country, we reach the venerable town of Agramunt, notable for its late
Romanesque church with a portal similar to the Puerta dels Fillols at
Lerida. We reach at last Seo de Urgel at the very foot of the Pyrenees.
As a see, the place is of immemorial antiquity. Its bishops (who are
co-sovereigns with France of the Republic of Andorra) attained the
zenith of their power and splendour in the eleventh century. The town
has figured in every border war and was the seat of the audacious
reactionary caucus which called itself a regency and declared Ferdinand
VII. unfit to govern while he was obedient to the constitution.
The actual cathedral was consecrated by Bishop Eribal in 1040, but its
construction lasted well on into the next century. It resembles a church
of southern France more than one of Cataluña. The façade is divided
vertically by two buttresses, horizontally by string courses into three
stages, the lowest of which is pierced by the simple round arched west
porch, the middle by three round-headed windows, the highest forming a
sort of attic, by a round-headed window and two _rosaces_. The interior
is divided into a nave and aisles with transept and lantern. The
treasury is interesting for its collection of documents dating back to
the time of the Carlovingian kings.
Returning from Lerida to Barcelona we pass the castle of Bellpuig, the
seat of the great family of Anglesola--a massive fortress of red stone,
restored in the sixteenth century. Its magnificent staircase still gives
one some idea of the pomp and state of its former lords. The village
extends from the castle to the church--a situation which inspired the
erudite topographer of this country (Piferrer) with reflections that
remind one of Don Quixote’s address to the goatherds. The church
contains the tomb of Don Ramon de Cordova, one of the ablest lieutenants
of Gonzalo de Cordova. His effigy, armed and holding his helmet,
reclines in a sleeping posture on an urn adorned with reliefs of marine
gods and monsters and upheld on the backs of sirens, whose hands are
webbed; the sepulchral arch is formed by six Ionic columns, against
which lean figures expressive of mourning; over the tomb is a relief of
the Entombment. In niches on each side of the arch are two life-size
figures emblematic of Victory; above them, two figures leaning forth
from medallions appear to extend laurels toward the hero. The plinth and
cornice of this superb tomb are adorned with reliefs illustrating the
victories and achievements of the deceased, who was as distinguished as
an admiral as a general. His body remains in the urn practically
incorrupt. The tomb is the work of Juan Nolano.
This work has been brought here from the ruined Franciscan friary,
founded a few miles from Bellpuig by the knight in the year 1507. The
cloister is fairly well preserved. The two lower galleries--a third has
been added since the foundation--are in debased Gothic style. The second
gallery is formed by eleven rectangular columns, like those of the Lonja
at Valencia, with four bands of moulding wreathed round each and
gathered in at the capitals. The convent church is also of interest and
is connected with the cloister by a fine staircase.
From Bellpuig we pass on to Cervera, to which Philip V. transferred the
university from Lerida in 1717. This is the famous body which
proclaimed, in the enlightened reign of Fernando VII., its horror of the
fatal habit of thinking (“Lejos de nosotros a mania funesta de pensar”).
Notwithstanding, it was closed in 1823, and finally suppressed or rather
transferred to Barcelona in 1842. This singular university was housed
in a building opened in 1740, which still dominates the whole town; it
is a huge tasteless structure, a rather suitable home for learned fools.
Nothing seems to have been determined with regard to its ultimate
destiny, and the whole town has a frustrate and somewhat hopeless air.
The church of Santa Maria is not devoid of beauty and interest. One of
the porches appears to be a survival of an earlier Romanesque structure,
and is surmounted by a relief of St. Martin sharing his cloak with the
beggar. The tombs are also worthy of note.
