land which they found uncultivated soon became a garden filled with
exotic flowers and rich fruits, while they adorned its cities with the
noblest monuments of their taste and intelligence. They divided their
territory (el Andalus) into the four kingdoms of Seville, Cordova, Jaen,
and Granada, which still exist as territorial divisions. To-day the
three latter contain only the ruins of a great past. Seville alone
remains in many respects a perfectly Moorish city. Her courts, her
squares, the streets and houses, the great palace and the tower are
essentially Arabian and bear witness to the magnificence of her ancient
masters.
[Illustration: KEY OF PLAN OF SEVILLE CATHEDRAL
A. The Giralda.
B. Royal Chapel.
C. Chapter House.
D. Sacristy.
E. Old Sacristy.
F. Colombina Library.
G. Portal of the Perdon.
H. Courtyard of the Orange Trees.
I. The Sagrario.
J. Portal of the Orange Trees.
K. Choir.
L. Capilla Mayor.
M. Portal of the Lonja (San Cristobal).
N. Portal of the Palos.
O. Portal of the Campanillas.
P. Portal of the Bautismo.
Q. Puerta Mayor.
R. Portal of the Nacimiento.
S. Trascoro.
T. Dependencias de la Hermandad.
U. Portal of the Sagrario.
V. Portal of the Lagarto.
X. Tomb of Fernando Colon.]
They had lost all the rest of Spain except Granada before Cordova and
Jaen surrendered, and finally Seville fell into the hands of Ferdinand
III of Castile in 1248, and its Christian period began. Three hundred
thousand followers of the detested faith were banished from Seville, and
slowly the power of the Catholic Church began to rise and the
agricultural beauty and industry of the surrounding province to wane.
The city was divided into separate districts for the different races,
the canals were dammed up, the water-works fell to pieces, the valley
was left untilled, and fruit trees were unpruned and unwatered. Hides
bleached in the sun and webs rotted on the looms, sixty thousand of
which had woven beautiful silk fabrics in the palmy days of the Moors.
Ferdinand the Holy was a great king, of a saintliness and greatness
still acknowledged by the soldiers of Seville. After eight centuries
they still lower their colors as they march past the great shrine of the
Third Ferdinand, in the church which he purged from Mohammedanism and
dedicated to the worship of the Christians' God and the Holy Virgin.
After him, Seville became the theatre of momentous deeds and events that
had a far-reaching influence on the history of the country. Into her lap
was poured the riches of the New World; within her halls Queen Isabella
laid the foundation of her united kingdom; from Seville came the
intellectual stimulus that revived the arts and letters of the whole
Peninsula. Here were born and labored Pedro Campaña, Alejo Fernandez,
Luis de Vargas, the several Herreras, Francisco de Zurbaran, Alfonso
Cano, Diego de Silva Velasquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Miguel
Florentino. The riches of the western world made of Seville a second
Florence, where art found ready patrons, and literature, cultivated
protectors. She rivaled the great schools of Italy and the Netherlands,
but out of her secret council chambers came the Institution of the Holy
Office, the scourge that withered the nation. In the latter half of the
sixteenth century, forty-five thousand people were put to death in the
archbishopric of Seville. Finally, under Philip II, Seville and her
great church rose to stupendous wealth and power.
"When Philip II died, loyal Seville honored the departed king by a
magnificent funeral service in the Cathedral. A tremendous monument was
designed by Oviedo. On Nov. 25th, 1598, the mourning multitude flocked
to the dim Cathedral while the people knelt upon the stones, and the
solemn music floated through the air. There was a disturbance among a
part of the congregation. A man was charged with deriding the imposing
monument and creating disorder. He was a tax-gatherer and ex-soldier of
the city named Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Some of the citizens
took his side, for there was a feud between the civil and the
ecclesiastical authorities in Seville. The brawler was expelled from the
cathedral,--but he had his revenge. He composed a satirical poem upon
the tomb of the King which was read everywhere in the city:--
_To the Monument of the King of Seville_
I vow to God I quake with surprise,
Could I describe it, I would give a crown,
And who, that gazes on it in the town
But starts aghast to see its wondrous size;
Each part a million cost, I should devise:
What pity 'tis, ere centuries have flown,
Old time will mercilessly cast it down!
