SALAMANCA--ZAMORA--BENAVENTE.
The long dreary road which leads over the corn-growing plain from Medina
del Campo is at last relieved some two or three miles before Salamanca
is reached by the view of its imposing group of steeples and domes,
which rise gradually over the low hills on the northern side. The long
line of walls round the city still in part remains, but seems daily to
be falling more and more to decay, and indeed generally all its grand
buildings speak rather of death than of life. Few even of Spanish towns
seem to have suffered more at the hands of the French during the
Peninsular war than did Salamanca, and we ought not perhaps to be
surprised if its old prosperity comes but slowly back again to it.
The public buildings here are generally grandiose and imposing; but
almost all of them are of the period of the Renaissance, and there are
no very remarkable examples of this bad age. Still when they were
perfect there must have been a certain stateliness about them, befitting
the importance of a great university.
The main objects of attraction to me were the two cathedrals, the one
grand and new, of the sixteenth century, by whose side and as it were
under whose wing nestles the smaller but most precious old cathedral of
the twelfth century, fortunately preserved almost intact when the new
one was erected, and still carefully maintained, though, I believe, very
seldom used for service. The remarkable relative positions of these two
cathedrals will be readily understood by the accompanying
ground-plan,[88] in which, as will be seen, the vast bulk of the later
church quite overwhelms the modest dimensions of the earlier. I know
indeed few spots, if any, in which the importance, or the contrary, of
mere size in architecture can be better tested than here. Most educated
artists would, I dare say, agree with me in rating size as the lowest of
all really artistic qualities in architecture; and here we find that
the small and insignificant old church produces as good an effect as the
large and boastfully ambitious new one, though its dimensions are
altogether inferior. This is owing to the subdivision of parts, and to
the valuable simplicity which so markedly characterizes them. On the
other hand, it would be wrong to forget that from another point of view
mere size is of the primest importance, for we may well feel, when we
compare, for instance, an extremely lofty church with one of very modest
height, that in the former there is on the part of the founders an
evident act of sacrifice, whilst in the latter their thoughts have
possibly never risen above the merest utilitarianism; and it would be a
spirit entirely dead to all religious impressions that could regard such
an act of sacrifice otherwise than with extreme admiration.
The foundation of the first of these two cathedrals may be fixed, I
think, with a fair approach to certainty, as being some time in the
twelfth century. It was at this time, soon after the city had been
regained from the Moors, in A.D. 1095, that Bernard, Archbishop of
Toledo, himself a Frenchman, brought many other Frenchmen into Spain,
and through his great influence procured their appointment to various
sees--a fact which I may say, in passing, suggests much in regard to the
origin of the churches which they built. Among the French ecclesiastics
so promoted was Gerónimo Visquio,[89] a native of Périgord, who was for
a long time the great friend and close companion of the Cid Rodrigo
Diaz, and confessor to him and Doña Ximena his wife. On the Cid’s death
he brought his body from Valencia to the monastery of Cardeña, near
Burgos, and there dwelt till Count Ramon and Doña Urraca made him Bishop
of Salamanca. Gil Gonzalez Dávila[90] says that at this time the church
was founded, and Cean Bermudez adds some documentary evidence as to
privileges conceded to its chapter for the works about this time by
Count Ramon.[91] In A.D. 1178 a priest--Don Miguel of San Juan, Medina
del Campo--made a bequest to the Chapter of his property for the work of
the cloister, and we may fairly assume, therefore, that before this date
the church itself was completed. The new cathedral was not commenced
until A.D. 1513, and of this I need not now speak; but in an inscription
on it, which records its consecration in A.D. 1560, the first mass is
related to have been said in the old cathedral four hundred and sixty
years before, _i.e._ in A.D. 1100.[92] This probably was only a
tradition; but it may fairly be taken to point to the twelfth century as
that in which the cathedral was built.
This early church is, it will be seen,[93] cruciform, with three eastern
apses, a nave and aisles of five bays, and a dome or lantern over the
crossing. There is a deep western porch, and I think it probable that
there were originally towers on either side of this. The church has been
wonderfully little altered, save that its north wall has been taken down
in order to allow of the erection of the new cathedral, and at the same
time the arch under the northern part of the central lantern or dome was
also underbuilt. In other respects the church is almost untouched, and
bears every mark of having been in progress during the greater part of
the twelfth century.
There is no provision in the plan of the main piers for carrying the
diagonal groining ribs, and it may be, therefore, that when they were
first planned it was not intended to groin the nave. The groining-ribs
are now carried on corbels, in front of which were statues, only two or
three of which, however, now remain in their places.[94] The vaulting
throughout is quadripartite in the arrangement of the ribs; but the
vaults of the three western bays of the nave, of the south transept, and
of the aisles are constructed as domes, with the stones all arranged in
concentric lines, but with ribs crossing their undersides; the two
eastern bays of the nave have quadripartite groining, planned in the
common way. The apses have semi-domes. The main arches everywhere are
pointed, those of the windows semi-circular, and the capitals throughout
are elaborately carved, either with foliage or groups of coupled
monsters or birds, a very favourite device of the early Spanish
sculptors.
The most interesting feature in this old cathedral still remains to be
mentioned: this is the dome over the crossing. The remainder of the
original fabric is bold, vigorous, and massive, well justifying the line
in an old saying about the Spanish cathedrals, “Fortis Salmantina;” but
still it is merely a good example of a class of work, of which other
examples on a grander scale are to be met with elsewhere. Not so,
however, the dome; for here we have a rare feature treated with rare
success, and, so far as I know, with complete originality. The French
domed churches, such as S. Front, Perigueux, and others of the same
class, Notre Dame du Port, Clermont, and Notre Dame, le Puy, have, it is
true, domes, but these are all commenced immediately above the
pendentives or arches which carry them. The lack of light in their
interiors is consequently a great defect, and those which I have seen
have always seemed to me to have something dark, savage, and repulsive
in their character. And it was here that the architect of Salamanca
Cathedral showed his extreme skill, for, instead of the common low form
of dome, he raised his upon a stage arcaded all round inside and out,
pierced it with windows, and then, to resist the pressure of his vault,
built against the external angles four great circular pinnacles.
