animal, which I found in an out of the way "Plazuela," or "little
place," of Saragossa, doing duty as a knocker, furnishes a good
illustration of the ready dexterity in his craft of the old Spanish
smith and brazier. Of splendid bronze work (in spite of the intrinsic
value of the material which has no doubt led to the fusion of thousands
of treasures of Art all over the Peninsula) Spain yet possesses
invaluable treasures. Amongst these the most salient which occur to my
memory as single pieces, are the magnificent eleven gilt life-size
portrait statues of the greatest of the Spanish Royal Family from
Charles V. to Philip II. with which Pompeio Leoni decorated the
"Entierros Reales" of the Escorial--and the same sculptor's still finer
statues of the celebrated prime minister and favourite, the Duqué de
Lerma, and his Duqueza, founders of the Convent of San Pablo, at
Valladolid, whence they have been transferred to the museum of that
city. As semi-architectural, semi-sculpturesque works in bronze,
occasionally with an admixture of iron upon a large scale, of course the
most important and abundant are the late Rejas, or metal screens, of
the great Spanish churches and cathedrals. Of these, ample notices are
given by both Ford and O'Shea--authorities, at once so excellent, and so
readily accessible, as to render unnecessary any more on my part than a
passing reference to them.
Another form in which copper and bronze have been well and plentifully
used by the Spaniards is in the shape of coverings and strengthenings to
doors. In this guise the models have been mainly derived from the Moors
whose doors may generally, whether in wood or metal, be regarded as
perfection itself, for beauty, strength, and fitness for the
circumstances under which they have been used. The Spaniards (at Toledo
Cathedral for example) have produced many admirable doors in which, by
the judicious strengthening of the joiner's work with embossed and
occasionally perforated bronze plates, they have combined strength with
moderate substance, and the appearance of great richness with fairly
simple and not costly labour.
[Illustration: PLATE 88
LERIDA SAN LORENZO.
MDW 1869]
PLATE LXXXVIII.
_LERIDA._
TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO.
THE interest of every other building in Lerida altogether pales before
that of its noble, but now much desecrated Cathedral. Its ancient
glories may be well studied in Mr. Street's pages, but its present
humiliation can only be appreciated upon the spot. Toiling up from the
city through streets and open platforms on the hill-side, thronged with
soldiers, gipsies, beggars, and ragged boys innumerable, the traveller
at last arrives, not at a church, but at a monster-barrack. In lieu of a
sacristan he has to engage the services of a corporal as Cicerone, and
with the consent of, I am bound to say, an exceedingly polite Spanish
officer, he is free to examine, at his leisure, a Cathedral which, as
Mr. Street says, "is in itself worth the journey from England." Its
construction, and that of its splendid cloister, occupied almost the
whole of the thirteenth century, and the vastness and regularity of its
plan, its solid and perfect execution, and the just proportion of its
structural and ornamental details certainly, to my mind, justify the
praise bestowed upon them by that accomplished architect.
It was sad to see such a building cut about by the insertion of floors
and partitions, and to hear the piquant, not to say ribald, jokes,
"refranes, seguidillas" and songs of the soldiers, echoing from vaulting
which once rang only with peals from the organ, and chants and hymns
from the priests and people.
As my stay was bound to be short in Lerida, and I remembered that Mr.
Street had done full justice to the Cathedral, I looked elsewhere for a
subject for my note-book, and found it in the picturesque tower of the
Church of San Lorenzo, given by my eighty-eighth sketch.
The legend runs that this Church, and that of San Juan, were originally
mosques; and that after the taking of the city from the Moors in 1149,
they were applied to Christian uses. I am inclined to think this
probable, although the detail is not anywhere Mahommedan, so far as the
darkness of the interior would allow me to form any opinion. The great
thickness of the walls, the mode of lighting, the form and proportions
of the entrance archways (shown in my sketch) and the materials and mode
of building of the base of the tower all seem to favour the supposition
of an original Moorish construction. The octagonal form of tower is a
favourite feature of this district, and occurs on a grand scale in the
old Cathedral. The upper portion, at least, of this tower of San
Lorenzo, may probably date from early in the fifteenth century.
[Illustration: PLATE 89
BARCELONA
OLD HOUSE CALLE DE SANTA LUCIA MDW 1869]
PLATE LXXXIX.
_BARCELONA._
OLD HOUSE IN THE CALLE DE SANTA LUCIA.