TARRAGONA
Tarragona stands high and nobly on the coast of Cataluña looking east
towards Rome, as her million citizens did when the Cæsars ruled, and she
gave her name to the vast province of Tarraconensis. The Phœnicians were
here, of course, before the Romans; they called the place Tarchon, and
found it already strengthened by walls which remain to this day. Publius
and Cneius Scipio wrested the town from Carthage, and afterwards the
lords of the world gratified the city with the titles of _victrix_,
_togata_, and _turrita_. “It had a mint and temples to every god,
goddess and tutelar; nay, the servile citizens erected one to the
emperor, _Divo_ Augusto, thus making him a god while yet alive.” Since
that time, Tarragona has not flourished, though it was for a brief
interval the capital of the Visigoths. Desolated by the Moors, it was
given at the reconquest to a Norman adventurer whose wife, in his
absence, proved as doughty a warrior as he. And now shrunk and
depopulated, the once imperial city stares in a sort of mellow calm for
ever seaward, as if plunged in reveries on the glorious past.
High over the town, on the crest of the slope, towers the cathedral.
“This,” says Street (and none will disagree with him), “is one of the
most noble and interesting churches in Spain. It is one of a class of
which I have seen others upon a somewhat smaller scale (as, _e.g._, the
cathedrals at Lerida and Tudela) and which appears to me, after much
study of old buildings in most parts of Europe, to afford one of the
finest types from every point of view that it is possible to find. It
produces in very marked degree an extremely effective internal effect,
without being on an exaggerated scale, and combines in the happiest
fashion the greatest solidity of construction with a lavish display of
ornament in some parts to which it is hard to find a parallel.” Roughly
speaking, it may be described as Romanesque, with adornment of the
Gothic period. The delicacy and richness of the later style has relieved
the crudeness of the earlier, while the severity of the original plan
has kept in check the tendency to be profuse of ornament.
Schemes were on foot to rebuild the church at the end of the eleventh
century and Street thinks the oldest part--that is, the eastern
apse--may date from 1131, though the greater portion of the fabric
(including the nave and its aisles and the cloister) seems to have been
executed at the end of the twelfth and during the first half of the
thirteenth century; and it is very possible, therefore, that the brother
Bernardus, who died in 1256, may have been the architect of the larger
part of the existing fabric, both of the church and its cloister.
The west front is striking; it was begun in 1278, but not completed for
another hundred years. The lower half is occupied by a deep-set portal
of four orders, rising to a point. The jambs are occupied by figures of
saints under canopies, and these are continued round the two buttresses
which flank the doorway and end in pinnacles. The shaft is formed by a
statue of the Madonna upon a pedestal, the sides of which exhibit in
relief the scenes of the Creation and Fall. “These subjects are very
fitly placed here, the Fall in the centre coming just under the feet of
her who bears Our Lord in her arms, and thus restores the balance to the
world.” (Street.) The tympanum is pierced with rich geometrical tracery.
Over and behind the cross surmounting this grand doorway is an enormous
rose-window. The whole is surmounted by a gable, the central portion of
which has disappeared, giving a somewhat ruinous appearance to the
church when seen from a distance. Flanking this, the front of the nave,
are the round-arched entrances to the aisles, with round windows above,
betraying Norman influence. Ford states that the great rose-window is
Norman work.
The interior is grand and impressive in the extreme, though a trifle
marred by the heaviness of the pillars. There is no triforium. The
pointed windows of the clerestory are filled with glass vividly
coloured, much of it modern, some of it the work of Juan Guas, specimens
of whose craftmanship are to be seen at Toledo. The aisles are half the
height of the nave, the intervening space being pierced with small
rose-windows. At festivals the arches are hung with precious tapestries,
designed after the Italian fashion with scenes from the histories of
Joshua, Samson, David, and Cyrus. They are believed to have been
presented by some potentate to the chapter about the year 1600.
While the columns are massive and plain, the bases are finely moulded
and the capitals are carved with exuberant foliage. The choir screen is
of marble and jasper; the stalls are plainly and chastely carved. Over
the crossing rises a low, simple, but effective octagonal lantern. “The
old outside roof is destroyed; but the finish of the lanterns of Lerida
and of the old cathedral of Salamanca made it pretty certain that it was
intended to have a pyramidal or domical stone roof.” The transepts are
square, except for an apsidal recess at the east side of each. The nave
and aisles end in apses--the oldest part of the edifice. The roof of the
chancel apse is considerably lower than the choir’s, and the wall-space
is pierced with a small rose-window. This part of the church is pure
Romanesque. The high altar, however, is Gothic, and adorned with
admirable reliefs, illustrating the martyrdom and apotheosis of St.