[Illustration: No 7
SALAMANCA OLD CATHEDRAL p. 80.
INTERIOR OF LANTERN, LOOKING EAST]
The effect of his work both inside and out is admirable. It is divided
into sixteen compartments by bold shafts, which carry the groining ribs;
and three of these divisions over each of the cardinal sides are pierced
as windows. The other four occur where the turrets on the exterior make
it impossible to obtain light. These arcades form two stages in height
between the pendentives and the vault. The vault is hardly to be called
a real dome, having a series of ribs on its under side, nor does the
external covering follow the same curve as the internal, but with
admirable judgment it is raised so much as to have rather the effect of
a very low spire, with a considerable entasis, than of a regular dome.
The exterior angles have lines of simple and boldly contrived crockets,
and the stones with which it is covered seem all to have been cut with
scallops on their lower edge. The stonework of the exterior is much
decayed, but otherwise the whole work stands well and firmly.
My drawings explain better than any written description can, the various
details of the design; but I may well call attention to the admirable
treatment of the gables over the windows on the cardinal sides of the
dome. No doubt they answer the same purpose as the circular turrets at
the angles in providing a counterpoise to the thrust of the vault, and
the change from the circular lines of the angle turrets to the sharp
straight lines of these gables is among the happiest efforts of art. So
again I ought to notice the contrast between the shafted windows, with
their springing lines definitely and accurately marked by sculptured
capitals, and the openings in the turrets, with their continuous
mouldings. The value of contrast--a treasure in the hands of the real
artist--is here consciously and most artistically exhibited; and it was
no mean artist who could venture to make so unsparing a use of
architectural ornamentation without producing any sense of surfeit on
those who look at his work even with the most critical eyes.
I have seldom seen any central lantern more thoroughly good and
effective from every point of view than this is: it seems indeed to
solve, better than the lantern of any church I have yet seen elsewhere,
the question of the introduction of the dome to Gothic churches. The
lofty pierced tambour, and the exquisite effect of light admitted at so
great a height from the floor, are features which it is not, I believe,
vain to hope we may see emulated ere long in some modern work. But in
any such attempt it must be borne well in mind that, though the scale of
this work is very moderate, its solidity and firmness are excessive, and
that thus only is it that it maintains that dignified manliness of
architectural character which so very few of our modern architects ever
seem even to strive for.
From all points, too, this lantern groups admirably with the rest of the
church. My sketch was taken from the west end of the nave roof, in order
to show the detail of the work to a fair scale; but the best view on the
whole is that from the south-east, where it groups with the fine
exterior of the eastern apses, with their engaged columns and rich
corbel-tables, and with a turret to the east of the transept, which has
been carried up and finished rather prettily in the fourteenth century
with a short spire, with spire-lights on each side of its hexagonal
base.
The old corbel-tables under the eaves remain throughout the east end;
but the wall has been raised above them with a line of pierced
quatrefoils, over which the rough timbers of the roof project. No doubt
here, as we shall find in some other examples, the original intention
was to have a stone roof of rather flat pitch. The space between the
eaves of the chancel and the lower windows of the lantern would admit of
no more than this; and though there is a good deal of piquant effect in
the line of dark pierced traceries under the eaves and the rough tiled
roof above them, one cannot but regret very much the change from the
original design in so important a part of the work. The eaves-cornices
are carved with a very rich variety of billet moulding, and carried upon
corbels, some of which are carved and some moulded. The walls generally
have flat pilasters at short intervals, finishing under the
eaves-cornices, and the principal apse has the common arrangement of
three-quarter engaged shafts dividing it into three bays. The
window-arches are boldly moulded and carved, but the lights are narrow,
and those in the main apse are remarkable for the delicate intricacy of
the contemporary iron _grilles_ with which they are guarded--genuine
laborious smith’s work, utterly unlike the poor modern efforts with
which in these days men earn fame without using their hammers! The
effect here of the intricate curved lines, relieved by the dark shadow
of the window opening, is charming. It may fairly be doubted, I think,
whether these windows were ever meant to be glazed. In the transept
pointed relieving arches are built over the windows, and one of them is
a good example of the joggling of the joints of stonework, not
uncommonly seen in early flat arches, but the use of which is not very
obvious in a high pointed arch. The smaller apses have only one window,
and are lower in proportion to the principal apse than is usually the
case.
[Illustration: No. 8.
SALAMANCA OLD CATHEDRAL p. 82.
EXTERIOR OF LANTERN]
There are some fine monuments in the south transept, all of them adorned
with elaborate bas-reliefs of scriptural subjects. One, of the
thirteenth century, has a tomb supported on lions, and a death-bed
represented on its side; a little apsidal recess above is groined with a
semi-dome, with ribs. Another has sculptures of the Crucifixion, the
Entombment, the Maries going to the Sepulchre, and the “Noli me
tangere;” and a third has another representation of a death-bed. The
effigies are all slightly tilted outwards, and those in the east wall
have their feet to the north. The most remarkable features in the
decoration of the church are, however, the Retablo and the painting on
the semi-dome above it. On the vault the Last Judgment is painted, our
Lord being drawn much in the famous attitude of St. Michael in Orcagna’s
fresco at Pisa, and without drapery. The Retablo is a work of the
fourteenth century, of wood, and planned so as exactly to fit the curve
of the apse wall. It is divided into five panels in height and eleven in
width, so that there are fifty-five subjects, each surrounded by an
architectural framework of delicate character. The subjects are all
richly painted on a gold ground, and seemed to me to be well drawn. The
coloured decoration of the whole is very effective, and owes much to the
white ground of its traceries. Generally speaking, a Retablo is placed
across the apse and cuts off its eastern portion, which thenceforward
becomes a receptacle for all the untidiness of the church; and when so
arranged, if it reaches the height common in Spain, it almost, and in
some cases altogether, destroys the internal effect of the apse. Here,
however, the exact fitting of the Retablo to the curve of the wall is
free from this objection, and its effect is unusually good.
