doorways. Riccardo Bellver's modern Assumption over the central doorway
is as congealed as the terra-cotta sculptures above and around the side
portals are admirable. They are unquestionably among the most
interesting bits of relief as well as figure sculpture of their kind
produced in Spain during the fifteenth century. Pedro Millan stands out
as a great mediæval master, not only from the consummate skill with
which the drapery is treated but from the living, breathing personality
and attitudes of the men and women around him, which we still gaze at in
the truth of their curious, naïve, fifteenth-century light.
As the whole western façade was not completed in its present form until
1827, much of its work is as poor as it is modern.
There are two entrances to the eastern end, richly decorated with fine
terra-cotta statues and reliefs of angels, patriarchs, and Biblical
figures, attributed to Lope Marin. In the northern façade there are
three,--one classical and of very little interest leading to the parish
church; the second is the Puerto de los Naranjos.
In the Puerta del Lagarto, where the Giralda abuts the Cathedral, there
hangs a poor stuffed crocodile, once sent by a Sultan of Egypt in token
of admiration to Saint Ferdinand. The beast, having died on his way from
the Nile, could never crawl in the basins of the Alcazar gardens, but
found a resting-place under the shelves of the Columbina library.
On the opposite side of the orange-tree court is the Puerta del Perdon.
The Florentine relief above, representing the crouching traders as they
were driven from the Temple, naturally spoils the effectiveness of the
magnificent Moorish portal below. Its horseshoe curve, with delicate
Moorish interlacing, arabesques, frieze and bronze doors, is a curious
and striking note of a bygone age, leading as it does to the walled and
fragrant courtyard of its builders, and the fountain where they made
their ablutions. Later Renaissance statues of the Annunciation and Saint
Peter and Saint Paul, as well as Florentine pilasters and ornament,
flank the Moorish moldings in an utterly meaningless manner.
On the south is the gate of San Cristobal, or of the Lonja, finished
only a few years ago.
In and out of these many entrances the populace stream, to worship, to
whisper, to gossip, to rest, to bargain, to beg, and to make love. The
whole drama of life in its conglomerate population goes on within the
walls of the Cathedral. It is the most frequented thoroughfare, where
the people enter as often with a song on their lips as with a prayer.
The great edifice with all the ceremonial of its religious services is
woven into their life, as is the sound of the guitars and castanets that
echo within its portals and courtyards. The church and her children are
not strangers. The Sevillian does not approach her altars with religious
awe and fear, but with a childish trust; he kneels down before them as
much at home as when rolling his cigarette on the bench of his café. The
Cathedral, like the houses nestling and crumbling around it, opens wide
and hospitable gates that lead to the refreshing shade and comfort
within.
The western front is practically the only one which presents the
Cathedral unobscured by adjacent buildings climbing up its sides or
struggling between the buttresses,--or which is not concealed by
enclosing screenwork. To the north the walls of the Orange Court block
the view; to the east, the high screen; and to the south, the chapter
house and the Dependencias de la Hermanidad and the sacristy. The mass
of domes with supporting flying buttresses, ramps and finials above it,all
remind one curiously of a transplanted and ecclesiasticized
Chambord.
[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE
Gateway of Perdon in the Orange Tree Court]
As the plan conforms to the conditions of the old rectangular mosque and
has neither projecting transepts nor semicircular chevet, it can
scarcely be called Gothic. It consists of nave and double side
aisles,--the nave 56 feet wide from centre to centre of the columns and
145 feet high, and the inner side aisles 40 wide and about 100 high.
Outside these is another aisle filled with various chapels.
At the crossing of the nave and transept, we have the typical, small
Spanish octagonal dome,--in this instance covering possibly what was in
the original mosque a central octagonal court. It is a construction
rising some hundred and seventy feet above the level of the eye,
admitting light below its spring into what in the French Gothic edifices
would usually be the gloomiest portions of the building.
The side aisles differ slightly in width, the two lateral ones being
filled with various chapels. There are nine bays, separated by
thirty-six clustered pillars, some of them perfect towers in their huge
and massive strength. Their detail and outline are excellent, all of the
greatest simplicity and restraint. The delicate engaged shafts which
surround the huge supports of fifteen feet diameter terminate below the
vaulting ribs in delicately interlaced palm-leaf caps. Nothing is
confused or intricate. Sixty-eight compartments spring from the various
piers with a loftiness reminding one of Cologne. The groining differs
very much. The greater portion is admirably plain, of simple
quadripartite design; other parts are fanciful and elaborate, recalling
florid German prototypes. The five central vaults forming the cross
under the dome alone have elaborate fan-vaulting; the geometrical design
is as excellent as its detail. The richness given this central and most
correct portion of the great roofing is all the more effective by
contrast with the plain, unelaborated groins of the surrounding vaults.