AS Prescott[55] observes, "The City of Barcelona, which originally gave
its name to the county of which it was the capital, was distinguished
from a very early period by ample municipal privileges. After the union
with Aragon in the twelfth century, the monarchs of the latter kingdom
extended towards it the same liberal legislation; so that by the
thirteenth, Barcelona had reached a degree of commercial prosperity
rivalling that of any of the Italian Republics. She divided with them
the lucrative commerce with Alexandria; and her port thronged with
foreigners from every nation, became a principal emporium in the
Mediterranean for the spices, drugs, perfumes, and other rich
commodities of the East, whence they were diffused over the interior of
Spain and the European Continent."
Amongst its other merits was that of having established in 1401 the
first bank of Exchange and deposit in Europe--as well as of having
compiled the first written code amongst the Moderns of Maritime law. Her
great merchants were "magnificos" ennobled, not degraded as in Castile,
by connection with trade.
The long civil war which began in 1462 and ended with the surrender of
the city to King Juan in 1472 was the first great check the city
received in its splendid career of prosperity.
The house I have sketched was doubtless well adapted to such troublous
times, affording comparative safety on its lower floors and comparative
air and comfort as its occupants mounted higher and higher. It was
probably built shortly after the middle of the fifteenth century,
revealing here and there traces of a French mason's handicraft. It
follows the type, not of the merchant's, but of the cavalier's house.
Such towers, half residence, half fortress, were, especially in the
south of Europe, far more numerous than one may now be justified in
supposing; and the more frequently Italian street views in pictures and
illuminated manuscripts are studied, the more natural and usual appears
what we now fancy to be strange and rare. With the introduction of
Renaissance architecture, the character of these quasi-mediæval
structures changed altogether.
Navagiero[56] writing of the condition of Barcelona in 1524, says that
"the houses are good and commodious, built of stone and not of earth, as
are those of the rest of Catalogna. Although lying on the sea it has no
port, but an arsenal, in which many galleys were wont to be constructed,
now there are none. Bread and wine are scarce, but of every kind of
fruit there is abundance. The cause is said to be that the land is
stripped of men through the war with King John on account of his son Don
Carlos."
Depopulated the city may have been, and its commerce may, no doubt, have
suffered in consequence, but the Catalonian character was energetic, and
the city still preserved much of its previously accumulated wealth.
Merchants too have a knack of prospering in troublous times, especially
those who thrive on profits upon imports. Hence we still find merchants'
houses of great comfort, although evidently constructed during the evil
days of Barcelona. Of one of these I furnish (in my ninety-sixth sketch)
a good example, offering an interesting theme for comparison with the
sketch now given.
[Illustration: PLATE 90
CASA DE LA DIPUTACION
MDW 1869]
PLATE XC.
_BARCELONA._
PATIO OF THE CASA DE LA DIPUTACION.
WITHIN the ancient "Palacio de la Diputacion" is preserved the elaborate
late Gothic Chapel of St. George (protector of Catalonia) with a small
but highly wrought entrance from the arcading on the first floor of the
Patio de la Audiencia, represented in my sketch. This Patio is so called
because its arcades, in which habitually sit many lawyers, and saunter
many clients, lead to the Courts of Justice, in which causes are tried.
The existence of this Chapel has, for ages, given a sort of prescriptive
right to the public to invade the Patio, the Chapel, and its precincts,
upon St. George's day. Of the gay scene which then takes place
Parcerisa[57] has given an animated lithograph, showing the very
different aspect it then wears to any it habitually presents.
Under any circumstances, however, its architecture, which is bold, even
to the verge of rashness, gives it a permanent interest. It is a subject
for wonder, that any structure in which the main supports of a heavy
third story appear so insignificant as do the little marble columns
(about two inches in diameter only) of the first floor of this Patio
should have existed from mediæval days to our times. The truth, no
doubt, is that the main weight of the walls of the top story, and of the
roof, is carried by means of massive beams, acting as cantilevers, back
to the walls which form the internal faces of the arcades, a device not
quite maintaining that beautiful "lamp of truth" we are taught to look
for in all mediæval designs. The users of the arcades have lately
procured the building up of many of the arches, leaving windows to light
the arcades. I have taken the liberty of omitting all of these but one,
as I was desirous of showing, not what the lawyers have done, but what
the original architects devised, no doubt as a "tour de force."