The cloister on the south side is almost all modernized, though one or
two old doorways remain. That into the south transept has spiral shafts,
with the spiral lines reversed at regular intervals. It has also some
very good carving of foliage, with birds and naked figures, and on its
jambs are some memorial inscriptions of A.D. 1190, 1192, and 1194. On
the south side of the cloister is a richly decorated little chapel,
which retains in one corner a very curious mediæval organ, with
shutters. On the east side and close to the transept, what was no doubt
the original Chapter-house still remains, though it is now called the
Mozarabic chapel, and was formerly used for the Mozarabic ritual. At
present the boy who had the keys said it was not used; but the proper
books were all there. It is a very remarkable chamber, square in plan
below, and brought to an octagon above by arches thrown across the
angles, and finally roofed with a sort of dome, carried upon moulded and
carved ribs of very intricate contrivance. The interlacing of these ribs
gives the work somewhat the effect of being Moorish, and there can be
little doubt, I think, that it owes its peculiarities in some degree to
Moorish influence. It will be seen by reference to the plan, that the
groining ribs are arranged in parallel pairs. The ribs go from the
angles to the centre of the opposite side instead of from angle to
angle, and the sixteen ribs form a star-shaped compartment in the
centre. This coupling of ribs in parallel lines is a feature of Moorish
work, and is seen in the curious mosque, the Cristo de la Luz, at
Toledo, and in the somewhat Moorish vault of the Templars’ church at
Segovia. But whether Moorish or not, it is a remarkable room, and
deserves careful study. The diameter is but a little over twenty-six
feet, and the light is admitted by small windows in the upper stage. I
should be inclined to attribute this room and its vault to the architect
of the lantern of the church, and I regret that the only part of the
outside which I could see was so modernized as to render it impossible
to ascertain the original design. I call this the Chapter-house, because
I find that it opened originally into the cloister, with three arches,
that in the centre a doorway, the others windows of two lights--the
almost invariable arrangement of all Chapter-houses at this time.[95]
A considerable number of masons’ marks remain on the exterior of the
early part of this church; and if they are the marks of the men who
erected so complicated a piece of stonework as the vault of the
Chapter-house, they well deserve to be preserved. Throughout this
church, indeed, the masonry is unusually good, and, owing to the rich
warm colour of the stone, the eastern apses, though they follow the
common design of most of the Romanesque apses in this part of Spain, are
more than usually good in their effect.
A flight of eighteen steps leads up from the old cathedral through the
north transept into one of the southern chapels of the new cathedral,
and I know few changes more remarkable than that from the modest
simplicity, yet grandeur, of the early church, to the overbearing
magnitude and somewhat flaunting character of the late one.
Salamanca seems to have tasted early of that prosperity which in the end
ruined art in Spain; and it was possible, therefore, for the Bishop, in
the beginning of the sixteenth century, to propose a scheme for
replacing his modest old cathedral by one of the most sumptuous and
ambitious in Spain, without attempting what was absurd or sure to fail.
The whole discussion as to the planning of the church is told us in a
series of documents published by Cean Bermudez, which are, I think, of
sufficient interest to make them quite worth a place in the Appendix to
this volume. I shall discuss in another chapter the light which they
throw upon the architectural practice of the day, and here it will only
be necessary to refer to such parts of them as affect the architectural
history of the building.
In A.D. 1509 a Royal order was issued to Anton Egas, master of the works
at Toledo Cathedral, to go to Salamanca to make a plan for the cathedral
there. Egas seems to have delayed so long that it was necessary to send
another order to him, and then at last, in May, 1510, he went. The same
kind of command had been laid at the same time by the king on Alfonso
Rodriguez, the master of the works at Seville, and after these two had
considered the matter, they presented a joint plan, drawn on parchment,
showing the heights and widths of the naves, the thickness of the walls,
and so forth; but they were unable, they said, to agree as to the
proportion of length to breadth in the Capilla mayor, and so they
settled to meet in ten days at Toledo, and then to appoint an umpire.
Nothing more seems to have been done by them, for in A.D. 1513 the
Bishop and Chapter resolved to call together a Junta of architects to
make another report; and Rodriguez being dead, they summoned Anton Egas
of Toledo, Juan Gil de Hontañon. Juan de Badajoz of Leon, Alonso de
Covarrubias of Toledo, Juan Tornero, Juan de Alava, Juan de Orozco,
Rodrigo de Saravia, and Juan Campero, who all assembled in September,
A.D. 1512, at Salamanca, and drew up their report. The detailed
character of this report is very curious. It decides the dimensions of
every part of the church, the thickness of the walls, the projection of
the buttresses, and the exact position that it ought to occupy. The
architects not only agreed in all their opinions, but testified to their
truth by taking an oath “by God and St. Mary,” saying, each one, “So I
swear, and amen.”
The question was, whether the new cathedral should be on the site of the
old cathedral, or to the north or to the south of it; and among other
reasons for placing it to the north, where it now is, the existence of
the steeple at the west end of the old cathedral was mentioned. In fine,
the church has been so placed as not to interfere at all with the
steeple, but little with the old cathedral, and not at all with the
cloister. The opinion of the Junta of Architects has been acted upon, in
short, in everything save the shape of the head of the church, which
they preferred should be octagonal, and which is, in fact, square in
plan.
Three days after the presentation of this report certain of the Chapter
were appointed to select an architect, and their choice fell at once on
Juan Gil de Hontañon for the architect, and Juan Campero for clerk of
the works.[96] Whether Juan Gil really made the plans or not seems very
uncertain; and I confess that to me it seems more probable that the plan
made in A.D. 1509 by Egas and Rodriguez was laid before the Junta, and
that they drew up their resolutions upon the data it afforded, and left
to Hontañon no choice as to the proportions of his church, but only the
management of its construction and the designing of its details.
If this supposition be correct, I fear I can award but little credit to
Hontañon; for in this cathedral the only point one can heartily praise
is the magnificence of the general idea, and the noble scale and
proportion of the whole work. But the detail throughout is of the very
poorest kind, fairly Gothic in character inside, but almost Renaissance
outside, and everywhere wanting in vigour and effect. Nothing can be
much worse than the treatment of the doorways and windows, and--to take
one portion--the south transept façade is spotted all over with niches,
crockets, and pedestals in the most childish way; whilst every spandrel
has a head looking out of a circle, reminding one forcibly of the old
application of a horse-collar, and, in fact, the men were foolish who
repeated, _usque ad nauseam_, so stale and unprofitable an idea!
