LEON.
It is a ride of some six-and-thirty or forty miles from Benavente to
Leon. The road follows the course of the valley of the Esla all the way,
and, though it is as nearly as possible level throughout, it is
impassable for carriages. This is characteristic of the country; the
Spaniards are content to go on as their fathers have done before them,
and until some external friend comes to make a railway for them, the
people of Benavente and Leon will probably still remain as practically
isolated from each other as they are at present.
The valley is full of villages, as many as ten or twelve being in sight
at one time on some parts of the road. None of their churches, however,
seem to be of the slightest value. They are mostly modern and built of
brick, though some have nothing better than badly built cob-walls to
boast of; and their only unusual feature seems to be the great western
bell-gable, which is generally an elevation above the roof of the whole
width of the western wall, in which several bells are usually hung in a
series of openings. The villages, too, are all built of cob; and as the
walls are either only half-thatched or not thatched at all, they are
gradually being worn away by the rains, and look as forlorn and sad as
possible. One almost wonders that the people do not quit their hovels
for the wine-caves with which every little hill near the villages is
honeycombed, and upon which more care seems to be bestowed than upon the
houses. In these parts the peasants adorn the outside of their houses
with plenty of whitewash, and then relieve its bareness with rude red
and black paintings of sprigs of trees, arranged round the windows and
doors.
The cathedral of Leon is first seen some three or four hours before the
city is reached. It stands up boldly above the well-wooded valley, and
is backed by a noble range of mountain-peaks to the north; so that,
though the road was somewhat monotonous and wearying, I rode on
picturing to myself the great things I was soon to see. Unfortunately I
visited Leon a year too late, for I came just in time to see the
cathedral bereft of its southern transept, which had been pulled down to
save it from falling, and was being reconstructed under the care of a
Madrilenian architect--Señor Lavinia. I saw his plans and some of the
work which was being put in its place, and the sight made me wish with
double earnestness that I had been there before he had commenced his
work! In England or in France such a work would be full of risk, and
might well fill all lovers of our old buildings with alarm; but in Spain
there is absolutely no school for the education of architects, the old
national art is little understood and apparently very little studied,
and there are no new churches and no minor restorations on which the
native architects may try their prentice hands. In England for some
years we have lived in the centre of a church-building movement as
active and hearty perhaps as any ever yet known; our advantages,
therefore, as compared with those possessed by foreigners generally, are
enormous; whilst perhaps, on the other hand, in no country has so little
been done as in Spain during the present century. Yet in England few of
us would like to think of pulling down and reconstructing one side of a
cathedral, and few would doubt that art and history would lose much in
the process, even in the hands of the most able and conservative
architect.
The two great architectural features of Leon are the cathedral and the
church of San Isidoro; and to the former, though it is by much the most
modern of the two, I must first of all ask my readers to turn their
attention.
Spaniards are rightly proud of this noble church, and the proverbs which
assert its pre-eminence seem to be numerous. One, giving the
characteristics of several cathedrals, is worth quoting:--
“Dives Toletana, Sancta Ovetensis
Pulchra Leonina, fortis Salamantina.”
And again there is another Leonese couplet:--
“Sevilla en grandeza, Toledo en riqueza,
Compostella en fortaleza, esta en sutileza.”
So again, just as our own people wrote that jubilant verse on the
door-jamb of the Chapter-house at York, here on a column in front of the
principal door was inscribed--
“Sint licet Hispaniis ditissima, pulchraque templa,
Hoc tamen egregiis omnibus arte prius.”
There used to be a controversy as to the age of this cathedral, which
must, however, one would think, long since have been settled. It was
asserted that it was the very church built at the end of the ninth
century during the reign of Ordoño II.; and the only proof of this was
the inscription upon the fine fourteenth-century monument of the King
which still stands in the aisle of the chevet behind the high altar:--
“Omnibus exemplum sit, quod venerabile templum
Rex dedit Ordonius, quo jacet ipse pius.
Hunc fecit sedem, quam primo fecerat ædem
Virginis hortatu, quæ fulget Pontificatu.
Pavit eam donis, per eam nitet urbs Legionis
Quesumus ergo Dei gratia parcat ei. Amen.”
Fortunately, however, in addition to the indubitable evidence of the
building itself, there is sufficient documentary evidence to give with
tolerable exactness the dates of the commencement and completion of the
existing church, and I did not see, and believe there is not, a relic of
the church which preceded it still remaining.
One or two facts of interest in regard to the first cathedral may,
however, well be mentioned here. The architect is said by Sandoval to
have been an Abbat; and in Ordoño II.’s absence he is said to have
converted the old Roman baths in the palace into a church, the plan
being similar to that of churches with three naves.[112] It is
interesting to find this plan so popular in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, already described as existing in the ninth.[113]
Don Manrique, Bishop of Leon from A.D. 1181 to A.D. 1205, is said to
have been the first founder of the present cathedral. The contemporary
chronicler Don Lucas de Tuy speaks most positively on this point, and as
he wrote his history in the convent of San Isidoro close by, it is
difficult to dispute his testimony.[114] How much he completed nowhere
appears, though, judging by the style of the church, I should say it
could have been but very little. Later than this, in A.D. 1258, during
the episcopate of D. Martin Fernandez, a Junta of all the bishops of the
kingdom of Leon was held at Madrid, at which the state of the fabric of
the cathedral was discussed, and forty days of indulgence offered to
those who made offerings towards the further promotion of the
works.[115] Sixteen years later a council was held in Leon, and again
the state of the fabric of the church was discussed and indulgence
offered to those who gave alms for it.[116] Finally, in A.D. 1303, the
Bishop Don Gonzalez gave back to the use of the Chapter a property which
had been devoted to the work of the church, “because,” he says, “the
work is now done, thanks be to God.” Nothing more clear on the face of
it than this list of dates can be desired; yet, as frequently happens,
when we come to compare them with the building itself, it is utterly
impossible to believe in the most important part of it--the foundation,
namely, of any part of the present church in the time of Bishop Manrique
before the year 1205. I have elsewhere in this volume had occasion to
show how much the Spaniards borrowed from the French in their
architecture. Certain entire buildings, such as Burgos, Toledo, and
Santiago, are distinctly derived from French churches, and in all cases
are somewhat later in date than the French examples with which they most
nearly correspond. If we apply this test to Leon it will be impossible
to admit that any part of the existing church was built much before A.D.