Thecla, the patron of Tarragona. The centre is occupied by a colossal
statue of the Virgin, covered by a very high peaked canopy of wood. To
the right of the altar is the tomb of Archbishop Alfonso de Aragon, who
died in 1514, and to the left a tomb older by two hundred years, that of
Juan de Aragon, Patriarch of Alexandria. The remains of Cyprian, a
Visigothic bishop of the see, are contained in an urn behind the
reredos. The tombs are not very fine or numerous for a cathedral so
ancient and so splendid.
At the south side of the chancel, at its junction with the apse, is a
very remarkable stone turret stair, leading up to a square tower which
rises over the end of the south aisle. There was probably at one time a
corresponding steeple on the north side.
The chapels, though they have undergone considerable restoration, are
interesting and possess much architectural interest. In the beautiful
north transept is the fourteenth-century chapel of the Tailors (de los
Sastres). Close by is the Capilla del Sacramento, formerly a Roman work,
and incorporated with the cathedral by Archbishop Augustin (1561-1586)
whose fine tomb, by Pere Blay, it contains. The chapel was at one time
the canon’s refectory. Several ancient tombs from the other parts of the
cathedral have been placed in this transept. On the opposite side of the
church is the gorgeous eighteenth-century chapel of St. Thecla.
The cloister adjoins the north-east angle of the cathedral--a most
unusual position. The door communicating with it is the finest in the
building. It is a round-arched doorway richly and curiously sculptured
in the Romanesque style. This cloister is considered one of the best of
the many beautiful works of the kind in Spain. “Each bay has three
round-arched openings divided by coupled shafts, and above these two
large circles pierced in the wall. The arches and circular windows are
richly moulded and adorned largely with delicate dog-tooth enrichments.
Some of the circular windows above the arcade still retain their
filling-in, which was of a very delicate interlacing work, pierced in a
thin slab of stone, and evidently Moorish in its origin, though at the
same time probably the work of Christian hands, as in some of them the
figure of Christ is very beautifully introduced.” The sculptors have
adorned the capitals with all sorts of quaint conceits, notably in one
case with a pictorial rendering of the story of the rats who went to
bury the cat without first tying her limbs. On another capital there is
shown a spirited gladiatorial combat; on another, a cock-fight. These
purely secular subjects where the sculptor seems to have indulged his
humour and fancy absolutely without restraint, remind us of the
“topical” carvings at Oviedo. Their humour has not escaped O’Shea, who,
speaking of the Adoration of the Magi, carved on one of the pillars of
the doorway from the church, says: “The three kings of the east are
economically sleeping three in the same bed, and wakened early by a
winged valet de chambre, that they may rise and proceed on their journey
to Bethlehem.” The words “6th Company,” &c., to which this writer and
others call attention, to be seen on the walls, are reminders of the
passage of British troops here.
The chapter-house, the scene of many important councils, opens out of
the south gallery of the cloister. The door is Norman. The exterior,
like that of the cloister and cathedral generally, is most striking. The
apse and the Tailors’ chapel are particularly fine seen from the
outside.
Contented with their magnificent cathedral the people of Tarragona have
done little to adorn their city with smaller churches. Adjacent to the
seminary there stands the graceful little chapel of San Pablo, the
origin of which is still a matter of conjecture. Its architectural
features suggest the first half of the thirteenth century, with the
exception of its west porch, which belongs to no recognised style. The
chapel is first mentioned in a document of the year 1234.
These edifices apart, the Middle Ages have done little for _Tarraco
togata_. Its remaining monuments belong to its infancy and prime. The
Cyclopean walls, now declared a national monument, extend from near the
Puerta del Rosario to the crest of the hill on which the city stands,
and thence to the eastern angle of the ancient prætorium, now converted
into a prison. The base of this wall is formed by huge blocks of unhewn
stones, uncemented, and with their interstices filled by smaller stones.