In one respect, however, the design of this church is very important.
The Spanish architects seldom troubled themselves to suit their
buildings in any respect to the climate; and this, no doubt, because in
very many cases they were merely imitating the works of another country,
in which no precautions against heat were necessary. Here we have a
church expressly designed, and with great judgment, for the requirements
of the climate. The windows are very high up, and very small for the
size of the building, so that no sunlight could ever make its way to any
unpleasant extent into it. There are galleries in front of all the
windows, both in the nave and aisles, but they are of thoroughly
Renaissance character. The section of the church gives a main clerestory
to the nave, and a second clerestory on one side of each aisle over the
arches opening into the side chapels. The upper clerestory has two
windows of two lights, and a circular window above them in each bay, and
the lower clerestory traceried windows generally, I think, of three
lights. The traceries are very weak and ill proportioned; but I noticed
in places what seemed to be a recurrence to earlier traditions in the
groupings of small windows, with several circles pierced in the wall
above them. It was, however, just like the imitation of old works we so
often see from incompetent hands at the present day. You see whence the
idea has been taken, though it is so travestied as to be not even
tolerable where the original was probably perfect!
The planning of the church is certainly infelicitous. The square east
end is bald to a degree externally, and finished as it is inside with
chapels corresponding with those of the aisles, wants relief and life.
If the square east end is adopted in a great church, no doubt the
prolonged Lady Chapels of our own churches are infinitely to be
preferred to such a plan as this, which fails to give the great east
windows of which we boast, and loses all the effects of light and shade
in which the apsidal chevets of the Continent are so rich.
Everywhere here the buttresses are finished with pinnacles, always
planned in the same way, each group being planned on a square,
counterchanged over the one below: they are of several stages in
height, furnished throughout with crocketed finials on all sides, and at
last with a single tall pinnacle. Nothing can be more wearisome than
this kind of pinnacled buttress, but the later Spanish authorities were
very fond of it, and repeated it everywhere. The dome, or Cimborio, is
altogether Pagan in its design and detail outside, and on the inside is
so plastered with an _olla_ of pink cherubs, rays of light, and gilt
scallopshells of monstrous size, and the like, as to be utterly
contemptible in its effect. It is, moreover, too small, and too little
separated from the rest of the vaulting, to look really well. The church
throughout is finished with hipped roofs in place of gables: but the
parapets in front of these are all Renaissance, and marked at intervals
by the favourite urns in which Renaissance architects still generally
and most unfortunately indulge.
The cathedral was first used for service in A.D. 1560, when on all sides
Renaissance buildings were being erected, and perhaps it would be more
just to Juan Gil de Hontañon to look upon him as striving to the last to
maintain the cause of Christian art against the inroads of the enemy,
and failing in his detail not for want of will, but because it was
simply impossible to resist the tide which had set in before he died.
Much, too, of the church must, no doubt, be attributed to other men;
Juan de Alava, Rodrigo Gil de Hontañon, Martin Ruiz, and Juan de Ribero
Rada, having been masters of the works after Juan Gil, and the church
not having been completed until more than a century after its
commencement.[97]
It will have been noticed that the old steeple is spoken of by the Junta
of Architects as a work of so much importance as to make it advisable to
change the position of the new cathedral, rather than interfere with it.
I do not quite understand this, for the greater part of it is now
entirely of late Renaissance detail,[98] though some large crocketed
pinnacles still exist at the angles of the highest stage. The lower
part is very plain, but the upper stage of the square tower has a rich
balustrade, and windows and pilasters, and above it is an octagonal
stage with pinnacles at the angles, and this in its turn is surmounted
by a dome, with a lantern at the top. The outline is certainly fine, and
its great height and mass make it a conspicuous object for a very long
distance from Salamanca.
The mixed character of the detail in this church is well seen in the
great doorway. Its jambs are richly moulded and carved, but the
mouldings are all planned on a line receding but little from the face of
the wall, so that the general effect is flat, and wanting in shadow. The
main arch is a bold simple trefoil, but the label above it is carried on
in an ogee line, and the arches below over two sculptured subjects, and
over two door-openings under them, are elliptical. So, too, in the
sculpture on the bas-reliefs over the door-openings, we have the richest
luxuriance of the latest school of Spanish Gothic, with its beasts, its
crisp foliage, and its wild love of heraldic achievements, and, mixed
with all this, naked cherubs, clouds, and representations of Roman
architecture.
In conclusion, I am bound to say of this great church that, whilst its
exterior fails in almost every single particular, its interior, thanks
to compliance with certain broad rules of Gothic building, is beyond
question very grand and impressive. To the vast size and height of the
columns this is mainly owing, for though they are cut up with endless
little mouldings ingeniously “stopped,” one does not observe their
pettinesses, and the arches which they carry are bolder and more
important than might have been expected.
Some of the side chapels have altars both at the east and the west; and
where the old altars remain they have carved in stone an imitation of an
altar frontal. They represent worked super-frontals with fringes, and
frontals with fringed orphreys at either end: and I saw one altar with a
painted imitation of embroidery all over it. A chapel on the south side
of the nave has an altar entirely covered with glazed tiles, the walls
around it being similarly inlaid.
Close to the cathedral is one of the University buildings, with a
central dome and two dome-capped towers to the west of it, and near
these again is another domed church, and in the distance this group is
very remarkable and stately-looking.