The petals of the flower, the very holy of holies, between the choir
and the Capilla Mayor, before the high altar, are what is most beautiful
and enriched.
The lighting is very unusual, and better than either Leon or Toledo.
Ninety-three windows are filled with the most glorious glass. There are
two clerestories to light the body of the church, one in the walls of
the second side aisle, admitting light above the roofs of the chapels,
the second in the nave. Added to this come the huge lights of the five
rose windows.
In Seville, as in Toledo and many of the other great Spanish cathedrals,
the general view of the interior is blocked, and the majesticeffectiveness of
the columnar rows marred, by the placing of the great
choir in the centre of the edifice.
But the interior effect is nevertheless one of the most inspiring
produced by the imagination and hands of man. All truly majestic
conceptions are simple and, though we may at times wonder at the secret
of their power, we always find their enduring grandeur due to a hidden
simplicity. This is true of the Parthenon, of the Venus of Milo, and the
Sistine Madonna. Whoever enters the Cathedral of Seville is struck first
of all by its simplicity. The tremendous scale of the interior is
unperceived, owing to the just proportion between all the parts. There
is height as well as width, massiveness and strength, boldness and
light. None of the detail is petty or too elaborate, but simple and
effective, making a harmony in all its parts. Even the furniture carries
out the tremendous boldness and grandeur of the edifice. Bells, choir
books, candles, altar chests, are all on the same grandiose scale. It
has true majesty in its simplicity of direct, honest appeal, and a
proud unconsciousness, because it is free from the artificiality which
is invariably vulgar. The truly beautiful woman needs none of the
devices of art. The shafts and vaults and string courses in Seville's
Cathedral need little ornamentation to bring out their beauty; they are
in fact as effective as the elaborate carving of Salamanca and Segovia.
Seville preaches a great lesson to our twentieth century, of peace, rest
and completeness. It has room for all its children; they may kneel at
eighty-two different shrines and find romance or encouragement or the
consolation they are seeking. Some churches are strangely secular in
their restlessness of feeling, while others breathe an atmosphere full
of poetry, exaltation and the infinite peace of the Gospels. Seville's
religion is for the humble and simple as much as for the grandee. It is
not only the great cathedral church of the archbishop and bishop, the
eleven dignitaries, forty canons, twenty prebendaries, twenty minor
canons, twenty veinteneros, twenty chaplains and the host of a choir,
but the beloved home of the poor, miserable, starving sons and daughters
of Santa Maria de la Sede.
Although architecturally the injurious effect of placing choir and high
altar in the middle of the church cannot be overstated, from the point
of view of ritual, of closely uniting the officiating body with the
worshipers, it is undoubtedly a far happier arrangement than where the
prayers and psalms proceed from the extreme apsidal termination. In the
former case the religious guidance seems to emanate from the very soul
of the edifice, and to reach all humble worshipers in the remotest nooks
and corners.
The Spanish nature craves the sensuous and theatrical in religious
rites, and not far-away but intimately, as part and parcel of it. In the
time of the great ecclesiastical power of the bishopric of Seville
20,000 pounds of wax were burned every year, 500 masses were daily
celebrated at the 80 altars, and the wine consumed in the yearly
sacrament amounted to 18,750 litres. Seville's children wished to be
close to the glare and flicker of the wax candles and torches and to
hear distinctly the unintelligible Latin service. Seek the shade of the
cathedral when the July sun is burning outside, or during one of the
nights of Holy Week, when the great Miserere of Eslava is sung, and you
will find it the most thronged spot in all Seville. In the words of
Havelock Ellis: "Profoundly impressive,--around the choir an impassive
mass, in the rest of the church characteristic Spanish groups crouched
at the bases of the great clustered shafts, and chatted and used their
fans familiarly, as if in their own homes, while dogs ran about
unmolested. The vast church lent itself superbly to the music and the
scene. It was a scene stranger than the designs of Martin, as bizarre as
something out of Poe or Baudelaire. In the dim light the huge piers
seemed larger and higher than ever, while the faint altar lights dimly
lit up the iron screen of the Capilla Mayor, as in Rembrandt's
conception of the Temple of Jerusalem. In the scene of enchantment one
felt that Santa Maria of Seville had delivered up the last secret of her
mystery and romance."