1250. The church from beginning to end is thoroughly French; French in
its detail, in its plan, and in its general design. And inasmuch as
there is no long and regular sequence of Spanish buildings leading up
step by step to the developed style which it exhibits, it is quite out
of the question to give it credit for an earlier existence than the
corresponding French churches, in the history of which such steps are
not wanting.
[Illustration: No 13.
LEON CATHEDRAL. p. 108
INTERIOR OF AISLE ROUND THE APSE.]
The churches which are nearest in style to Leon are, I think, the
cathedrals at Amiens and Rheims, and perhaps the later part of S. Denis.
Of these, Amiens was in building from A.D. 1220 to A.D. 1269, and Rheims
from A.D. 1211 to A.D. 1241. But both are slightly earlier in their
character than Leon. In all three the chapels of the apse are planned in
the same way; that is to say, they are polygonal and not circular in
their outlines, and the sections of the columns, the plans of the bases
and capitals, and the detail of the arches and groining ribs are as
nearly as may be the same; and in all these points the resemblance
between them and Leon Cathedral is close and remarkable.
A similar conclusion will be arrived at if we pursue the inquiry from a
different point, and compare this cathedral with other Spanish works of
the date at which it is assumed to have been in progress. I can only
suppose that Don Lucas de Tuy, when he spoke of Bishop Manrique’s work
at the cathedral, did so only from hearsay, or else that the work then
commenced was subsequently completely removed to make way for the
present building. Certainly in A.D. 1180-1200 all Spanish churches seem
to have been built on a different plan, in a very much more solid
fashion, and so that it would have been very difficult indeed to convert
them into anything like the existing building. I venture to assume,
therefore, that the scheme of Leon Cathedral was first made circa A.D.
1230-1240, and that the work had not progressed very far at the time the
Junta of bishops was held in Madrid in A.D. 1258.
In plan[117] the cathedral consists of a nave and aisles of six bays,
transepts, a choir of three bays, and chevet of five sides, with a
surrounding aisle and pentagonal chapels beyond. There are two western
towers, a large cloister on the north side, sacristies on the
south-east, and a large chapel on the east side of the cloisters, with
other buildings on their northern and western sides, arranged very much
in the usual way; the chevet projects beyond the line of the old city
wall, one of the towers of which is still left on the east side of the
cloister. The city was long and narrow; and whilst the cathedral
projects to the east of the wall, the church of San Isidoro has its
western tower built out beyond the western face of the wall. There is
not, however, here, as there is at Avila, any very distinct attempt to
fortify the chevet of the cathedral, otherwise than by forming passages,
passing through the buttresses all round it, and by raising the windows
high above the ground on the east.
There are doorways in all the three grand fronts, west, north, and
south; but these shall be described further on. The columns throughout
are cylindrical, with attached shafts on the cardinal sides, the
groining-shafts towards the nave and choir being, however, triple,
instead of single. In the apse the small shafts are not placed regularly
round the main shaft, but their position is altered to suit the angles
at which the arches are built. The same alteration of plan occurs in the
chevet of Amiens, a work which was in progress about A.D. 1240, and to
which, as I have said, the plan of this cathedral bears considerable
resemblance.
The feature which most struck me in this cathedral was the wonderful
lightness which characterizes its construction in every part. The
columns of the nave are of moderate size, and the arches which they
carry very thin, whilst the large and lofty clerestory, and the
triforium below it, were both pierced to such an extent as to leave a
pier to receive the groining smaller than I think I ever saw elsewhere
in so large a church. There are double flying buttresses, one above the
other, and the architect trusted, no doubt, that the weight of the
groining would be carried down through them to such an extent as to make
it safe to venture on as much as he did. Moreover, he was careful to
economize the weight where possible; and with this view he filled in the
whole of his vaults with a very light tufa, obtained from the mountains
to the north of Leon.[118] In short, when this cathedral was planned,
its architect must either have resolved that it should exceed all others
in the slender airiness of its construction, or he must have been
extremely incautious if not reckless. It is not a little curious that in
France, at the same time, the same attempt was being made, and with the
like result. The architect of Beauvais, unable to surpass the majestic
combination of stable loftiness with beauty of form, which characterized
the rather earlier work at Amiens, tried instead to excel him alike in
height, and in lightness of construction. No one can pretend that he was
an incompetent man, yet his work was so imprudently daring, that it was
impossible to avoid a catastrophe; and we now have it rebuilt, to some
extent in the same design after its fall, but with so many additional
points of support as very much to spoil its symmetry and beauty. Here,
then, we have an exactly parallel case: for at Leon, no sooner was the
church completed than it became necessary to build up the outer lights,
both of the clerestory and triforium, to save the work from the same
misfortune. Nor was the precaution altogether successful, for, owing
almost entirely to the over-hazardous nature of the whole construction,
the south transept had recently, it is said, become so dangerously rent
with cracks and settlements as to render it absolutely necessary to
rebuild it; and the groining throughout the church shows signs of
failure everywhere, and this of serious, if not of so fatal a character.
