MADRID--ALCALÁ--GUADALAJARA--SIGÜENZA.
On my first journey to Madrid I travelled most of the way from
Valladolid by diligence, and though the way was long and weary, the
passage of the Sierra de Guadarrama was very fine, and I remember few
pictures more lovely than that which we saw at sunrise, as we climbed
the northern side of the mountains amid groups of stone-pines; whilst
the steep descent to the village of Guadarrama, on the south, with a
slight distant view of Madrid, and a near view of the Escorial, was
quite a thing to be remembered with pleasure. Now, however, instead of
arriving at Madrid hot, dusty, and sore with a diligence journey, the
railway is completed, and the line of country it takes is so beautiful
between Avila and Madrid as to leave no room for regrets for the old
passage of the mountains by road.
The entrance to Madrid is not very striking. For the last three or four
miles the road passes by a fair amount of planted woods, but the river
by its side is dry and dreary, and every one in the hot season at which
I arrived seemed to be gasping for breath. A very small suburb only is
passed before the Queen’s palace is reached: this is built on the edge
of a steep hill overhanging the river, and commands a grand view of the
Sierra de Guadarrama. This is indeed the one and only glory of such a
site as that of Madrid, for were it not for this distant view, I know
nothing more dreary and unhappy than the country with which it is
surrounded. At the same time, partly owing to the great height above the
sea, and partly, probably, to the neighbourhood of this mountain range,
the climate here is most treacherous, changing rapidly from the most
violent heat in the daytime, to what seems by contrast to be icy
chilliness at night.
A garden with statues is laid out in front of the palace, and beyond
this, passing some narrow streets, one soon reaches the Puerta del Sol,
a fine irregular space in the centre of the city, with a fountain in the
centre which is always playing pleasantly, and on great occasions sends
up a jet to an unusual height. The Puerta del Sol is very irregular,
and on sloping ground, and hence it has a certain pleasing
picturesqueness, which probably accounts for the reputation it has
achieved.
There is one great attraction to me in Madrid, and only one--the Picture
Gallery. And it is as well for travellers to take up their quarters in
one of the hotels near the Puerta del Sol, where they are within a walk
of it, rather than in the respectable Fonda de Ynglaterra, where I found
myself quite too far from everything that I wanted to see.
I discovered no old churches here. Madrid is, in fact, a thoroughly
modern city, and is remarkable as not being the see of a bishop, the
Archbishops of Toledo having succeeded in retaining it in their diocese.
I found, therefore, nothing whatever to do in the way of
ecclesiologizing; and yet, on the whole, having formed a very low
estimate of the place beforehand, I was rather agreeably disappointed.
The situation is unquestionably fine, the views of the mountains
beautiful, the streets busy and smart, and the fountains, which seem to
be innumerable, are on a scale which would astonish our London
authorities. The evenings are always deliciously cool, and then all
Madrid is on the move; the very well laid out and planted Prado is
thronged with smart people on foot, and smarter people in carriages; and
until one has suffered as one does from the extreme heat of the day, it
is hardly possible to imagine the luxurious freshness of the cool night.
It is said, however, to be a dangerous pleasure, pulmonary complaints
being very common.
The two great sights are the Museo and the Armeria; the latter is said
to be the best collection of arms in Europe, but somehow I always
managed to want to go there too early or too late, and, after divers
mistakes, in the end did not see it at all. Of the Museo it is difficult
to speak with too much enthusiasm: the number of pictures is enormous,
and it seemed to me that there was a larger proportion than is usual of
very first-rate works. Its deficiency is mainly in early
pictures--Italian, German, and Spanish. The early Italian schools are
represented by one Angelico da Fiesole only: this is a beautiful
example; an Annunciation, with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden
on the left of the picture, and five subjects from the life of the
Blessed Virgin in the predella. Among these, the Marriage of the Blessed
Virgin has a close resemblance to Perugino’s and Raffaelle’s celebrated
pictures. I could see no examples of Francia or Perugino, not to speak
of earlier men; whilst the few early German works were none of them of
any great interest.
On the other hand, the pictures by Titian, Velasquez, Raffaelle,
Veronese, Tintoret, Murillo, and others of the great masters of their
age, are numerous and magnificent beyond description.
Velasquez and Titian are both so grand that I hardly knew which to
admire the most; of the former, perhaps on the whole the most charming
work is the portrait of Prince Balthazar, a noble boy, galloping forward
gallantly on his pony; whilst of the Titians, I think the most striking
was a weird-looking portrait of Charles V. in armour on horseback.