I was told upon the spot that this building up of the arches, the
supports of which certainly appeared to my eye far too fragile for
beauty, was a matter not of choice but of necessity.
[Illustration: PLATE 91
BARCELONA
CASA DE LA DEPUTACION
MDW 1869]
PLATE XCI.
_BARCELONA._
DETAIL FROM THE CASA DE LA DIPUTACION.
IF Catalonian architecture differs from ordinary Spanish, and it is
quite manifest from my sketch that it does in detail, as I have already
shown that it does in system, the character of the Catalonian men and
women differs even more markedly from that of the Spanish. While one of
the latter in his laziness, as Marcos Obregon says, "ni come con gusto,
ni duerme con quietud, ni descansa con reposo," the former, on the
contrary, eat with appetite, sleep with tranquillity, and throw off
their cares healthily in rest. The latter, in fact, chew but scarcely
digest the bread of idleness, while the former thrive on that of
industry. As a natural consequence, there is no love lost between the
two races. The Castilian regards as mean and debasing the cultivation of
the very mechanical arts, excellence in which the Catalonian well knows
to be the source, not only of wealth, but of power and honour as well.
To Barcelona belongs the credit of having been one of the first cities
in the world, out of France, to establish gratuitous schools of design
in which poor youths were taught specially to design for manufactures.
Both Laborde and Whittaker[58] testify to the extent and excellence of
these schools at the end of the last century and beginning of the
present. The latter, writing in 1803, says, "we visited the Academy of
Arts instituted in the Palace of Commerce, and supported in the most
magnificent manner by the merchants of Barcelona. We were conducted
through a long suite of apartments, in which seven hundred boys were
employed in copying and designing; some of them, who display superior
talents, are sent to Rome, and to the Academy of St. Fernando at Madrid;
the others are employed in different ways by the merchants and
manufacturers. The rooms are large and commodious, and are furnished
with casts of celebrated statues and every proper apparatus. We observed
a few drawings of considerable merit, produced by the scholars; but the
grand picture before us of liberality and industry, amply rewarded our
visit; and was the more striking to us, for having of late been
continually accustomed to lament the traces of neglect and decay, so
visibly impressed on every similar institution in the impoverished
cities of Italy."
[Illustration: PLATE 92
BARCELONA
CASA DE LA DEPUTACION
MDW 1869]
PLATE XCII.
_BARCELONA._
WINDOW FROM THE CASA DE LA DIPUTACION.
THIS quaint and very late specimen of Gothic, although Ecclesiastical
enough in its sculpture, is purely domestic in its architecture. The
latter is in its character rather French or Burgundian than Spanish,
while the former was, I have little doubt, the work of a native of the
Peninsula. So far as I could see, no preparation had ever been made for
glazing this window, and the wooden shutters, both in their form and
mode of joinery, were rather Moorish than Spanish. No one can be
surprised at such symptoms of internationality, in works executed at a
sea-port like Barcelona--in which the Arts, like the prevalent language,
may have had a "lingua franca" of cosmopolitan freedom from prejudice.
In most of such Gothic work, and indeed in every kind of building in
Spain, however fantastic and not unfrequently over intricate the detail
may be, we scarcely ever observe any flimsiness, or want of due
substance in the constructional parts. In this matter the Spanish
architects merit, for attention to the erection of permanent structures
in all their styles, the praise bestowed by Mr. Street upon those mainly
who wrought in the mediæval ones. Of those last, the Spanish critics,
who have been sometimes accused of overduly estimating what they call
Greco-Roman architecture, early showed what I regard as a fair
appreciation. Antonio Ponz, for instance, in the last century certainly
praised Berruguete, Covarrubbias, and even Herrera in very glowing
terms, but I know few writers who have better expressed an opinion as to
the fitness of the mediæval styles, and especially the old Spanish
system of the sturdiest construction, for ecclesiastical purposes.
Of this "Arquitectura Gótica," he says,[59] "nadie puede con razón
decir, que falta en la majestad y el decoro: al contrario parece
inventada para dárselo á los Templos, y casas del Señor. Los mas
insignes Arquitectos han confessado su solidez, y han tenido mucho que
admirar en el capricho de sus adornos, y en la prolixidad con que están
acabadas todas sus partes. Muchos países de Europa se precian de sus
monumentos, y en España los hay magnificos, como son la Catedral de
Burgos, la de Sevilla, Valencia, y otras."
[Illustration: PLATE 93
BARCELONA
THE TOWN HALL
MDW 1869]
PLATE XCIII.