At the risk of repetition, I cannot help saying how strongly this
parallel between Beauvais and Leon tells in favour of the assumption
that its origin was rather French than Spanish. For in Spain there were
no other churches at the time it was built from which a Spanish
architect could have made such a sudden development as this design would
have been. The steps by which it would have been attained are altogether
wanting, and yet in France we have every step, and, finally, results of
precisely the same kind. Both at an earlier and at a later date, when
Spaniards made use of their own school of architects, they developed for
themselves certain classes of churches, unlike, in some respects, to
those of any other country. Here, however, we have an exotic, which,
like the cathedral at Burgos, is evidently the work of some artist who
had at least been educated among the architects of the north of France,
if he was not himself a Frenchman. The proof of this is to be found more
perhaps at S. Denis than anywhere, for there the section of the
mouldings of the clerestory windows, as well as their general design,
tallies so closely with the same parts of Leon Cathedral that it is
almost impossible to doubt their common origin.
One other feature not yet insisted upon, affords strong evidence in the
same direction. This cathedral is a mere lantern, it has scarcely a yard
of plain unpierced wall anywhere, and the main thought of its architect
was evidently how he might increase to the utmost extent the size of the
windows, and the spaces for the glorious glass with which he contrived
to fill the church. No greater fault could be committed in such a
climate. This lavish indulgence in windows would have been excessive
even in England, and must have always been all but insupportable in
Spain. It was the design of French and not Spanish artists, for in their
own undoubted works these last always wisely reduced their windows to
the smallest possible dimensions. The cathedral at Milan is a case of
the same kind, for there a German architect, called to build a church in
a foreign land, built it with as many windows as he would have put had
it been in his own country, and with a similar contempt for the customs
of the national architects to that which marks the work of the architect
of Leon Cathedral.
Regarding this cathedral, then, as a French, rather than as a Spanish
church, and giving up all attempt to make it illustrate a chapter of the
real national artistic history, we shall best be able to do justice to
it as a work of art. It is, indeed, in almost every respect worthy to be
ranked among the noblest churches of Europe. Its detail is rich and
beautiful throughout, its plan very excellent, the sculpture with which
it is adorned quite equal in quantity and character to that of any
church of the age, and the stained glass with which its windows are
everywhere filled, perhaps some of the most brilliant in Europe.
There are many features in its construction and design which must be
referred to somewhat in detail, and to this part of my subject I must
now turn.
I have already mentioned that the triforium throughout the church was
originally glazed. In order to obtain this the aisles were covered with
gabled roofs, whose ridges were parallel with the nave; and in order to
allow of this being done a stone gutter was formed below the sills of
the clerestory windows, and below this again corbels were built into the
wall to carry the aisle roofs; cross gutters also of stone were carried
through the roof in each bay from the clerestory gutter to the outer
wall of the aisles. I cannot say that the effect of this arrangement is
good. The eye seems to require some grave space of wall between the main
arches and the glazing of the clerestory; and it is difficult to say on
what ground the triforium is to be treated as a separate architectural
division of the fabric, when it is in truth, as it is here, nothing more
than a prolongation of the clerestory.
The flying buttresses are rather steep in pitch, and each consists of
two arches abutting against very broad buttresses rising from between
the side chapels; the lower arch supports the clerestory just at the
level of the springing of the groining; the higher a few feet only below
the parapet. Two pinnacles rise out of each of the buttresses, and
others form a finish to them all round the clerestory, and at the angles
of the chapels of the apse.
The windows throughout have good traceries. They are all of pure
geometrical character; those in the chapels of the choir being of two
lights, with large cusped circles in the head, and those in the
clerestory of four lights, subdivided into two divisions, similar to the
chapel windows, with another cusped circle above. The heads of the
lights throughout the windows are uncusped, the cusping being confined
to the traceries. The clerestory windows originally had six lights, but
the outer lights were rather clumsy additions to the original scheme for
four-light windows, and have since been walled up, to give the necessary
strength to the groining piers. The general arrangement of the traceries
in this part of the church will be best understood by reference to the
engraving which I give of one bay of the choir.
[Illustration: Bay of Choir, Leon Cathedral.]
The stone-work of all the window traceries was very carefully cramped
together with strong toothed iron plugs let into the centre of the
stones, and the masons seem, in many cases, to have marked the beds and
not the face of the stones. Indeed, the early masons’ marks are but few
in number, and most of those that I saw occurred at the base of the
eastern walls, and again in the upper portion of the work. On the late,
and thoroughly Spanish chapel of Santiago also, a good many occur on the
outer face of the stones. Owing to the works which were in progress in
the south transept, I had an unusually good opportunity of looking for
these marks, not only on the face of the stones, but also on their beds,
and their almost entire absence from the early work was very remarkable.
On the other hand, there were markings on some of the other stones which
were of much more interest. I found, for instance, one of the large
stones forming the capital of the pier at the crossing of the nave and
transepts, carefully marked, first with an outline of the whole of the
jamb mould, then with the lines of the capital, and finally with the
whole of the archivolt. It had all the air of being the practical
working drawing used for the execution of the work, some little
alterations having been made in the archivolt. It is easy to conceive
that the architect may thus have designed his details, and his mode
bears considerable analogy to that which M. Verdier describes as having
been adopted at Limoges, where the lines of the groining and all the
working outlines were scratched on the floor of the triforia; here the
lines are scratched boldly on the surface of the stones.