Murillo of course is in great force; he has frequent representations of
the Assumption, always treated in the same way: his work has a religious
spirit wanting in the manlier work of Titian and Veronese, but yet not
the true religious spirit so much as a sentimental affectation of it. Of
Ribera--better known in England as Spagnoletto--there are a great many
examples, generally disagreeable portraits of emaciated saints in
distorted attitudes, and a horrible elaboration of ghastliness. Juan
Juanes, an earlier Spanish painter, is much more agreeable, and he seems
to have been largely inspired by Perugino and his school; a series of
five subjects from the life of St. Stephen are perhaps the most
interesting of his works here.
The room in which the greatest treasures of the Gallery are collected is
called the Salon de la Reyna Isabel. Unfortunately a large opening in
the floor, to give light to a gallery of sculpture below, makes it a
little difficult to see some of the pictures at all well. At its upper
end is the famous Spasimo de Sicilia, a noble work, but spoilt by the
awkward and distorted drawing of the soldiers on the left. Near it is a
very fine Giovanni Bellini, the Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter; and
by its side a Giorgione, with a man in armour, as fine as anything I
know,--the subject, the Virgin and Saints. By Bronzino there is a
violin-player, a lad with a face beyond measure loveable. But it were
endless to go on through a list even of the _chefs-d’œuvre_ in such a
collection; and it is the less necessary to say much more than generally
to praise the whole Gallery as one of the first, if not the first, in
Europe, because, now that railways make the journey thither so much more
easy, some, no doubt, of our thousands of annual travellers will make
their way to Madrid, to make lists for themselves of the best of its
pictures.
There is as little interest in modern as in earlier architecture here;
the only development that struck me being a fashion the people have of
diapering houses all over with a kind of thirteenth-century painting on
plaster; but I was not struck with the beauty of the development. The
best street is the Calle de Alcalá, leading from the Puerta del Sol to
the Prado. It is of great width, rising from the Puerta del Sol and
falling to the Prado, and not straight, all which points are much in its
favour: but the houses on either side are not generally so fine as they
should be, and there is consequently a slightly faded look about it,
which is not otherwise characteristic of Madrid. To see the Calle de
Alcalá to advantage, the day of a bull-fight should be selected. Then
from half-past three to four all the world streams along it to the
arena, excited, running, pushing, buying red and yellow paper fans for
the seats in the sun, and as noisy, boisterous, and enthusiastic as all
the world at any of our own national gatherings. The _picadors_ in their
quaint dresses come galloping along on their sorry steeds, each attended
by a man in a blouse riding on the same horse, and whose office it is
afterwards to make the poor wretch face the bull by beating him with a
long stick. Omnibuses and vehicles of all kinds bring their share of the
mob; and when I took my seat, I believe there were not less than twelve
thousand people assembled, every seat in the rather shabby but vast
arena being full. Women formed a very small proportion only of the whole
number, and I noticed that a lady who sat near me seemed as much shocked
as I was at the brutal parts of the exhibition; for all parts of it are
by no means brutal, and, indeed, I should be inclined to limit the term
to those parts in which horses are introduced. It would be quite as
pleasant to indulge oneself by an occasional visit to a knacker’s yard,
as to sit quietly looking on whilst a furious bull rips up a miserable
beast, usually blindfolded, in order that it may not move from the spot
at which the _picador_ chooses to receive the attack; but this part of
the performance over, there is little that is disgusting, and a great
deal that is singularly exciting and skilful. The men seldom seem to be
in any real danger of being caught by the bull, and nothing can be
cleverer than the way in which one of the _chulos_ will dance before him
half across the arena, always avoiding his charge by a hair’s-breadth
only, or in which one of the _banderilleros_, seated in a chair, will
plant his two arrows exactly on each side of the bull just as he stoops
to toss him, and the next instant jump out of his seat, whilst the chair
is dashed to atoms by the furious beast.
I felt, however, that one bull-fight was enough for me; the treatment of
each bull is of necessity the same, and the mules have no sooner
galloped out of one door trailing the dead bull and his victims out of
the arena, than another dashes in from the opposite side, only to meet
the same fate. The way in which the bulls come in is very striking: they
rush in madly like wild beasts, and generally charge rapidly at one of
the _picadors_ or _chulos_. I asked a Spaniard how this was managed, and
he explained that in the den from which they emerge they are goaded with
sharp-pointed spears just before the doors are opened, and of course
come into the arena mad with rage!