_BARCELONA._
DOORWAY IN THE TOWN HALL.
THE mission to Spain of the Count de Laborde on the part of the French
Government at the moment when Napoleon I. thought he had the whole
country within his grasp, was essentially economic in its object. Hence
his accounts of, and investigations into, its past, present and future
capabilities for trade are of far greater value than his topographical
and archæological investigations, most of which are founded on the
writings of Ponz and other well known authorities. While Spain was at
the height of its prosperity, Seville and subsequently Cadiz commanded
the South American trade, but Barcelona remained as it had been from a
very early date, the great maritime means of communication and
interchange of commodities between Spain and the rest of Europe. The
business transactions carried on at its Lonja, or Bourse, and its Town
Hall were very extensive, and these buildings were of commensurate
importance. Our present sketch represents an internal doorway of the
last named building, and the cosmopolitan character of its architecture,
of probably the commencement of the sixteenth century, will be manifest
at a glance. The following is Laborde's[60] epitome of the history of
that great foreign trade of which Barcelona once shared with Valencia
and Almeria almost a complete monopoly.
"The state of Spanish manufactures, in the fifteenth and sixteenth
century, will form a tolerably accurate clue to that of commerce at the
same period. The latter was then in a most flourishing condition, and
its ramifications extended to all parts of Europe. The cities of Medina
del Campo, Rio Seco, Burgos, Segovia, Toledo, Cuenca, Granada, Almeria,
Cordova, Jaen, Seville, Barcelona, Valencia, Ciudad Real, and Sant'
Jago, carried on a very extensive commerce. Almeria, Valencia and
Barcelona pushed their commercial concerns into Syria, Egypt, Barbary,
and the Archipelago. These cities were equally important, in a
mercantile view, with the Hanseatic towns. Barcelona had a very great
foreign trade; after the commencement of the fourteenth century; under
the Kings of Aragon it equipped and maintained armed ships for the
defence of the Catalonian coast and the protection of its trade. It
established factories in the extreme parts of Europe and Asia, as far as
the river Tanais; kept a consul, who represented the city, and who was
presented to Tamerlane the Great in the year 1397, when he returned in
triumph from his military expedition into Muscovy and the Kipzac, a
country lying east and west of the Caspian Sea and the river Volga.
"Spain at that period had a large navy, and its shipping trade was
immense. If the account of Thomé Cano in his 'Arte de construir Naves'
be admitted, it possessed a thousand merchant vessels at a time when
the European marine was far less extensive than it is at present."
To return for a moment to the picturesque doorway I have sketched. Its
sculpture, which in execution is very good of its kind, is as completely
Renaissance in character as its architecture is still Gothic; it in fact
corresponds to Mudejar work, with this difference, that the admixture
with the Gothic in this case is Plateresque, while in the Mudejar work
it is Moorish.
[Illustration: PLATE 94
BARCELONA
KNOCKER TO OLD HOUSE CALLE SANTA LUCIA.
MDW 1869]
PLATE XCIV.
_BARCELONA._
KNOCKER OF AN OLD HOUSE IN THE CALLE SANTA LUCIA.
IN the vicinity of the old church of Sta. Lucia yet exist at Barcelona
several interesting stone houses of the fifteenth century. Upon the
doors of these are to be still found specimens of excellent iron work of
the same period. It is not however to be supposed that the Barcelonese
possessed any very special gifts in this line, since evidences of almost
equal dexterity are to be found scattered over the whole extent of the
Peninsula. In the north and south alike, the "Rejas," or vast screens,
sometimes of iron only, sometimes of brass and bronze, and sometimes of
mixed metals, are yet to be found of great importance and interest. The
most famous of the "Rejeros," as they were called, or makers of Rejas,
were Francesco de Salamanca who flourished in 1533; Christobal Andino of
1540; Francesco de Vilalpando of 1561; and Juan Bautista Celma of 1600.