The walls throughout the church were built of rubble, faced with wrought
stone inside and out, and some of the failures in the work are
attributable, no doubt, to the want of strength and bond of this kind of
walling.
The dimensions of the various parts are about as follows:--
Total internal length 300 feet.
“ width of nave and aisles 83 feet.
Height to springing of main arches 25 feet 6 inches.
“ floor of triforium 46 feet.
“ centre of groining about 100 feet.
These dimensions, though not to be compared to those of many of the
French churches, are still very noble, and would place this among the
finest of our own buildings in respect of height; but, like all Spanish,
and most French churches, the length is not very grand.
The various views of the exterior are fine, but everywhere the height of
the clerestory appears to be rather excessive. This is seen even at the
west end, where a little management might easily have prevented it. But
the two steeples standing beyond the aisles leave a narrow vertical
chasm between their side walls and those of the clerestory, which is
brought out, without any break in its outline by means of buttresses,
quite to the west front. The lower part of these steeples is perfectly
plain; each has a sort of double belfry stage, and they are both
finished with low spires--that on the south pierced with open traceries,
and that on the north simply crocketed; both of them are somewhat
ungainly, of very late date, and not sufficiently lofty or important for
the church to which they are attached.
The grand feature of the west front is the beautiful porch which extends
all across, forming three grand archways, corresponding with the nave
and aisles, with smaller and extremely pointed arches between them.
These arches are all supported on clustered shafts, standing away
between four and five feet from the main wall, in which the doorways are
set. Statues are set on corbels round the detached shafts, and again in
the jambs of all the doorways, and the tympana and archivolts of the
latter are everywhere crowded with sculpture. An open parapet is carried
all across the front above the porch, and above this the west end is
pierced with a row of four windows corresponding with the triforium, and
again, above, by a very large and simple wheel-window. The finish of the
west front is completely modernized, with a seventeenth-century gable
between two pinnacles.
The sculpture of the western doors well deserves description and
illustration. It is charming work, of precisely the same character as
the best French work of the latter half of the thirteenth century, and
there is a profusion of it.
The central west door has in the tympanum our Lord seated, with angels,
and St. John and the Blessed Virgin worshipping on either side. Below is
the Last Judgment, the side of the Blessed being as pretty and
interesting as anything I have seen. A youth sits at a small organ
playing sweet songs to those who go to Paradise; and a king, going
jauntily, and as if of right, towards St. Peter, is met by a grave
person, who evidently tells him that he must depart to the other and
sadder side. The three orders of the arch are filled with the
resurrection of the dead, angels taking some, and devils others, as they
rise from their graves,--the whole mixed very indiscriminately. On the
central shaft is a statue of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord, now with
wretched taste dressed up and enclosed in a glass case, to the great
damage of the whole doorway.
The north-west doorway has its tympanum divided in three horizontal
lines. The lower compartment has the Salutation, the Nativity, an
Angel, and the Shepherds; the middle the Magi adoring our Lord in the
Blessed Virgin’s arms, and the Flight into Egypt; and the upper, the
Massacre of the Innocents. The arch of this door is elliptic, and the
space between it and the tympanum is filled with figures of angels with
crowns and censers, playing an organ and other instruments, and singing
from books. The meaning of the sculpture in the archivolt was not clear
to me, and seemed to refer to some legend.
The south-west doorway has the tympanum divided as the last, and in the
lower compartment the death of the Blessed Virgin; next to this our Lord
and the Blessed Virgin seated; and above, angels putting a crown on her
head. The archivolt here is adorned with one order of sitting figures of
saints and two of angels.
The east end is more striking than the west. It retains almost all its
old features intact, save that the roof is now very flat, and covered
with pantiles, whereas it is probable that at first it was of a steep
pitch. It stands up well above the sort of boulevard which passes under
its east end, and when seen from a little further off, the steeples of
the western end group well with it, and, to some extent, compensate for
the loss of the old roofing line.
The south transept had been entirely taken down when I was at Leon, and
the sculpture of its three doorways was lying on the floor of the
church. It is of the same fine character as that of the western doors;
the central door has a figure of our Lord with the emblems of the
Evangelists on either side, and beyond them the Evangelists themselves
writing at desks. Below this are the twelve Apostles seated, and the
several orders of the archivolt are carved with figures of angels
holding candles, sculptures of vine and other leaves, and crowned
figures playing on musical instruments. The south-west door of the
transept has no sculpture of figures, but the favourite diapers of
fleur-de-lys and castles, and lions and castles, and an order of foliage
arranged in the French fashion, _à crochet_. The south-east door has in
its tympanum the death of the Blessed Virgin, with angels in the
archivolt holding candles. The gable of this transept seems to have been
very much altered by some Renaissance architect before it was taken
down.
The north transept has two doorways, only one of which is now open. This
has a figure of our Lord seated within a vesica, supported by angels,
and the archivolt has figures of saints with books. The jambs
have--like all the other door-jambs--statues under canopies, and below
them the common diaper of lions and castles. The closed north-west door
of this transept now forms a reredos for an altar; it has no sculpture
of figures.
The north transept doorway opens into a groined aisle which occupies the
space between the transept and the cloister. This aisle is very dark,
and opens at its eastern end into the chapel of Santiago, a fine late
building of the age of Ferdinand and Isabella, running north and south,
and showing its side elevation in the general view of the east end to
the north of the choir.