The object of bull-fights seems to be generally charitable--in the sense
that charity bazaars are so. At Valencia, where they have recently
erected an arena which almost rivals in size the Roman amphitheatres,
the work has been done by the trustees of the hospitals, and this seemed
to be usually the destination of the receipts whenever I saw them
advertized. That it is possible to have a bull-fight of even a worse
kind than the Spanish I learnt at Nîmes, where the cicerone showing me
the amphitheatre explained that they had a bull-fight every Sunday, but
never killed their bulls--only goaded them week after week!
Whilst I was at Madrid I made an excursion to Alcalá de Henares, the
seat of Cardinal Ximenes’ famous university, under the impression that I
should find a good deal to reward me. In this, however, I was
disappointed, as the churches are mostly works of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, and the whole place is decayed, unprosperous, and
uncared for, without being picturesque and venerable.
The principal church, “El Magistral,” of SS. Just y Pastor--the tutelars
of the city--is a large, late church of poor style. It has a nave and
aisles of five bays, transepts and choir of one bay, and an apse of
three sides. The aisle round the apse is contrived with three square
bays and four triangular, and is evidently founded on the beautiful plan
of the chevet of Toledo cathedral; but I must say that Pedro Gumiel “el
Honrado,” Regidor of Alcalá, and architect of this church, has perfectly
succeeded in avoiding any repetition of the beauties of Toledo; his work
being thoroughly uninteresting and poor. The three western bays of the
nave are open; the two eastern enclosed with screens and stalled for the
Coro. A bronze railing under the Crossing connects the Coro with the
Capilla mayor. There are no less than six pulpits here! two at the
entrance to the choir for the Epistoler and Gospeller, two on the west
of the Crossing, and two more opposite each other against the second
column from the west in the nave. It looks just as though they had
ordered a pair of pulpits as they did a pair of organs; and as preaching
does not seem to be much the fashion now in Spain, I had no opportunity
of learning how these many pulpits were to be used. There are two
organs, one on each side over the Coro; that on the south so picturesque
as to be worthy of illustration.
[Illustration: Organ, Alcalá.]
Two great monuments--one in the nave, and one under the Crossing--are
remarkable for the position of the effigies with their feet to the west.
On the south side of the south transept is a small chapel roofed with a
most rich and delicate Moorish plaster ceiling; the whole was richly
coloured. It did not appear to be earlier than the church, which is said
to have been constructed between the years 1497 and 1509.
The University founded by Ximenes is in a wretched state of
dilapidation; it is said to have been designed by the same Pedro Gumiel
who built SS. Just y Pastor, but the work, so far as I saw it, was all
Renaissance. The façade and court behind it were the work of Rodrigo Gil
de Hontañon, between A.D. 1550 and 1553, and he destroyed Pedro Gumiel’s
work in order to erect it. By the side of the college stands the church
of San Ildefonso, which I suppose must be the chapel built by Pedro
Gumiel. It is, I believe, desecrated, and no one could tell me where the
key was to be found, so that I was unable to do more than get a note of
the curious Cimborio from the exterior. It is not a lantern, but rather
a raising of the whole centre of the church above the remainder. It is
constructed of brick and stone, and is evidently of late date. Under
this Cimborio, I believe, is the monument of the great Cardinal.
[Illustration: Domestic Window, Alcalá.]
There are considerable remains of the old walls, with circular towers
rather closely set around them. The bishop’s palace retains a fine
tower, which seems to have been connected with the town walls. It is
plain below, but has turrets picturesquely corbelled out on machicoulis
over the centre of each side and at each angle. A wing of the palace
which joins this tower has some very remarkable domestic windows, which
deserve illustration. The shafts are of marble, the tracery and the wall
below the sill of stone, but the wall of brick. The shafts are set
behind each other, there is a good ball-flower enrichment in the label,
and the mouldings are rich and good of their kind. Such a window seems
to unite the characteristics of two or three countries, and is, indeed,
in this, an epitome of Spanish art, which borrowed freely from other
lands, and often imported foreign architects, yet, in spite of all this,
is still almost always national in its character.