I wandered all over Salamanca looking for old churches, and could find
few of any interest.[99] The finest are all but Renaissance in their
character and detail, and seem to have owed much to the influence of
Hontañon. The convents and colleges, where not ruined, are grand in
scale, yet they produce none of the effect which our Oxford buildings
do: but, on the other hand, they are built of a much better stone, and
of a rich, warm, yellow tint. The good people here are smartening up the
entrance to the town with flower-gardens, seats, and acacias, and are
certainly putting their best feet forward, though there is nothing else
even approaching to smartness in the place. A walk round the old walls
is a melancholy amusement. They are, in part, being levelled; still I
saw two or three pointed gateways, which seemed to be of early date, but
very simple. I saw also some convents in a dilapidated state, and indeed
everywhere the state of these is very bad, and I never saw so many waste
places or half-ruined buildings. A good deal of this is no doubt owing
to the operations of the French during the Peninsular War, but something
certainly to the natives, who are busier in pulling down than building
up; or at any rate, when they do the latter, they combine it with the
former; for in some repairs of one of the University buildings I found
the men re-using old wrought stones from some fifteenth-century
building.
A bull-fight had just been celebrated here, and the principal square in
the city, the “Plaza Mayor,” one of the best I have seen in Spain, had
been fitted up for the occasion as an arena, with seats sloping up from
the ground to the first floor windows of the houses all round it. (There
was a regular arena, but it was being demolished, to give place, I
presume, to one on a grander scale.) Another Plaza close to it is the
principal market-place, and affords good opportunities for the study of
the costumes of the peasantry.
[Illustration: No. 9.
ZAMORA. p. 94.
THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE DOURO.]
I was fortunate in happening to light upon one very curious church
here--that of San Marcos. The engraving of the plan[100] will show how
very cleverly its architect managed to combine the scheme of a circular
church with the usual Spanish triapsidal arrangement. The apses are
vaulted with semi-domes, whilst the rest of the church is covered
with wooden roofs, and these all lean towards the central square, which
has a hipped roof. The arches are all pointed, and there are rudely
carved capitals to the columns. A simple corbel-table is carried along
under the eaves, and there are one or two slits--they are not more--for
light. This little church is close to the town walls, and the absence of
windows gives it the look of a part of a fortress. The plan seems to me
to be admirably suggestive: we are too much in the habit of working
perpetually in certain grooves which have been cut for us by our
forefathers, and most men now-a-days would be afraid to plan a little
church like this, even if the idea of it came into their heads. Yet it
struck me as being really an extremely useful and economical
construction, and such a scheme might with ease be fitted specially for
a cemetery chapel in place of one of the vulgar erections with which we
are now everywhere indulged.
The church of San Martin has a fine early doorway, in which I first saw
a very peculiar order of decoration, which I saw again at Zamora, and of
which no doubt more examples exist in this district. My illustration
will explain its design, one member of the archivolt of which is like a
succession of curled pieces of wood put side by side and perfectly
square in section. The effect of light and shade in such work is rather
good, but it is nevertheless rather too bizarre to be quite pleasing.
[Illustration: Archivolt. San Martin.]
Another little church--that of San Matteo--has a rather fine, though
rude, Romanesque doorway, with a buttress on each side, and a
corbel-table above. But besides these I saw no remains of early work in
Salamanca.
From Salamanca an uninteresting road leads to Zamora: occasionally there
are considerable woods, and in other parts of the road the fields were
well covered with vines. For two or three hours the domes of Salamanca
are in sight, backed, as every view in Spain seems to be, by a fine line
of distant mountains. No old churches are passed on the road, unless I
except a large convent, now desecrated and nearly destroyed, but which
seemed by the glimpse I caught of it to have old parts.
The entrance to Zamora is very striking: the city crowns the long back
of a rock, falling steeply on the south to the Douro, and on the north
to another valley. At the extreme end of this hill is the cathedral, as
far away from the bulk of the people as it can be, but, for all that,
very picturesquely and finely perched. Below the cathedral is a scarped
rock, and to the left the noble river flows round a wooded point, and
then out of sight under a long line of green vine-covered hills. All
this view is taken in from the end of an old bridge, carried on sixteen
or seventeen pointed arches, across which, near the southern end, is
built a picturesque and tall gate-tower. The long line of houses
occupies the top of the rock, and then opposite the bridge the street
descends by a steep-stepped hill, and the houses cluster round the
water-side.
The want of water in most Spanish landscapes is so great, that I was
never tired of the views here, where it is so abundant. One of the best,
perhaps, is that from just below the cathedral, looking past the
picturesque bridge across the cattle-peopled plains to a long line of
hills which bounds the horizon, with the dead-level line with which so
many of the Spanish table-lands finish above the banks of their rivers.
Of the history of Zamora Cathedral I know but little. Here, as elsewhere
at the same time, a Frenchman, Bernardo, a Benedictine, was bishop from
A.D. 1125 to 1149, having been appointed through the influence of, and
consecrated by, his namesake, the French Archbishop of Toledo.[101]
Dávila says that the cathedral was built by a subsequent bishop, Don
Estevan, “by order and at the cost of the Emperor Don Alonso VII., as is
proved by some lines which were in this church.” These lines give the
date of 1174 as that of the completion of the work,[102] and it tallies
fairly with the general character of much of the building; for, though
it is true that everywhere the main arches are pointed, much of the
detail is undoubtedly such as to suggest as early a date as that here
given.
[Illustration: No. 10.
ZAMORA CATHEDRAL. p. 92.
INTERIOR OF NAVE, LOOKING EAST]
This cathedral is on a small scale, and the most important portion of
the ground-plan--the choir--having been rebuilt, it has lost much of its
interest. It consists now of a nave and aisles of four bays, shallow
transepts, with a dome over the crossing, a short choir with an apse of
seven sides, and two choir aisles with square east ends. At the west end
are chapels added beyond the church, that in the centre being of
considerable length, and groined with the common intersecting ribs.[103]
At the west end of the north aisle is an unusually large and fine
Romanesque steeple--the finest example of the kind I have seen in
Spain--and erected, no doubt, during the time of one of the French
bishops already referred to.