Thou rival'st Rome, O Seville, in my eyes!
I bet, the soul of him who's dead and blest,
To dwell within this sumptuous monument,
Has left the seats of sempiternal rest!
A fellow tall, on deeds of valour bent,
My exclamation heard. "Bravo," he cried,
"Sir Soldier, what you say is true, I vow!
And he who says the contrary has lied!"
With that he pulls his hat upon his brow,
Upon his sword-hilt he his hand doth lay,
And frowns--and--nothing does, but walks away!"[16]
Far more ineffaccable even than the record left by Philip's life upon
the history of Seville and Spain is that of this immortal soldier and
scribbler, who "believed he had found something better to do than
writing comedies."
The soft, sonorous syllables of Guadalquivir (from the Arabic
Wad-el-Kebir, or The Great River) would picture to the imaginative eye a
river far more poetic than the sluggish stream that loiters across the
wide plain and fruitful valley until it pierces the amber girdle of
crenelated walls and embattled towers which enclose the treasures of
Seville. On its broad bosom have swept the barks and galleys of
Phœnicia and Greece, of Roman, Goth, and Moor. On its shores Columbus
lowered the sails of his caravel and presented Spain with a new world on
Palm Sunday, 1493; Pizarro and Cortez here first embarked their greedy
and daring adventurers; hither Pizarro returned with hoards of gold and
silver treasures from Mexico and Peru, for the Council of the Indies
restricted all the trade of the colonies to the port of Seville. The
valley through which the river descends is sheltered from the cold
tablelands lying northward by the Sierra Moreña chain. Gray olive trees,
waving pastures, and fields of grain cover its slopes. A soft, tempered
wind whispers through the grassy meadows of La Tierra de Maria
Santissima, and the atmosphere is so dry and clear that far away against
the horizon objects stand out in clear silhouette. So vivid are the
colors that the smoky olive groves, the orange and lemon-colored walls,
the fir trees, the chalky white of the stucco, the fleshy, prickly
leaves of the cacti, and the tall standards of the aloes seem
photographed on the brain.
In a fair and fruitful land lies the city, and her spires pierce a
smokeless, unspotted sky.
In the heart of the city, set down in the very centre of her life of
song and laughter and childish simplicity, surrounded by crooked streets
and great airy courts, in the widest sunlit square, lies her Cathedral.
The first impression made by a building is generally not only the most
distinct but the truest. That produced by Seville's Cathedral is its
immensity of scale.
Toledo la rica,
Salamanca la fuerta,
Leon la bella,
Oviedo la sacra,
Sevilla la grande,
runs the Spanish saying. The size is overpowering. Each of the four side
aisles is nearly as broad and high as the nave of Westminster Abbey,
while the arcades of Seville's nave have twice the span. To the
impressionable sensitiveness of Théophile Gautier it was like a mountain
scooped out, a valley turned topsy-turvy. Notre Dame de Paris might walk
erect under the frightful height of the middle nave; pillars as large as
towers appear so slender that you catch your breath as you look up at
the far-away, vaulted roof they support.
Here are the first impressions of two early Spanish writers. Cean
Bermudez finds that, "seen from a certain distance, it resembles a
high-pooped and beflagged ship, rising over the sea with harmonious
grouping of sails, pennons, and banners, and with its mainmast towering
over the mizzenmast, foremast, and bowsprit." Caveda is struck by "the
general effect, which is truly majestic. The open-work parapets which
crown the roofs; the graceful lanterns of the eight winding stairs that
ascend in the corners to the vaults and galleries; the flying buttresses
that spring lightly from aisle to nave, as the jets of a cascade from
cliff to cliff; the slender pinnacles that cap them; the proportions of
the arms of the transept and of the buttresses supporting the side
walls; the large pointed windows to which they belong, rising over each
other, the pointed portals and entrances,--all these combine in an
almost miraculous effect, although they lack the wealth of detail, the
airy grace, and the delicate elegance that characterize the cathedrals
of Leon and Burgos."