The cloister is so mutilated as to have well-nigh lost all its
architectural value. The entrance to the porch in front of the north
transept is, however, in its old state; it is a fine doorway, richly and
delicately carved with small subjects enclosed in quatrefoils. The
original groining shafts, which still remain, show that the whole
cloister was built early in the fourteenth century; the traceries,
however, have all been destroyed; and the groining, the outer walls, and
buttresses altered with vast trouble and cost, into a very poor and weak
kind of Renaissance. But if the cloister has lost much of its
architectural interest, it is still full of value from another point of
view, containing as it does one of the finest series of illustrations of
the New Testament that I have ever seen, remaining in each bay of the
cloister all the way round. These subjects begin to the east of the
doorway to the north transept, and are continued round in regular order
till they finish on its western side. I have not been able to learn
anything as to the history of these works. If they are Spanish, they
prove the existence of a school of painters of rare excellence here, for
they are all more or less admirable in their drawing, in the expression
of the faces, and in the honesty and simplicity with which they tell
their story. The colours, too, where they are still visible, are pure
and good, and the whole looked to me like the work of some good
Florentine artist of about the middle of the fifteenth century. It would
not be a little curious to find the King or Bishop of Leon not only
sending to France for his architect, but to Tuscany for his
wall-painter, and, if it be the fact, it would show how firm must have
been the resolve to make this church as perfect as possible in every
respect, and how little dependence was then placed on native talent.
The subjects represented are the following, each painting filling the
whole of the upper part of the wall in each bay of the cloister:--
1. The Birth of the Blessed Virgin.
2. Her Marriage.
3. The Annunciation.
4, 5, 6. Destroyed.
7. Massacre of the Innocents, and Herod giving orders for it.
8, 9. Destroyed.
10. The Blessed Virgin Mary seated with our Lord, angels above,
and three figures with nimbi sitting and adoring, others with
musical instruments.
11. The Baptism of our Lord.
12. Destroyed.
13. An ass and its foal, Jerusalem in the background, and indistinct
groups of figures.
14. Our Lord riding into Jerusalem. The city has circular towers all
round, and churches
with two western octagonal steeples.
15. The Last Supper.
16. Our Lord washing the Disciples’ feet; some figures on the right
carrying water-jars are drawn with extreme grace.
17. Destroyed.
18. The Betrayal.
19. Our Lord bound and stripped, and,
20. Scourged. (These two subjects are very finely treated.)
21. Brought to the Place of Judgment: desks with open books on them
in front.
22. Buffeted and spit upon.
23. Judged: Pilate washing his hands.
24. Bearing the Cross. (This subject is painted round and over a monument
on which is the date XXIII. October, A.D. MCCCCXL.; so that it must
be of later date than this.)
25. Nailed to the Cross: the Cross on the ground.
26. The Descent from the Cross.
27, 28. The Descent into Hell.
29. The Incredulity of St. Thomas, and the appearance of our Lord on
the way to Emmaus.
30. The Ascension.
31. The Descent of the Holy Ghost.
It will be noticed that the Crucifixion is most remarkably omitted from
this series. There is no place on the wall for it, and it occurred to me
as possible that there may have been a crucifix in the centre of the
cloister, round which all these paintings were, so to speak,
grouped.[119]
There are several fine monuments in these cloisters, some of them
corbelled out from the wall, and some with recumbent effigies under
arches in it. One of the latter is so fine in its way as to deserve
special notice. The arch is of two orders, each sculptured with figures
of angels worshipping and censing our Lord, who is seated in the
tympanum of the arch holding a book and giving His blessing. Below, on a
high tomb, is the effigy recumbent; and behind it, below the tympanum,
two angels bearing up the soul of the departed. The sculpture is
admirable for its breadth and simplicity of treatment; and the monument
generally is noticeable for the extent to which sculpture, and sculpture
only, has been depended on, the strictly architectural features being
few and completely subordinate.
The cloister is surrounded by buildings, some of which only are ancient.
On the north side are the chapel of San Juan de Regla, another chapel,
and the Chapter-house. The latter has one of those foolish Spanish
conceits, a doorway planned obliquely to the wall in which it is
set.[120]
In the church itself there are several very fine monuments. The most
elaborate is that of Ordoño II., the original founder of the old
cathedral, which occupies the eastern bay of the apse, with its back to
the high altar. This is sometimes spoken of as if it were a contemporary
work. It is, however, obviously a work of the fourteenth century, and
recalls to mind some of the finest monuments in our own churches. The
effigy of the king, laid on a sloping stone, so that it looks out from
the monumental arch, is singularly noble, very simple, of great size and
uncommon dignity. The general design of this fine monument will be seen
in my view of the aisle round the choir.
Another monument in the north transept has a semicircular arch carved
alternately with bosses of foliage and censing angels; and within this a
succession of cusps, the spandrels of which have also angels. The
tympanum has a representation of the Crucifixion;[121] and below this,
in an oblong panel just over the recumbent figure, is a representation
of the service at a funeral. The side of the high tomb has also an
interesting sculpture representing a figure giving a dole of bread to a
crowd of poor and maimed people, whilst others bring him large baskets
full of bread on their backs. The date in the inscription on this
monument is Era 1280, _i.e._ A.D. 1242.
In a corresponding position in the west wall of the south transept is
another monument of a bishop, recessed behind three divisions of the
arcade which surrounds the walls of the church. The effigy is rather
colossal, and has a lion at the head, and another under the feet. Over
the effigy is a group of figures saying the burial office; and above, in
panels within arches, are, (1) St. Martin dividing his Cloak, (2) the
Scourging of our Lord, and (3) the Crucifixion. The soffeits of the
arcade are diapered, and there were three subjects below the figure of
the bishop, but they are now nearly destroyed.