It is an easy journey from Alcalá to Guadalajara; and though the latter
place disappointed me much, it is still worthy of a few hours’ delay to
those who pass by it on the Madrid and Zaragoza railway. Seen from the
distance it is an imposing city, and if it be seen as I saw it during
fair time, full of peasants in gay costume, the general impression may
be not unpleasant; but unfortunately, the early architectural remains
are few and generally insignificant.
The church of Sta. Maria is the subject of a picturesque view in Villa
Amil’s book, and he deserves great praise for the skill with which he
has created something out of nothing. I could find no feature worth
recording save its two Moresque doorways, in one of which--that at the
west end--the arch is of the pointed horseshoe form, and the archivolt
is built of bricks, some of which are set forward from the face of the
wall in the fashion of the rustic work in the execution of which certain
schools of architects everywhere seem to take a grave pleasure, of
which, perhaps, it would be unkind to wish to deprive them.
The church of San Miguel has a portion of the exterior built in a rich
nondescript style--debased Moresque is, perhaps, the right term for
it--in the year 1540, as an inscription on the church records. The lower
part of the only original portion remaining is built of rough stone, the
upper of brick; and it is argued by some, I believe, that the use of the
two materials proves that the work was executed at different epochs. To
me it seemed that the whole was uniform in style, and evidently the work
of sixteenth-century builders. It has large circular projections at the
angles, which are finished with fantastic cappings, and sham machicoulis
below the ponderous overhanging cornices which ornament the walls both
at the end and sides. These cornices have deep brick consoles at
intervals, the spaces between them filled with crosses on panels of
terracotta. The rest of the church seems to be modernized. Both here and
at Sta. Maria there are external cloister passages outside the church
walls, modern in style and date, but similar in object to those of
Segovia and Valladolid already described. Another little church, called
La Antigua, has an eastern apse of brick and stone, with window openings
of many cusps formed very simply with bricks of various lengths. This
work is similar to much of the Moresque work at Toledo, and it is rather
remarkable how continuous the line of Moresque buildings from Toledo
to Zaragoza seems to be.
[Illustration: No. 27.
GUADALAJARA. p. 203.
PALACE OF THE DUKE DEL INFANTADO.]
I saw no other old church here; but the very fine late Gothic palace del
Infantado is well worth a visit. It is like so much Spanish work, a
strange jumble of Gothic and Pagan, slightly dashed perhaps with Moorish
sentiment, and with the somewhat strange feature that the most Gothic
portion is above, and the most Pagan below. The façade has a rich late
Gothic doorway, and the face of the wall is diapered all over with what
look like pointed nail-heads. The two lower stages have windows of the
commonest type, with pediments, whilst the upper stage has a rich open
arcade, every third division of which has a picturesque projecting
oriel, boldly corbelled forward from the face of the wall. Some Pagan
windows have evidently been inserted here; and it is possible that some
of the other details have been, but if so the work has been done so
neatly that it is difficult to detect the alteration. The courtyard or
_patio_ has seven open divisions on two sides, and five divisions on the
others, and is of two stages in height. The lower range of columns has
evidently been modernized, but in the upper they are very richly carved
and twisted. The arches are ogee trefoils cusped, and their spandrels
are clumsily filled with enormous lions cut in deep relief, and boldly
standing on nothing, whilst they manage to hold up a diminutive coat of
arms as a sort of finial to the arch. In the upper arcades griffins take
the place of the lions, and the arches are again richly cusped. I
noticed the date of A.D. 1570 on the capital of one of the columns, but
this I have no doubt was the date of the Pagan alterations, and not that
of the original fabric, which is said to have been erected in the year
1461.[195]
The Dukes del Infantado had a grand palace in this building, and though
it has long been neglected and disused, it seems as if it were again
about to be occupied, as I found workmen busily engaged in a sort of
restoration of the sculptures in the _patio_, which they were repairing,
if I remember right, with plaster.
The sight of a river is always pleasant in this part of Spain, and so,
though there is not much water in the Henares, I looked gratefully at
it, and at the trees growing by its banks, as I sauntered down to the
railway station after a rather weary day spent in vainly trying to find
enough to occupy my time and my pencil.