If you enter the church from the west through the main portal, or the
Puerta Mayor, the whole length of the nave is broken by various
structures. On the axis, under the second vault, is the tomb of
Fernando Colon; the fourth and fifth vaults contain the choir; the sixth
comes under the dome; the seventh and eighth take in the Capilla Mayor
and Sacristia Alta; back of the ninth and terminating the eastern end,
rises the great Renaissance royal chapel (Capilla Real). Fernando Colon
deserves to live not only in Seville's history but in the memory of all
Spain, first and foremost for being his father's son (by his mistress
Beatrix Enrigues), and, secondly, for leading a most pious and studious
life and devoting his time and fortune while traversing Europe during
the first half of the sixteenth century, to the purchase of the most
valuable books and manuscripts of the time. These he united into the
famous Columbina Library and presented to the Cathedral Chapter. The
enormous wooden tabernacle erected every Passion Week over the great
Discoverer's son, to reach the very arches of the vaults overhead, is as
hideous as the inscription is touching. Three caravels are inlaid on the
slab, between which runs the legend, "A Castilla y a Leon mundo nuevo
die Colon"[a] (To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world), and the
following inscription: "Of what avails it that I have bathed the entire
universe in my sweat, that I have thrice passed through the new world,
discovered by my father, that I have adorned the banks of the gentle
Bati and preferred my simple tastes to riches, in order to gather around
thee the divinities of the Castalian Spring and offer thee the treasures
already gathered by Ptolemy, if thou in passing this stone in Seville,
dost not at least give a greeting to my father and a thought to me."
Directly back of Fernando Columbus' tomb rises the rear surface or
trascoro of the choir. The choir, which occupies the fourth and fifth
bays, is enclosed by the most elaborate walls, except at the entrance to
the east, where it is screened by the remarkable iron reja. This, as
well as the rejas of the choir, is in design and workmanship a marvelous
example of mediæval craft, quite as fine as the screens of Toledo and
Granada and the best work of the German forgers and guilds. The design,
from 1519, harmonizes splendidly with the ironwork facing it. Its
gilding must have improved as each century has toned it down. Now in the
evening hours when it catches the reflection of some light, the spikes
look like angels' spears rising flame-like out of the mysterious
twilight and guarding the holy places beyond.
The choir, placed so nearly under the dome, naturally suffered greatly
by its fall. A portion of the 127 stalls has been so well restored that
it is difficult to distinguish the old from the new. "Nufro Sanchez,
sculptor, whom God guarded, made this choir in the year 1475." The
subjects are as usual from the New and Old Testaments, and the character
of the carving constantly betrays Moorish influence. The pillars as well
as the canopies and the figures themselves are possibly entirely Gothic,
but one glance at the gaudily inlaid backs shows Arab workmanship. Along
the outer sides of the choir around the four little stonework niches,
which serve as smaller chapels, the Gothic carving (some of it executed
in transparent alabaster), works more happily than usual in combination
with the later Plateresque or Renaissance, here containing the fine
feeling of the Genoese school. One piece of sculpture stands out from
all the rest, viz., the Virgin, carved by Montañes. Her hands are of
such exquisite girlish delicacy, of such immature and dimpled softness,
that one cannot pass them by without a feeling of delight.
The organs, which form a part of the choir, have an incredible number of
pipes and stops. According to a remarkable old tale, they were filled
with air by the choir boys, who walked back and forth over tilting
planks placed on the bellows. Whether or no the boys still have this
happy outlet for their ecclesiastic activities, the music means little
to the Spaniard, and their design still less to the architect's eye.
The Capilla Mayor faces the choir, merely separated from it by the space
lying directly under the dome and forming the intersection of nave and
transepts. As the church services constantly require the simultaneous
use of the choir and the high altar of the Capilla Mayor, a portion of
the intermediate space or "entre los dos Coros" is roped off during
service time for the clergy to pass from one to the other. The Spanish
taste for pomp and magnificence centres in all its extravagance about
the high altar, while a more subdued richness characterizes the
surrounding stone and iron work which encloses the sanctuary on all
sides. Not only on the front, complementing and balancing admirably the
facing reja of the choir, but on the western ends of the sides, immense
ornamental iron screens bar the way. The front one is quite overpowering
in size, rising some seventy-five feet above the altar. The Spaniard was
equal to any undertaking in the days of early Hapsburg splendor under
the pious Reyes Catolicos. With the aid of Sancho Munoz and Diego de
Yorobo, a Dominican Friar, Francesco de Salamanca designed them (1518)
and then superintended the welding, gilding and the final erection in
1523.
The east end of the Capilla Mayor is formed by the magnificent retablo,
almost four thousand square feet in size. One is immediately struck by
its immense proportions and the infinite amount of carving bestowed on
it. Its great scheme was conceived in 1482 by the Flemish sculptor
Dancart, evidently a man of prolific and versatile imagination. If we
try to compare it with the work of English churches, we might best liken
it to the great altar screens. This and the retablo at Toledo are
probably the richest specimens of mediæval woodwork in existence.
Portions of the execution are somewhat inferior to the conception, and
yet the artists who labored on it with loving skill until the middle of
the following century carried out all their work with a richness and
delicacy which make it not only a representative piece of late Gothic
sculpture but one of the most magnificent specimens of this branch of
Spanish art. Its various portions embrace the whole period of florid
Gothic from its earlier, more restrained expression to the very last
stroke of the art, when wood was mastered and carved into incredible
filigree work as if it had been as soft and pliable as silver leaf.