The arches round the Capilla mayor were walled up, and those on either
side of the monument of Ordoño II., already described, still retain the
paintings with which they were all once adorned. They are of the same
class as those in the cloister, and one of them, a large Ecce Homo, is
certainly a very fine work. Unfortunately the figure of our Lord in the
centre has been very badly repainted, but the troop of soldiers and Jews
reviling Him on either side is full of life and expression.
The choir occupies the two eastern bays of the nave, and its woodwork is
fine, though of late fifteenth-century date. There are large figures in
bas-relief, carved in the panels behind the stalls. There is a western
door from the nave into the Coro; and in part on this account, and in
part from its considerable scale, the nave has less than usual of the
air of uselessness which the Spanish arrangement of the Coro produces.
I have already incidentally mentioned that the windows are full of fine
stained glass. It is all of the richest possible colour, and most of it
of about the same date as the church. Modern critics would, no doubt,
object to some of the drawing for its rudeness and want of accuracy. Yet
to me this work seemed to be a most emphatic proof--if any were
needed--that we who talk so much about drawing are altogether wrong in
our sense of the office which stained glass has to fulfil in our
buildings. We talk glibly about good drawing, and forget altogether the
much greater importance of good colour. At Leon the drawing is forgotten
altogether, and I defy any one to be otherwise than charmed with the
glories of the effect created solely by the colour. At present in
England our glass is all but invariably bad--nay, contemptible--in
colour; whilst the so-called good drawing is usually a miserable attempt
to reproduce some sentimentality of a German painter. Two schools might
well be studied a little more than they are; the one should be this
early school of rich colourists, and the other the beautiful works of
the sixteenth and seventeenth century French glass-painters, where there
is good drawing enough for any one, and generally great beauty and
simplicity of colour. Finally, two practices might be suggested to our
stained-glass painters,--one, that they should only use good, and
therefore costly glass; and the other, that they should limit their
palettes to a few pure and simple colours, instead of confusing our eyes
with every possible tint of badly-chosen and cheaply-made glass.
If we want religious pictures in our churches--as we do most surely--let
us go to painters for them, and, with the money now in great part thrown
away on stained glass, we might then have some works of art in our
churches of which we might have more chance of feeling proud, and for
which our successors would perhaps thank us more than they will for our
glass.[122]
I have detained my readers only too long, I fear, upon this cathedral,
but it is too full of interest of all kinds to allow of shorter notice,
and is, in its way, the finest church of which Spain can boast; at the
same time the work is all so thoroughly French as to destroy, to some
degree, the interest which we should otherwise feel in it.
The other great architectural attraction of Leon is the church of San
Isidoro “el Real.” This is altogether earlier than, and has therefore an
interest entirely different from, that of the cathedral.
Gil Gonzalez Dávila says that the church was founded in A.D. 1030,[123]
by Ferdinand I., the Great. An inscription in the floor of the church
gives the name of its architect;[124] and from the mention of Alonso
VI., who came to the throne in A.D. 1065, and his mother Sancha, who
died in A.D. 1067, the date of his death must have been between these
two periods.[125] In A.D. 1063 King Ferdinand--Alfonso’s father--and
Queen Sancha had very richly endowed the church, in the presence of
various bishops, who had come together to celebrate the translation of
the remains of San Isidoro.[126] Finally Dávila, in his History of the
Cathedral at Avila, gives the date of the consecration of the church,
from a deed in the archives there, as A.D. 1149.[127]
From these statements it would seem that the church was fit for the
reception of the body of San Isidoro in A.D. 1065, and had then three
altars; and yet that in A.D. 1149 it was consecrated, though indeed Ponz
speaks of an inscription in the cloister which mentions the _dedication_
of the church in A.D. 1063.[128]
San Isidoro was one of the most popularly venerated saints in Spain, and
many are the miracles said to have been wrought by him. One of them is
not a little suggestive of plans for church-building, not a whit behind
the cleverest schemes of the present day. It is said that in a time when
much sickness prevailed, the body of the saint was taken out in
procession to a village near Leon, Trobajo del Camino, the bearers of
the body barefooted, and all singing hymns, in order to charm away the
disease from the people. Suddenly the weight became so great that it was
impossible to move or lift the saint, even by the aid of a strong body
of men: and many complained not a little of the Canons for bringing the
body out on such an errand, whilst the King, who was at Benavente, was
so incensed, that he insisted, as the saint would not move, that they
should build a church over him for his protection; and at last came the
Queen, grieving bitterly appealing to “her beloved spouse” San Isidoro,
and saying, “Turn, O blessed confessor! turn again to the monastery of
Leon, which my forefathers, out of their devotion, built for you;” and
then the saint, moved by her prayer, allowed himself to be borne back
upon the shoulders of four children, who brought him back to Leon amid
the rejoicings of the people: and these, moved by the miracle, at once
built a chapel on the spot which the saint had marked out for the
purpose by his pertinacious refusal to move until the King had ordered
it to be built, and until the Queen had shown how deep was her interest
in the work.
[Illustration: Interior of S. Isidoro.]