The nave piers are very bold and vigorous in design; they are planned
with triple shafts on each face of a square core, and have square caps
and bases. The arches are very simple, but pointed. The massiveness of
the piers is very remarkable, for though the clear width of the nave is
only about twenty-three feet, the columns are not less than seven feet
across. The nave is groined in square, the aisles in oblong
compartments. There are no groining ribs in the aisles, though the
vaults are quadripartite, and in the transepts there are pointed waggon
roofs. The central dome is carried on pendentives, similar to those in
the old cathedral at Salamanca. It has an arcaded and pierced stage
above the pendentives, and then a dome or vault, divided into sixteen
compartments by ribs of bold section, the filling in between which is a
succession of small cylindrical vaults, so that the construction inside
looks rather complicated. It is, moreover, so defaced by whitewash and
plaster as to produce a much less fine effect than the dome at
Salamanca; but, on the other hand, there can be but little doubt, I
think, that it is the earlier of the two by some years. The exterior of
the dome, though much decayed and mutilated, is still very noble in its
design and effect. It will be seen that in many respects it is
singularly like that at Salamanca. The circular angle turrets, the
dormers on the cardinal sides, are similar in idea, though ruder and
heavier here than there: here, too, the outline of the dome is more
thoroughly domical. All the courses of stone in the dome seem to have
been scalloped at the edges. The arches of the windows and arcades are
all semi-circular, and the angles of the dome have a sort of sharp
fringe of ornament, in which we see the very earliest kind of suggestion
of a crocket: it is very simple, and extremely effective. Unfortunately
this extremely interesting work is not only very much decayed, but also
rent throughout with cracks, and I much fear that ere long it may cease
to exist. The loss of such an example would be one of the greatest
misfortunes for the student of Christian art in Spain, and for rarity
and peculiarity I am not speaking too strongly when I say that we in
England have no monument of the middle ages which is one whit more
precious. It is to be hoped that the authorities of the church will do
their best to preserve it from further decay as far as possible, and to
repair it in the most tenderly conservative spirit.
The aisles have very broad massive buttresses, and the corbel-tables
which crown the wall are carried round them also. There were simple
round-arched, shafted windows in each bay, and the clerestory was
finished like the aisle with a corbel-table.
[Illustration: No. 11.
ZAMORA CATHEDRAL p. 94.
EXTERIOR FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.]
The south transept façade is, after the lantern, the most interesting
part of the church. Its general character is extremely peculiar, and
unlike any other work I have seen in Spain. There are plain buttresses
at the angles, and the space between them is divided into three
compartments by fluted pilasters, which rise as far as the corbel-table
(continued at the same level as the eaves-cornice), and carry three
pointed arches which are fitted to the original flat-pitched gable, the
centre arch being the widest and highest. The centre compartment has a
doorway with three shafts in each jamb, and four orders in the arch all
alike, and resembling the door in San Martin, at Salamanca, illustrated
at p. 91. The effect of light and shade in this ornamentation is very
great; and, executed as it is with comparatively little labour, I rather
wonder not to have seen more of the same work elsewhere. Two small
recessed arches occupy the side compartments of the façade on either
side of the doorway: that on the right hand has its archivolt carved
with extreme delicacy with a small leaf repeated frequently; and both
have within their arches sculptures of figures. The bases of all the
columns are fluted, and the capitals are all carved rather rudely, and
have heavy abaci. Over the side arches are square sunk compartments
enclosing circular ornaments carved with a succession of hollow flutings
sinking back to the centre. In fact, these strange ornaments--which at
first sight look almost like modern insertions--are precisely like
models of the dome with its arched groining spaces between the ribs.
Above the doorway is a row of five arches recessed in the wall,[104] and
under the central arch in the gable is a blocked-up window-opening.
I was unable to gain admission to the interior of the steeple. On the
outside it rises in a succession of nearly equal stages, of which the
upper three have, in the common Lombard fashion, windows of one, two,
and three lights respectively.
It remains to say a few words as to the fittings of the church. The Coro
here occupies the two eastern bays of the nave, and is fitted with very
rich late stalls and canopies, which are quite magnificent in their
effect. The backs of the stalls are carved with figures, and those over
the lower range of stalls throughout with half-length figures of Old
Testament worthies, most of which have inscribed scrolls, with legends
referring to our Lord, in their hands. These texts have been printed by
Dr. Neale in the ‘Ecclesiologist,’ and they afford so valuable an
example of the right mode of selecting inscriptions, that, with his
consent, I give a copy of his account.[105] The figures are rather in
the style afterwards so much employed by Berruguete, large scale
bas-reliefs of single figures--always an awkward kind of sculpture in
the hands even of the very best artist. The traceries and crockets of
this stall-work are very elaborate, crisp, and good of their kind. There
is a continuous horizontal canopy above the upper stalls, each division
of which is filled with purely secular sculptures of beasts and animals.
The metal Rejas are of the same age as the stalls; and there is a fine
ancient lectern for the choir, of enormous size, in the centre of the
Coro, and two others of more modern date. The western screen is old--of
the fifteenth century--and has the rare feature of two doorways, leaving
the centre unpierced for the altar in the nave, and the bishop’s throne
on its eastern side, towards the Coro. By the time this work was done,
it was very generally settled that the bishop’s place was here, in the
centre of the western end of the Coro; but I have seen no other screen
in which the entrance has still been retained at the west in connexion
with this arrangement of the stalls. There is an old metal screen or
Reja under the eastern arch of the crossing, which is of the same age as
the choir fittings, and has two iron pulpits projecting from its western
face. These pulpits are lined with wood, and stand on stone bases; the
staircases to them are of wood, carved on the Gospel side with figures
of the Evangelists and St. Laurence, and on the Epistle side with St.
John, St. Peter, and other Epistolers. Each pulpit has a desk on a
little crane projecting from the column by its side.
[Illustration: Choir Lectern, Zamora Cathedral.]
The cloisters on the north side of the cathedral, and the bishop’s
palace on the south, are all completely modernized; but just under the
old town walls, to the north of the Cathedral Plaza, is the small
Romanesque church of San Isidoro. It has a square-ended chancel of two
bays, and a nave of three, the latter lighted by very small
windows--mere slits in the masonry--the former by shafted windows with a
deep external splay to the openings, which are also very narrow. There
are two of these windows at the east end, and there is a corbel-table
under the eaves. This church was not intended for groining.