Such are the varying impressions of ancient critics. To the student's
question, "To what period of architecture does the Cathedral of Seville
belong?" we must answer, "To no period, or rather to half a dozen."
Authorities and writers will give completely different information, and
Seville has found more willing and loving chroniclers than any other of
Spain's churches. Gallichan classes it as the "largest Gothic cathedral
in the world," and Caveda calls it "a type of the finest Spanish Gothic
architecture."
The interior of the main body of the church is pure, severe Gothic, the
sacristy major, highly developed Renaissance; the main portions of the
exterior are what might be termed for want of a better word "Spanish
Renaissance--plateresco"; other details are Moorish, classical, late
florid Gothic, rococo, and so forth. As if to add to the incongruity of
the architectural hodge-podge, it is surrounded by shafts of old Roman
columns as well as Byzantine pillars from the original mosque, sunk deep
into the ground and connected with iron chains. The total impression to
any student of architecture is one of outraged law and order,
composition and unity. Recalling the carefully membered and distinctly
developed plan of the great Gothic churches of France, the expressive
exteriors of the huge Renaissance cathedrals of Italy, the satisfying
perspective of English monastic temples, one feels the hopelessness of
attempting a comparison between this huge, impressive undertaking and
any accepted standards or schools. It is something so entirely different
and apart, a mighty and unbridled effort which cannot be classified nor
grouped with other churches, nor studied by methods of earlier
architectural training. It is full of romance,--a building romantic as
the Cid, a child of architectural fervor or even architectural furor.
Centuries of Spanish history and religion and the various temperaments
of different and inspired races have created it and fostered its
growth. Like many of its sister churches, the artisans that labored on
it were gathered from different lands and their work stretches through
centuries of time and architectural thought. There is the sparkling,
oriental fancy of the Mudejar, the classic training of the Italian, the
brilliant color and technique of the Fleming and Dutchman, the skilled
and masterful chiseling of the German, and the restless pride and
domination of the Spaniard. You find it expressed in every way,--on
canvas, in wood and clay and stone, on plaster and in glass. It is a
museum of art from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, with
portions still waiting for the work of the twentieth. The artists range
from Juan Sanches de Castro, "the morning star of Andalusia," in 1454,
to Francisco Goya, the last of the great Spanish painters.
It is colossal, incongruous, mysterious, and elusive. It breathes the
spirit of the middle ages with all their piety and loyalty to church and
crown, and their unparalleled ardor in building religious temples.
Gazing at it, you feel the same religious fervor that flung the arches
of Amiens and Chartres high into the northern air and rounded the dome
of Santa Maria del Fiore under Lombardy's azure vault.
If you stand in the Calle del Gran Capitan, or better, the Plaza del
Triumfo, best of all, near the gateway of the Patio de las Banderas,
where the Cathedral and the Giralda pile up in front of you,
unquestionably you have before you Spain's mightiest architectural work,
a sight as impressive as the view from the marble pavement of the
Piazzetta by the Adriatic.
The lofty tower is entirely oriental. The walls of the Cathedral which
rise from a broad paved terrace consist below of a classical screen,
whose surface is broken by a Corinthian order carrying a Renaissance
balustrade and topped by heavy, meaningless stone terminations. Windows
with Italian Renaissance frames pierce the ochre masonry. Above rises a
confusion of buttresses, kettle-shaped domes, and Renaissance lanterns,
simple, massive walls, some portions entirely bare, others overloaded
with delicate Gothic interlacings full of Spanish feeling; flowers and
rosettes, broad blazons and coats-of-arms,--above all, a forest of
Gothic towers, finials, crockets, parapets, and rails peculiarly Spanish
in carving and treatment. There is practically no sky line. The interior
of the nave and aisle vaulting are entirely concealed externally by the
parapets and walls.
So lacking in sobriety is the first view!--but you are ready to echo the
Spanish saying,--
Quien no ha visto Sevilla
No ha visto maravilla.[17]
or the words of Pope, "_There_ stands a structure of majestic fame!"