But I must not dwell longer on what is merely legendary, but return to
this church of San Isidoro at Leon. It is cruciform in plan,[129] with
apsidal chapels on the eastern side of the transepts. The nave and
aisles are of six bays in length, and there is a tower detached to the
west. There is a chapel dedicated to Sta. Catalina (now called El
Panteon) at the north-west end of the church, and a choir of the
sixteenth century takes the place of the original apse. The whole of the
nave is vaulted with a waggon-vault, with transverse ribs under it in
each bay; and this vault is continued on without break to the chancel
arch, there being no lantern at the crossing. The arches into the
transepts have a fringe of cusping on their under sides, which has a
very Moorish air, and the transepts are vaulted with waggon-vaults, but
at a lower level than the nave. The chapels to the east of the transept
are roofed with semi-domes. The nave has bold columns, with richly
sculptured capitals, stilted semi-circular arches, and a clerestory of
considerable height, with large windows of rich character.
The whole interior of the church has been picked out in white and brown
washes to such an extent, that at first sight its effect is positively
repulsive: nevertheless, its detail is very fine. The capitals are all
richly sculptured, generally with foliage arranged after the model of
the Corinthian capital; but some of them _historiés_ with figures of men
and beasts; and I noticed one only with pairs of birds looking at each
other. The western part of the church is abominably modernized, but the
alterations in the fabric evidently commenced at a very early period,
for in the south aisle one of the groining-shafts is carried up exactly
in front of what appears to be one of the original aisle windows. I
confess myself quite at a loss to account for this, unless it be by the
assumption that the church, consecrated in A.D. 1149, was commenced on
the same type as S. Sernin, Toulouse--copied, as we shall see further
on, at Santiago--and that before the consecration the original triforium
had been altered into a clerestory by the alteration of the aisle-roofs
and the introduction of quadripartite vaulting in them at a lower level,
thus necessitating the introduction of the groining-shaft in front of a
window. The difficulty did not occur to me forcibly when I was on the
spot, and I am unable to say, therefore, how far a thoroughly close
examination of the work would clear it up. It might of course be said
that such an alteration proves that the church was of two periods; and
such an opinion would be to some extent supported by reference to the
certainly early character of the south door, which might have been
executed before A.D. 1063. But I am, on the whole, disposed rather to
regard the chapel of Sta. Catalina as the original church, and to assume
that the remainder of the building was built between A.D. 1063 and A.D.
1149, and that the awkward arrangement to which I have just referred
was, in fact, the result of some accident or change of plan. This
supposition would reconcile more satisfactorily all the difficulties of
the case than any other, and would tally well with what I have been able
to learn as to the history of the church. The body of San Isidoro was
sent for rather suddenly, and brought from Seville, and the King had
but short time for the preparation of the building for its reception.
Two years later the body of San Vicente was brought from Avila, and no
doubt the popularity of the two saints soon made it necessary to enlarge
the church. Then it might well happen that the old church was left in
its integrity, and the new building added to the east, but with its
north wall in a line with the north wall of the old one, so as to allow
of the cloister being built along their sides, and without at all
disturbing the early church or its relics. The relative position of the
churches makes it probable, in short, that the large church was added to
the small one, and not that the latter was a chapel added to the former.
The style of the two buildings leads to the same conclusion, for in Sta.
Catalina Ave have a small, low, vaulted church, two bays only in length
and three in width. The two detached columns which carry the vaults are
cylindrical, with capitals of somewhat the same kind as those in the
church, but simpler and ruder. Recessed arches in the side walls contain
various tombs of the Royal Family, who for ages, from the time of
Fernando I. and Doña Sancha his queen, have been buried here; and the
very circumstance that this little chapel was selected for the burial of
so many royal persons, seems to make it extremely probable that it was
the very chapel in which the body of San Isidoro had first been laid.
The door of communication from the chapel to the church has an arch of
the same kind as the transept arches, semi-circular and fringed with
several cusps; and the chapel is now lighted by two open arches on the
north side, which communicate with the cloister. The groining is all
quadripartite, without ribs, but with plain bold transverse arches
between the bays.
The exterior of the church has some features which have all the air of
being very early and original in their character. Such is the grand
south doorway of the nave. Its arch is semicircular, and above it the
spandrels are filled with sculpture. Above this is a line of panels
containing the signs of the Zodiac; below are figures with musical
instruments; and below these again, on the west, is a figure of San
Isidoro, and on the right a figure of a woman, I think, book in hand,
both of them supported on corbels formed of the heads of oxen. The
tympanum itself is divided into two parts, the lower half being
surmounted by a flat pediment, and the upper filling up the space from
this to the _intrados_ of the arch. The upper half has an Agnus Dei in a
circle in the centre, and the lower half has Abraham’s sacrifice, with
figures on horseback on either side. The head of the opening of the
doorway is finished with a square trefoil, under which rams’ heads are
carved. The whole detail of this sculpture is very unlike that of most
of the early work I have seen in Spain; the figures are round and
flabby, and badly arranged, and very free from any of the usual
conventionality. All this made me feel much inclined to think that the
execution of this work was at an early date, and soon after the first
consecration of the church.
The elevation of the south transept is rather fine. It has a doorway,
now blocked, with a figure against the wall on either side, standing
between the label and a second label built into the wall from buttress
to buttress. Above this is a rich corbel-table, and then an arcade of
three divisions, of which the centre is pierced as a window; in the
gable is another statue standing against the wall. The doorway has its
opening finished with a square trefoil, and the tympanum is plain. The
design of the apsidal chapel east of the apse is so precisely like the
eastern apsidal chapels of many of the Spanish Romanesque churches,[130]
that its date must, to some extent, be decided by theirs: and it may
well be doubted whether it can be much earlier than circa A.D. 1150,
though the lower part of the south transept appeared to me to be as
early as the south door, or at any rate not later than A.D. 1100.