The long, narrow, and winding street which leads along the thin crest of
the hill to the centre of the city, passes on the way the very
interesting little church of La Magdalena. This is a Romanesque church,
divided into nave, chancel, and apsidal sanctuary, in the way we so
often see in works of similar date in England. The chancel has a pointed
waggon-vault, the apse is groined with ribs, whilst the nave has now a
modern (and probably always had a) flat wooden roof. The south doorway
is placed very nearly in the centre of the south wall of the nave. It is
a very grand example of the most ornate late Romanesque work, with
twisted and moulded shafts, and a profusion of carving in the capitals
and archivolts. Over this door is a circular window with dog-tooth in
the label, and a quatrefoil piercing in the centre; and on each side, in
the other bays, are round-arched windows of two lights. There is a very
considerable likeness between the plan of this church and that of San
Juan at Lérida.[106] In both, the overwhelming size and grandeur of the
doorway as compared with that of the building, combined with its central
position, produces at first the impression that it is the western, and
not the southern, façade one is looking at. This is a defect; yet
perhaps more so to the eyes of an Englishman, who now as of old prefers
creeping through little holes[107] in the wall into his finest churches,
than to those of any one used to the noble doorways of the Continent.
The interior of La Magdalena is more interesting than the exterior; for,
in addition to the good early detail of the arches across the chancel,
it has at the east end of the nave some very fine and very peculiar
monuments. Two of these are high tombs, with lofty canopies over them,
occupying the space between the side walls of the nave and the jambs of
the chancel arch. These canopies are square-topped, with round arches on
the two disengaged sides, and carried upon large shafts standing
detached on the floor. The detail of the canopies is as plain as
possible; but the capitals are carved with very pure and vigorous
conventional foliage, and the shafts are twisted; the moulding on those
of the northernmost of the two monuments being reversed in mid-height,
so as to produce a large and simple chevron. The mouldings of the shaft
are carefully stopped below the necking, and above the base. The effect
of this monument, filling in as it does the angle at the end of the
nave, is extremely good; its rather large detail and general proportions
giving it the effect of being an integral part of the fabric rather
than, as monuments usually are, a subsequent addition.
[Illustration: Monument, la Magdalena.]
To the west of the monument already mentioned, against the north wall,
is another of about the same age--probably the early part of the
thirteenth century--and even more curious in its design. It has three
shafts in front carrying the canopy; and this is composed of two
divisions of canopy-work, very similar to those so often seen in French
sculpture over figures and subjects in doorways; under each are a pair
of monsters--wyverns, or some such nondescripts--fighting. The capitals
are similarly carved, and the abaci have conventional foliage. The tomb
under the canopy has a plain coffin-shaped stone with a cross on it; but
against the wall are, below, a figure lying in a bed carved on a bold
block of stone projecting from the wall; and, above this, the soul of
the departed being carried up by angels. The whole design and character
of this monument are so unlike any other work that I know, that I give a
native artist the credit of them. Yet the character of the detail seems
to me to show an acquaintance with the French and Italian architecture
of the day.
La Magdalena is said to have been a church founded by the Knights
Templars, but on the suppression of their order in A.D. 1312 to have
become the property of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.
[Illustration: San Vicente. Zamora.]
San Miguel, near the picturesque market-place in the centre of the city,
has a fine south door. The archivolts are bold, but quite plain, and
square in section. Each order is carried on three shafts, and the
boldness of the effect is very striking. On the other side of the Plaza
the tall tower of San Vicente rises well up against the sky. It has a
fine west doorway, and rises above the roof in three stages, lighted
respectively by windows of one, two, and three lights. It is finished
with a simple corbel-table, above which is a modern roof. The whole of
the detail here is fine, simple, early-pointed, very pure and good. The
church seems to be almost entirely modernized.
In the lower and eastern part of the city there are also one or two
interesting churches. San Leonardo has a square tower engaged against
the north side of the west front, very plain below, but with a
belfry-stage of two pointed windows, moulded angles, simple
corbel-table, and a low square slated spire--the slates cut to pattern,
like scales. The fine west door of this church is round-arched, and on
either side of it are great brackets sculptured with a lion and a bear.
Sta. Maria de la Horta is a church of the same class as La Magdalena. It
has a western tower, a nave of three bays of quadripartite groining
carried on very bold piers and shafts in the side walls, a chancel, and
apsidal sanctuary. The apse has a semi-dome, with a pointed archway in
front of it. The chancel has a round waggon-vault, and the arch between
it and the nave is semi-circular. The vaulting of the nave is extremely
domical in its section. The light is admitted by small windows in the
upper part of the walls, and above the abaci of the groining shafts,
which are continued round the building as a string-course. The west
doorway is round-arched, with chevron, and a sort of shell or
flower-ornament in its arch-mouldings. The tower is of the prevailing
type: in the stage above the roof there is a window of one light; in the
next there are two lights; and above this the steeple has been
destroyed, and a modern roof added. The walls outside are finished with
a fine and bold thirteenth-century eaves-cornice.
I think one may see here the local influence exercised by the fine
Romanesque tower of the cathedral, which, in its division into equal
stages, with an increasing number of openings, has been followed in all
these other steeples.
A walk over the bridge takes one to the ruins of a rather fine church
close to its further end. This has an apse of seven sides, with good
windows of two lights, with a trefoiled circle in the head; above this
is a string-course with trefoiled arcading under it, and above this a
second tier of windows. The whole is of good early middle-pointed
character.[108]
The walls here, as in so many of the Spanish towns, are fairly perfect,
and are thickly studded with the usual array of round towers throughout
their length. The bridge already mentioned is probably a work of the
thirteenth century. The arches are perfectly plain and pointed,
springing from about the water-level. The piers between the arches
project boldly; and over each is a small arch pierced through the
bridge, which gives a good deal of additional effect to the design. The
grand length of this bridge, with its long line of pointed arches
reflected in the lazily-flowing Douro, and backed by the towers and
walls of the city, is extremely striking. Neither of the gateways on it
is really old; but nevertheless they add much to its picturesqueness.