The character of the work bespeaks the primitive nature of the builders.
On this rude foundation rests the more regular work of the Roman
conquerors. The _enceinte_ formed by these walls is of the shape of an
irregular polygon, measuring three-quarters of a mile across, and open
on one side. The angles are defended by square towers, and the curtains
are pierced by gates, to some of which the name “Puerta ciclopea” is
given. The Puerta del Rosario, called in the Middle Ages “Portal de
Predicadors,” is about eight yards thick and is roofed by an enormous
block of stone about 36,000 kilogrammes in weight. On the stones
composing the Roman part of the wall, Iberian letters are traced. These
were merely masons’ marks for the guidance of the native workmen, and
form no words. The Torre del Arzobispo was raised in Christian times on
the old Roman tower. The wall extending to the Torre del Capiscol is
attributed to the Scipios, and dates in any case from their time. The
principal Roman gate, called the Puerta del Socarro, is a noble work
formed by three concentric arches. Passing through this we obtain a fine
view of the strip of wall built by order of Hadrian, and may re-enter
the city by the eighteenth-century gate of San Antonio, which pierced a
wall built or restored by Norman adventurers in the twelfth century.
Within the city itself not much remains from Roman times. The sites of
the forum, the prætorium, and the great temples may be traced easily
enough, and stones hewn by Roman hands and commemorating often enough
Roman dead, are embedded in the walls of houses and churches all over
the town. The local museum contains a few of the spoils of antiquity.
There is a beautiful statue of Dionysus in Parian marble, and a great
variety of votive inscriptions. For more substantial memorials of the
Roman era we must leave the city and follow the Barcelona road some four
or five miles. Here we reach the celebrated monument known as the Tomb
of the Scipios, consisting of a rectangular base and an upper body, on
one face of which are sculptured in high relief the figures of two
warriors. The cornice is engraved with a legend in which the words
“perpetuo remane” are alone decipherable. There is no ground whatever
for supposing that the figures represent the brothers Scipio or that
this monument marks their resting-place. It is more probably the
sepulchre of some wealthy Roman settler.
The Arco de Bara is one of the best preserved monuments in Spain. The
arch itself is flanked on each side by two fluted columns of the
Corinthian order, supporting an entablature. It is simple and majestic,
like all the Roman works of the kind. An inscription records its
restoration in commemoration of the pacification of Spain during the
regency of Maria Christina and by order of Don Juan van Halen, the
Spanish general who in 1830 assisted at the defence of Brussels against
the Dutch.
The noblest handiwork bequeathed to Cataluña by the conquerors of the
world is, however, the Aqueduct, which may be compared favourably as
regards preservation and solidity with the more famous work of the same
kind at Segovia. Where it spans a valley it is composed of two series of
arches, eleven below and twenty-five above, and rising to a height of
217 metres. The stone of which it is built was Obtained from the caves
of Monte Loreto, where the quarries may still be seen.
Then there is Centcellas, on the banks of the little river Francoli,
supposed to be on the site of the villa where Hadrian lodged. Part of
the old _Thermæ_ remains--a stone chamber square without and circular
within; while another building seems to incorporate the ruins of an
early Christian structure, including a mosaic of the Ravenna type.
POBLET
About thirty-four miles from Tarragona, near the station of La Espluga,
stands the ancient fane of Poblet, the Escorial of Aragon. It bears
(according to tradition) the name of a hermit who in the first part of
the twelfth century was three times captured by the Saracens and as
often was miraculously released, whereupon the paynim king, recognising
that he had to do with a man protected by heaven, endowed him with all
the lands hereabouts, to be enjoyed by him and his brother hermits. In
proof of this story, the religious triumphantly pointed to a
venerable-looking parchment inscribed with Arabic characters, which they
said and believed was the original deed of gift, and as no one could
read it no one was able to throw doubt on the story. In 1496 a Moorish
prince examined the document and contented himself with observing that
it was not dated in the twelfth century but in the year 1217. However,
no one paid any attention to this assertion, and the legend was repeated
till on the dismantling of the monastery in the last century the
document at last came under the critical eye of Don Pascual de
Gayangos, who confirmed the Moor’s correction and pronounced the
so-called deed simply a general permit to the monks to pass through and
travel freely in the Moorish dominions south of the Ebro.