The walls are all carried up high above the clerestory windows, and
finished with corbel-tables, carved with a billet-mould on edge, and
carried on corbels moulded, not carved. Simple buttresses divide the
bays of the clerestory.
The choir, as has been said, was a late addition in place of the
original Romanesque apse. It was built in A.D. 1513, or a little after,
by Juan de Badajoz, master of the works at the cathedral.[131] It is of
debased Gothic design and coarse detail, but large and lofty. The
groining at the east end is planned as if for an apse, and portions of
diagonal buttresses, to resist the thrust of the groining ribs, are
built against the east wall, in the way often to be noticed in the later
Spanish buildings. The east window was of two lights only, and is now
blocked up by the Retablo. In this church there is a perpetual
exposition of the Host, and the choir is therefore screened off with
more than usual care, none but the clergy being allowed to enter it. At
Lugo, where there is also a similar exposition, the choir is left open,
but two priests are always sitting or kneeling before faldstools in
front of the altar.
[Illustration: No. 14.
SAN ISIDORO, LEON p. 126.
SOUTH TRANSEPT.]
I could not gain admission to the cloister on the north side of the
church; it is large and all modernized, and surrounded by the buildings
of the monastery, which is now suppressed. A chapel dedicated to the
Holy Trinity was founded here in A.D. 1191, and a list of the relics
preserved at its altar is given on a stone preserved in the convent.
The chapel of Sta. Catalina, already described, is specially interesting
on account of the remarkable paintings with which the whole of the
groining is covered. These all appeared to me to have been certainly
executed at the end of the twelfth century, circa A.D. 1180-1200, and
they are remarkably rich in their foliage decoration, as well as in
painting of figures and subjects. Beginning with the eastern central
compartment, over the altar, and going round to the right, the subjects
in the six bays of the vault are as follows:--
(1.) In this our Lord is seated in a vesica, at the angles of
which are four angels, with the heads of the four Evangelists,
with their books and names painted beside them. Our Lord’s
feet are to the east, and He holds an open book and gives His
blessing.
(2.) The angel speaking to the shepherds, with the inscription,
“_Angelus a pastores_.”
(3.) The Massacre of the Innocents.
(4.) The Last Supper, painted without the slightest regard
to the angles formed by the groining, and as if the vault were a
flat surface.
(5.) _a._ Herod washing his hands.
_b._ St. Peter denying our Lord.
_c._ Our Lord bearing his Cross.
_d._ The Crucifixion (this is almost destroyed).
(6.) Our Lord seated with His feet to the west; the seven
churches around Him, seven candles, and an angel giving the
book to St. John.
The soffeits of the cross arches between the vaults are painted, some
with foliage, others with figures. Of the latter, one has the twelve
Apostles, another the Holy Spirit in the centre, with angels worshipping
on either side, and a third a Hand blessing (inscribed “Dextra Dei”) in
centre, and saints on either side. The whole detail of the painted
foliage is of thoroughly good conventional character, and just in the
transitional style from Romanesque to Pointed.
There is a fine steeple detached from the church to the west. It stands
on the very edge of the old town wall, several of the round towers of
which still exist to the north of it, and below the great walls of the
convent built within them. This steeple is very plain below, but its
belfry stage has two fine shafted windows in each face, and nook shafts
at its four corners. It is capped with a low square spire with small
spire-lights: but as I found the working lines of all this drawn out
elaborately on the whitewashed walls of one of the cloisters, and as all
the work appears to be new, I cannot say whether or no it is an exact
restoration, though I dare say it is.
In the sacristy there are some paintings, of which one or two are of
great beauty. One is a charming picture of the Blessed Virgin with our
Lord, with angels on either side, and others holding a crown above: the
faces are sweet and delicate. One of the attendant angels offers an
apple to our Lord; the other plays a guitar: the background is a
landscape. The frame, too, is original. It has a gold edge, then a flat
of blue covered with delicate gold diaper, and there are two shutters
with this inscription on them:--“_Fœlix ē sacra virgo Maria et
omni laude dignissima quia in te ortus est sol justicie Chrūs Deus
noster._” There is also a very little triptych, with a Descent from the
Cross, and an inscription on the shutters. Two figures are drawing out
the nails, and hold the body of our Lord; two other figures on ladders
support His head and feet, and St. Mary and St. Mary Magdalene weep at
the foot of the cross. The inscriptions on the shutters are from
Zachariah xii., _Plagent eum, &c._, and Second Corinthians, “_Pro
omnibus mortuus est Christus_.” There are other paintings which the
Sacristan exhibits with more pride, but these two are precious works, of
extremely good character, and painted probably about the end of the
sixteenth century.
Leon is a much smaller city than might be expected for one so famous in
Spanish history; its streets wind about in the most tortuous fashion;
there are but few buildings of any pretension, and I saw no other old
churches. There is indeed a great convent of San Marcos, built from the
designs of Juan de Badajoz, in the sixteenth century, and afterwards
added to by Berruguete, but I forgot to go to see it, and his work at
San Isidoro makes me regard the omission as a very venial one. Round the
city, on all sides, are long groves of poplars which look green and
pleasant; there is a river--or at least in summer, as I saw it, the
broad bed of one--and over the low hills which girt the city is a
background of beautiful mountains. Both for its situation, therefore,
and for the artistic treasures it enshrines, Leon well deserves a
pilgrimage at the hands of all lovers of art.
[Illustration: LEON:--Ground Plan of Cathedral &c. Plate V.
Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]
[Illustration: LEON:--Ground: Plan: of: Church: of: San: Ysidoro: Plate
VI.
Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]