Everything that could be carved is there, figures, foliage, tracery,
moldings and mere conventionalized ornament. The central portions are of
the earlier fifteenth century, the outer ones, of the late sixteenth,
executed under Master Marco Jorge Fernandez. The wood is principally
larch, with minor portions of chestnut and pine. The whole field is
divided by slender shafts and laboriously carved bands into forty-four
compartments representing in high and low relief various scenes from the
life of Christ and the Virgin Mary. In the centre is Santa Maria de la
Sede, the patron saint of the church, surmounted by a Crucifixion with
Saint John and the Virgin on either side.
Between the retablo and the rear wall enclosing the rectangle of the
Capilla Mayor, there is a dark space known as the Sacristia Alta, where
is preserved the Tablas Alfonsinas[18] brought from Constantinople to
Paris by Saint Ferdinand's son, Alfonso.
Seville ranks high among the churches of Spain in the beauty of its
carving. The stone screen that forms the rear of the retablo is filled
with admirable Gothic terra-cotta statues, saints, virgins, bishops,
martyrs and prelates executed with a little of the curious rigidity of
the Dutch School still awaiting its Renaissance emancipation, but with
faces full of holy devotion. The modeling is correct and the treatment
of the drapery excellent.
Within the enclosure of the Capilla Mayor, there is still to be seen at
certain times of the year, a ceremony which has been performed for
centuries, and which is certainly the most unique religious rite
celebrated in any Christian church. To the Saxon it is most
extraordinary. During the last three days of the Carnival or after the
Feast of Corpus Domini, we may see boys dressed in costumes perform a
dance before the high altar of the Cathedral. Children, so the tale
runs, danced, skipped and shouted for joy when the city of Seville was
finally taken from the Mohammedans, and these childish demonstrations so
touched the hearts of the clergy who entered the city with the
conquering army, that they resolved that succeeding generations of boys
should perpetuate them forever. Of all the festivals and religious
processions culminating in or outside Saint Mary's shrine, surely none
can give her so much pleasure as the sight of these little boys dancing
and singing in her honor.
This naïf and charming ceremonial is part of the Mozarabic Ritual, the
work of Saint Isidore, a metropolitan of Seville a hundred years before
the arrival of the Saracens. In his early years, when his elder brother
Leander ruled the Gothic Church with stern hand, Isidore had time and
talents to master in his cloistered seclusion so much art and science
that he became the Admirable Crichton of his day. His work on "The
Origin of Things" shows the profundity of his knowledge, his history of
the Goths is beyond doubt his most valuable legacy to us, but what
endeared him above all to his countrymen was the Mozarabic Rite, of
which he composed both breviary and music. The Benedictine monks of
Cluny, those architects and chroniclers, who had been obliged to
sacrifice their Gallican liturgy for the Roman, could not rest satisfied
until they had imposed it on the Peninsula. They were supported in this
truly foreign aggression by Constance of Burgundy, Queen of Alfonso VI,
and by the masterful Gregory VII, himself a Benedictine. And so Saint
Isidore's quaint old hymn with the accompanying melody was banished from
all but one or two favored chapels. Fortunately Cardinal Ximenez became
its enthusiastic and powerful protector. He endowed in the Cathedral of
Toledo a special chapel and had thirteen priests trained for the
service, "Mozarabes sodales." In Ximenez' time a German, Peter
Hagenbach, first printed "missale secundum regulam beati Isidori dictum
Mozarabes," what Saint Isidore called "those fleeting sounds so hard to
note down." His breviary was the first Roman one to be used in Spanish
churches.
To enumerate the endless rows of chapels with their countless treasures
and chaste or tawdry architecture and decoration would be tiresome and
unprofitable,--with a plan and guide-book, one may pass them in review.
"Sixty-seven of the great sculptors and thirty-eight of the painters
here display to the astonished and incredulous eye the masterpieces of
their hand," says one. Here is almost every painter belonging to the
great Sevillian school of painting of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. They form a veritable museum or a series of small museums,
each chapel being a separate room of masterpieces. But here, as in the
museum, there are good and bad paintings and statues, and only the
excellent are worth attention. They are better worth studying here than
elsewhere, for they have been left in the surroundings for which they
were intended and painted. Spain's great religious artist did not paint
his Madonnas so full of distracting and sensuous loveliness for the
walls of the Prado; their smiles, human and pathetic, were for the
altars and panels of sanctuaries. Here is the light in which they were
studied and for which they were colored; here are the walls and frames
which were intended to surround them; they are in the company they
would choose, and they were painted with the same religious devotion
that inspires the prayers now offered before them. The painter's
inspiration sprang from the fervor of his faith.