Because these men's names have become "household words" amongst all
students of Spanish Art, it should not be forgotten that great men "to
fortune and to fame unknown" lived before those whose good deeds and
works encountered fitting record. By some of these were executed many of
the various admirable specimens of metal work commented upon in terms
of high praise by Ford, Street, O'Shea and other writers. The finest
metal worker who really startled his contemporaries by the beauty and
splendour of his workmanship, its "elaboracion y prolixedad," was the
celebrated Henrique de Arfé, gold and silversmith of Leon, founder of a
family which for several generations supplied artist-workmen in the
precious metals whose fame rests upon the same platform as that of
Cellini and Caradosso di Milano. His principal works were, according to
the account given to us of them by his grandson Juan, in the "Varia
Commensuracion," the custodias (or "ciboria" for holding the sanctified
wafer) of the Cathedrals of Leon, Cordova, Toledo, and Sahagun. Of
crosses, paxes, censers, pixes, feretories, candelabra, monstrances,
lamps, &c., he scattered specimens broadcast throughout Spain. In all of
them he showed, as his descendant declared, "El valor de su ingenio
raro, con mayor efecto que puede escribirse."
As the present is the last occasion on which, in this volume at least, I
may have to speak of mediæval metal work, and especially iron work, I
may be allowed to allude very briefly to the two principal tools by
which it was worked, viz.: the hammer and the pliers. In England and in
France the first was used in preference at least to the last; while in
Germany, Burgundy and the Low Countries, the last was specially
affected, and by its means foliage, both natural and conventional, was
rendered with great skill, facility and taste. The Spaniards, as is
proved by the present sketch, and that which follows it, were at an
early period dexterous in the use of both tools; uniting the massive
style engendered by the predominant use of the hammer with the more
florid and fanciful manner springing out of the light and convoluted
forms created by a more liberal use of the pliers.
[Illustration: PLATE 95
BARCELONA KNOCKER TO OLD HOUSE IN THE CALLE SANTA LUCIA.
MDW 1869]
PLATE XCV.
_BARCELONA._
KNOCKER TO AN OLD HOUSE IN THE CALLE SANTA LUCIA.
IN this fanciful little object we meet with another illustration of the
spirit of humour as well as of dexterity in their craft, manifested in
abundance by the excellent old ironworkers of Spain. Still good as the
blacksmiths unquestionably were, the triumphs of Spanish metal working
were chiefly embodied in the precious metals. It is rather in the
cabinets of connoisseurs than in the churches of the country that
specimens should be sought for to justify the splendid reputation those
artist-workmen enjoyed in the palmy days of the Spanish Court and
Church. Everywhere the traveller comes now only upon exhausted
treasuries and emptied sacristies. Even since the days of Ford's
inimitable handbook the spoiler has been rampant, and of the custodias
and virus, the "blandones" and "portapaces" in which he delighted, so
far as my perquisitions extended, scarcely a vestige was to be met with.
Even since my sketches were made, the contents of the treasury of
"Nuestra Señora del Pilar" have been brought to the hammer; and the
pressure of other engagements alone prevented my return to Saragossa
empowered to secure a share of those artistic curiosities for our
National collection.
No doubt many beautiful specimens of Gothic precious metal work once
adorned the principal mediæval ecclesiastical structures of Spain, but
it was not till a later date that the most important and famous works,
other than those already noticed (by Henrique de Arfé,) were produced. A
brief notice of some of these from the pen of a contemporary may not be
altogether uninteresting.
"Although Renaissance architecture was introduced in Spain in a fully
developed form before the middle of the sixteenth century, it was never
thoroughly understood and adopted, we are told by Juan de Arphe y
Villafañe,[61] in ecclesiastical plate, 'until my father, Antonio de
Arfé, began to use it in the Custodia of Santiago in Galicia and in that
of Medina de Rioseco, and in the portable shrine of Leon.'
"In all his work he evidenced an imperfect knowledge of good style,
introducing fanciful columns of irregular proportions according to his
own fancy. Juan Alvarez, who was a native of Salamanca, died in the
prime of his life in the service of Don Carlos of Austria. For this
reason he left no evidence of his rare talent in any public performance.
Alonso Beceril obtained reputation in his turn on account of having made
in his studio the Custodia of Cuenca. This work secured the approbation
of every artist in Spain who at that time was really learned in Art.
Juan de Orna was an excellent plate-worker in Burgos. Juan Rinz,[62] a
disciple of my grandfather, made the Custodias of Jaen, Baza, and that
of San Pablo of Seville. He was the first who used the lathe for
forming plate in Spain; he set the fashion for the principal pieces of
silver services for the table, and instructed workmen throughout
Andalusia. All the above artists, and others, began to give elegant
shapes to the principal objects made in silver and gold for the use of
the church, each one improving in symmetry and general excellence upon
the works of his predecessors until those types became established which
I am now about to describe."