The only old domestic building of any note that I saw in Zamora was a
very late Gothic house in the Plaza de los Momos. The entrance doorway
has the enormous and exaggerated arch-stones so common in the later
Catalan buildings, but not often seen in this part of Spain. It has
above it a label, which is stepped up in the centre to enclose a great
coat-of-arms, with its supporters. On either side of this are two
windows which, with the coat-of-arms in the centre, make a panel of the
same width as the door below. The other principal windows are on a line
with these, and all of them of thoroughly debased design. They are of
two round-headed lights enclosed within a label-moulding, which finishes
in an ogee trefoil; and this again within another label-moulding, either
square or ogee in the head. The vagaries of these later Gothic
architects in Spain are certainly far from pleasant; yet odd as its
detail is, the plain masses of unbroken wall in the lower part of this
front give it a kind of dignity which is seldom seen in modern work. The
practice of making all the living-rooms on the first-floor of course
conduces largely to this happy result.
I was unable, unfortunately, to spare time when I was at Zamora to go
over to Toro to see the fine Collegiata there. M. Villa Amil has given a
drawing of the domed lantern over the Crossing. In plan it is similar to
the domes at Salamanca and Zamora as to the angle pinnacles, but not as
to the gabled windows between them. But it appears to have lost its
ancient roof; and I cannot understand, from the drawing, how the domical
roof, which it was no doubt built to receive, can now possibly
exist.[109] It seems pretty clear that this example is of rather later
date than that at Salamanca; and we have therefore in Zamora, Salamanca,
and Toro a very good sequence of Gothic domes, all upon much the same
plan, and most worthy of careful study. A more complete acquaintance
with this part of Spain might be expected to reveal some other examples
of the same extremely interesting kind of work.
From Zamora, cheered by the recollection of perhaps the most gorgeous
sunset and the clearest moonlight that I ever saw, I made my way across
country to Benavente. It is a ten hours’ drive over fields, through
streams and ditches, and nowhere on a road upon which any pains have
ever been bestowed; and when I say that the country is flat and
uninteresting, the paternal benevolence of the government which leaves
such a district practically roadless will be appreciated. Beyond
Benavente the case is still worse, for the broad valley of the Esla,
leading straight to Leon, is without a road along which a tartana can
drive, though there is scarcely a hillock to surmount or a stream to
cross in the forty miles between a considerable town and the capital of
the province!
Soon after leaving Zamora some villages were seen to the right, and one
of them seemed to me to have a church with a dome; but my view of it was
very distant, and I cannot speak with any certainty. From thence to
Benavente no old building was passed.
[Illustration: No. 12.
BENAVENTE.
EAST END OF STA. MARIA. p. 102.]
Benavente is the most tumble-down forlorn-looking town I have seen. Most
of the houses are built of mud, rain-worn for want of proper thatching,
of only one story in height, and relieved in front by a doorway and
usually one very small hole for a window. There is, however, a
church--Sta. Maria del Azogue--which made the journey quite worth
undertaking. It is cruciform, with five apses projecting from the
eastern wall, that in the centre larger than the others.[110] The apses
have semi-domes, the square compartments to the west of them
quadripartite vaulting in the three centre, and waggon-vaults in the two
outer bays. The transepts and crossing are vaulted with pointed
barrel-vaults at the two ends, and three bays of quadripartite vaulting
in the space between these two compartments; and the internal effect is
particularly fine, owing to the long line of arches into the eastern
chapels and the rich character of most of the details. The nave and
aisles no doubt retain to some extent their old form and arrangement,
but most of the work here is of the fifteenth century, whilst that of
the eastern part of the church is no doubt of circa A.D. 1170-1220. The
west front is quite modernized. The transept walls are lofty, and there
is a simple pointed clerestory above the roofs of the eastern chapels,
and a rose window over the arch into the Capilla mayor. The smaller
chapels have each one window, the centre chapel three windows with the
usual three-quarter engaged shaft between them, finishing in the
eaves-cornice. The south transept has a fine round-headed doorway, but
all its detail is that of early-pointed work. It has an Agnus Dei
surrounded by angels in the tympanum, the four Evangelists with their
emblems in one order of the arch, bold foliage in the next, a deep
scallop ornament in the third, and delicate foliage in the label. The
capitals are well carved, and the jambs of the door and one of the
members of the archivolt have simple rose ornaments at intervals. The
abaci of the capitals are square, but notwithstanding this and the other
apparently early feature of the round arch I am still not disposed to
date this work earlier than circa A.D. 1210-20.[111] Of the same age and
character probably are all the eaves-cornices of the earlier part of the
church, and, I have little doubt, the whole lower portion of the church
itself.
There is a fine doorway to the north transept, and a lofty tower of very
singular design rises over its northern bay. This is three stages in
height above the roof, and is finished with a corbel-table and a modern
spire of ogee outline. The masons’ marks on the exterior of the walls
are here, as is usual in these early churches, very plentiful.
The church of San Juan del Mercado seems to be in some respects even
more interesting than the other. It has a south doorway of singularly
rich character, the two inner orders of the arch being round and the
others pointed. The shafts are unusually rich and delicate; they are
carved with acanthus-leaves diapered all over their surface, with
chevrons and spiral mouldings, and above their bands at mid-height have
in front of them figures of saints, three on either side. The tympanum
has the Adoration of the Magi, and the order of the arch round it is
sculptured with angels. Altogether this is a very refined and noble
work, and the combination of the pointed and round arches one over the
other is very happy. The west front has also a fine doorway and engaged
shafts at intervals in the wall, and the east end is parallel triapsidal
of the same character as that of San Juan.
There are some other churches, but those which I saw seemed to be all
late and uninteresting. There are, too, the rapidly wasting ruins of an
imposing castle. It is of very late sixteenth century work, and
apparently has no detail of any interest; but the approach to it through
a gateway, and up a winding hilly road under the steep castle walls, is
very picturesque. By its side an Alameda has been planted, and here is
the one agreeable walk in Benavente. Below is the river Esla, winding
through a broad plain well wooded hereabouts with poplars and aspens; in
the background are lines of hills, and beyond them bold mountain
outlines; and such a view, aided by the transparent loveliness of the
atmosphere, was enough to make me half-inclined to forget the squalid
misery of everything that met the eye when I passed back again to my
lodging.
[Illustration: SALAMANCA:--Ground Plans of old and new Cathedrals:--and
of San Marcos:--Plate IV.
Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]