The Spanish Christians in Seville, like those who obtained possession of
other Moorish strongholds, first appropriated the old Arab mosque for
their house of worship. Later, when it no longer sufficed, they and
their fellow-believers elsewhere built the new cathedral on, around, or
adjacent to, the old consecrated walls. Like all other churches from
which Islam had been driven, the great mosque of Seville was dedicated
to Santa Maria de la Sede. The famous Moorish conqueror, Abu Jakub
Jusuf, had laid the foundation stones of his mosque and tower in 1171,
building his walls with the materials left by imperial Rome, and laying
out orange courtyard and walls in a manner befitting his power and the
traditions of his race. It belongs to what architectural writers have
for convenience called the second period of the Spanish Arabs, between
1146 and about 1250, under the Almohaden dynasty. This was the period of
the Moors' greatest constructive energy,--they no longer blindly copied
the ancient architecture of Byzantium, but endeavored to create a bold
and independent art of their own.
After the capture of Seville in 1248, Ferdinand at once consecrated the
mosque to Christian service, and it was used without alteration until it
began to crumble. Its general plan was probably very much like the one
in Cordova, a great rectangle filled with a forest of columns: its high
walls of brick and clay supported by buttresses and crowned with
battlements enclosed an adjacent courtyard with fountain and rows of
orange trees, abutted by the bell or prayer tower. The courtyard and
tower remain with but slight changes or additions; portions of the
foundation walls, the northeast and west porticos, decorative details
and ornamentation still to be found on the Christian church are all
Moorish. The plan and general structure have been restricted by the
lines of the old Moorish foundations. There are no documents extant that
give a trustworthy account of what portions of the old mosque were
allowed to remain when the Christians finally decided to rebuild, but
the most cursory glance at the outline of the Cathedral shows how
organically it has been bound by what was retained. The mosque must have
been built on as large and magnificent a scale as the one which still
amazes us in Cordova. The peculiar, oblong, quadrilateral form was
probably common to both.
On the 8th of July, 1401, the Cathedral Chapter issued the challenge to
the Catholic world which to the more practical piety of to-day rings
with a true mediæval fervor. Verily a faith that could remove mountains!
The inspired Chapter proclaimed they could build a church of such size
and beauty that coming ages should call them mad to have undertaken it.
And their own fat pockets were the first to be emptied of half their
stipends. The pennies of the poor, grants from the crown, indulgences
published throughout the kingdom, all went to satisfy the ever-grasping
building fund.
In 1403 the work of tearing down and commencing afresh on the old
foundations was begun. These measured about some 415 feet in length by
278 feet in width. The old mosque or the present church proper is now
only the central edifice in a rectangle of about 600 by 500 feet. This
is the size of a village, with its courts, its tower, the great library
of the Cathedral Chapter where books were collected from all over the
lettered world by the son of Columbus, the parroquia or parish church,
the endless row of chapels, some larger than ordinary churches, the
sacristy, the chapter house and offices. It became the largest church of
the middle ages, covering 124,000 square feet; Milan covers only 90,000,
Toledo, 75,000, and Saint Paul's in London, 84,000. Among the churches
of all ages, Saint Peter's, with an area of 162,000 square feet, alone
exceeds it in size.
In 1506, under the archbishops Alfonso Rodriguez and Gonzalo de Rojas,
the building was completed. For a century the work had been carried on
with such reckless haste that inferior building methods had been
employed, which led to subsequent disasters. On December 28, 1511, to
the consternation of the devout workmen, the great central dome fell in
during an earthquake, carrying with it or weakening many of the vaults
and much of the masonry below. After the earthquake, some of the large
piers supporting the great crossing as well as the adjacent ones were
found filled with the most carelessly laid rubble and earth, with no
carrying power nor resistance. About 1520 the building might in the main
be said to be finished. Externally it has never been completed, although
in the nineteenth century the west front was finished and its central
doorway ornamented. An extensive restoration which took place in 1882
was interrupted by the second earthquake of 1888, during which the dome
again fell in. To-day it is all rebuilt.