The foundation of the abbey may now be ascribed with safety to Count
Ramon Berenguer IV., who, having conquered the territory of Lerida,
bestowed the lands of Poblet on the Cistercians of Fontfroide near
Narbonne, who, to the number of twelve, took possession of the site in
the year 1150, Don Esteban being abbot. The monastery soon rose fair and
strong, and prospered exceedingly under the favour of the Kings of
Aragon, who made of it their official place of sepulture. The wealth of
the community was enormous, the power of the abbot extended over
fifty-six villages, but from all this prosperity resulted a falling away
from monastic simplicity, till the holy men would not sit down to table
unless two partridges were placed on their dishes. In the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, they could find no better employment for their
wealth than in loading their beautiful abbey with the atrocious
sculpture and ornament of the period; and then in 1835 came the
anti-clericals and swept out the monks and their _baroque_ rubbish with
them. What the mob spared, the collectors and villagers
annexed--precious manuscripts, vestments, statuary, all were carted
away; and ruinous and forlorn, as it now stands, Poblet would have
rejoiced the heart of the author of the stern Cistercian rule.
It is a vast and embattled pile that greets the eyes of the traveller,
encircled by a crenellated wall which is pierced by a richly sculptured
gate built in 1460 and so richly gilded a hundred years later as to
merit the name of the Puerta Dorada. Enclosed by these outer
fortifications is another line of wall twice as high as the first,
which, together with its twelve towers, was built in the fourteenth
century. To the right of the entrance and still in the outer ward we
have the little church of San Jorge, built by Alfonso V. in honour of
the patron saint of Aragon in 1541, and the chapel of Santa Catalina,
believed to have formed part of the primitive building. In the outer
ward may also be distinguished the remains of numerous other buildings,
such as the Abbot’s house, the Hospice, and the Bridewell, reserved for
female offenders against the Abbot’s jurisdiction.
The inner ward is reached through a gatehouse of the Edwardine type,
flanked by heavily machicolated drum-towers, and decorated with the
escutcheons of Aragon and Castile. We approach the church, founded by
Ramon Berenguer, but substantially the work of his son and successor.
The ugly Græco-Roman façade marks the ancient west front, which is
approached across an atrium called the Galilee. The church is in the
form of an elongated Latin cross. The simplicity of the
architecture--its absolute freedom from ornament--illustrated the early
Cistercian ideals. The aisles are of seven bays, and the chapels are
confined to the south aisle and apse. There were once seventeen altars
in the church, of which only four were kept up by the monastery, the
rest being at the charge of individuals and corporations. All these,
including the high altar, have been stripped of their ornamentations and
accessories, and of the once magnificent choir only a fragment of the
screen remains. Piferrer, who saw the monastery in its prime, gives a
detailed account of it, and enumerated the tombs it contained. He speaks
of the imposing entrance to the royal mausoleum, between the chancel and
the choir. On the Epistle side lay Don Alfonso of Barcelona (II. of
Aragon), opposite him was the sarcophagus of James the Conqueror, near
him lay Pedro the Ceremonious. In addition to these monarchs Juan I.,
Martin, Fernando I., Alfonso V. and Juan II. of Aragon were buried here,
with eight queens, thirty-six infantes and nine infantas. Here lies
Carlos Prince of Viana, the illustrious scion of the house of Navarre;
here were the last resting-places of Aurembiax, Countess of Urgel and
the last princess of her house; here lay the proud Cardonas and the
noble knights and ladies of the Moncada and Anglesola lines. Nearly all
the tombs that had not already been despoiled of their carving and
marbles have been removed to Tarragona. Of those remaining, the best
preserved is that of the Infanta Juana, with its figures relieved
against thick blue glass.