The entrance is at the west end. The plan, as I have said, was governed
by the old basilica-shaped mosque. The transepts do not project beyond
the chapels of the side aisles, and at the east end it differs from most
Spanish churches in having a square termination instead of an apse. Also
along the east wall chapels have been built between the buttresses
similar to those between the north and south sides. The central portions
of the east end open into the great Capilla Real. There are nine
doorways to the church.
In studying the plan, it is interesting to note what Mr. Ferguson has
indicated, that similarly to what is found in the Indian Jain temples,
the diagonal of the aisle compartments has the same length as the width
of the nave. The original documents and accounts of the church, which
have disappeared, were probably burnt among Philip II's papers destroyed
by the great Madrid fire.
Scarcely two of the Cathedral's many biographers agree as to its
architects, its historic precedents or what part of the work was
actually inspired by earlier Spanish architecture and national builders.
Naturally Spanish writers attribute workmanship, precedents and builders
all to their own Peninsula, while the different foreign authorities vary
in their estimates. Distinctly Spanish features of construction as well
as ornamentation are found side by side with others which unquestionably
came from masters trained beyond the Pyrenees. In various places
vaulting is found thoroughly German in its complexity and florid detail.
Several authorities point out the resemblances between Milan and
Seville, not that the ornamentation of the frosted and encrusted Italian
misconception can be intelligently compared with the Plateresque
carving, but there is a certain mixture of local and foreign feeling in
both. In Seville French and German feeling seems to be struggling under
Spanish fetters, just as in Lombardy the German seems to be laboring
with Italian comprehension of Gothic, finally abandoning the inorganic
scheme for a lovely, riotous, and marvelous attempt at carving to which
the material no longer placed any limitations.
The Spanish architect of the middle ages was placed in a novel
situation, and his art had very peculiar and unusual influences bearing
upon it. Gothic methods of construction and ornamentation had slowly
spread over the country with the growing sovereignty of Aragon and
Castile, and in spite of the corresponding decline of the Arab kingdoms,
Moorish art began to work hand in hand, as far as was possible, with the
forms of the Christian invader, although the hostility between the races
hindered any extensive fusion of the two. They began, however, to
influence each other for good or bad and to flourish side by side. The
result might be called architectural volapük. In Seville it is certain
that, whatever the nationality of the original architect and however
incongruous and expressionless the exterior may finally have become, the
interior is less exotic, less unquestionably a French importation, than
in either of the great Gothic churches of Toledo or Burgos. When we
recall the organic completeness, the truthful exterior expression, of
interior lines and construction in the greatest Gothic cathedrals of
France, we turn with sadness to the outer form of so fair a soul as that
of Santa Maria of Seville, the work of the most famous architects of her
age. Some attribute the original plans of the church to Alfonso
Rodriguez, others to Alfonso Martinez, who was Maestro Mayor of the
chapter in 1396, others again to Pedro Garcia; a long list of names
follows: Juan the Norman, Juan de Hoz, Alfonso Ruiz, Ximon, Alfonso
Rodriguez, and Gonzalo de Rojas, Pedro Mellan, Miguel Florentin, Pedro
Lopez, Henrique de Egas, Juan de Alava, Jorge Fernandez Alleman, Juan
Gil de Hontañon and the masters who after the earthquake hurried to
Seville from their buildings in Toledo, Jaen, Vittoria, and other
places. Casanova is the last of her many architects.
Correctly speaking, there is no façade. The Cathedral runs from west to
east, the western or main entrance portal being pierced by three ogival
doorways, the Puerta Mayor with a modern relief of the Assumption, the
Puerta del Nacimento or de San Miguel to the south, and the Puerta del
Bautizo or de San Juan to the north. Saint Miguel has a relief of the
Nativity of Christ, Saint Juan, one representing Saint John baptizing.
In the moldings surrounding these, are very exquisite little figures of
early sixteenth-century work executed in terra-cotta. They are full of
the best Gothic feeling, splendidly fitted to their spaces, alive with
the expression of the imaginative period of their sculptor, Pedro
Millan. Above and around the door of San Juan is a Gothic tracery of the
most elaborate character.