A railway journey of two or three hours carries one hence to a far
pleasanter and more profitable city, Sigüenza, whose cathedral is of
first-rate interest, and, generally speaking, well preserved. It is,
like so many of the Spanish churches, unusually complete in its
dependent building’s; and though these sometimes obscure parts of the
building which one would like to examine, they always add greatly to the
general interest. The plan[196] here consists of a nave and aisles of
only four bays in length, but the dimensions are so considerable that
the interior does not look short. Two western towers are placed at the
angles, touching the main walls only at one corner, and giving
consequently great breadth to the façade. There are transepts and an
apsidal choir, with an aisle, or procession-path--and no chapels--all
round it. The choir is old, the procession-path of Renaissance
character, and it is clear that when first built this church had no
choir-aisle with surrounding chapels, and it was, I have no doubt,
terminated in the usual early Spanish fashion, with three eastern
apsidal chapels.
I have not met with any notice of the foundation of this church, save
that given by Gil Gonzalez Dávila.[197] He says that the king Don
Alonso, after having gained Toledo from the Moors, and appointed
Bernardo archbishop, took Sigüenza, Al-maçan, Medina Celi, and other
places of importance. He then restored the cathedral here, which was
dedicated on June 19th, 1102, and appointed as first bishop Don
Bernardo, a Benedictine monk, who had taken the habit at Cluny, and who
was a native of France. The Archbishop of Toledo was his patron, and he
was one of the many French bishops appointed at this time to Spanish
sees through his great influence. The epitaph of D. Bernardo, given by
Dávila, records that he rebuilt this church, and consecrated it on the
day of St. Stephen in the year 1123. This inscription, however, is not
of much value, as it was written after the translation of the bishop’s
body in 1598. The second bishop was also a Frenchman, and a native of
Poitiers.
[Illustration: No. 28
SIGÜENZA CATHEDRAL p. 304.
INTERIOR OF NAVE AND AISLES LOOKING NORTH EAST]
A very small portion--if indeed any--of the work of the first bishop now
remains. There is one fragment of early Romanesque work to the east of
the cloister, which no doubt formed part of it; and it is just possible
that the three enormous cylindrical columns, which still remain in the
nave, are of the same age. If this be so, I should be inclined to assume
that the choir only was consecrated in A.D. 1123, and that the nave was
commenced and carried on very slowly, until, as the style developed,
the simple cylindrical columns were abandoned for the fine groups of
clustered shafts which are elsewhere used. The general style of the
church is a very grand and vigorous first-pointed, early in the style,
but still not at all Romanesque in character; and I know few interiors
which have impressed me more with their extreme grandeur and stability
than this. The truth is, that the somewhat excessive solidity of the
work--as heavy and ponderous in substance as the grandest Romanesque--is
singularly noble when combined as it is here with very considerable
height in the columns and walls, and with fine pointed arches, early
traceried windows, and good sculpture. Unfortunately this massive
grandeur is only a matter of envy to a wretched architect in the
nineteenth century, whose main triumph, if he would prosper, must be to
use as few bricks and as small fragments of stone as he can, to the
intent that his work should certainly be cheap, and in forgetfulness, if
possible, that it will also certainly be bad! Here, however, the
architect wrought for eternity as far as was possible, and with a
success which admits of no doubt and no cavil. He has been singularly
fortunate, too, in the comparative freedom from subsequent alterations
which his work has enjoyed. The Renaissance procession-path round the
choir, which is the most important addition, certainly spoils the
external effect; but it is hardly noticed in the interior, until you
find yourself under its heavy and tame panelled roof, and outside the
solid wall which still encircles the ancient apse.
The groining of the choir and transepts is sexpartite, but everywhere
else it is quadripartite; and the ribs, which are very bold in their
dimensions, are generally moulded, but over the crossing are enriched
with the dog-tooth ornament. The same decoration is also carved on the
clerestory windows of the choir and transepts.
The original windows generally still remain. Those in the aisles are
single round-headed lights of grand size, with double engaged shafts,
both inside and outside: those in the clerestory are of more advanced
character, some being of two and some of four lights, of the best early
plate tracery, with pointed enclosing arches. The western bay of the
choir has lancet clerestory windows, and the apse of seven sides has
also a lancet in each face, with a sort of triforium below, which is now
closed, but which before the addition of the procession-path was
probably pierced. Below this quasi-triforium the wall of the apse is
circular in plan, whilst above it is polygonal, and the difference shows
the very gradual way in which the building was erected, one of the most
usual points of distinction between the Romanesque and the early-pointed
planning of an apse being that in the former it is circular, and in the
latter polygonal.
In speaking of the windows, I have omitted to mention the finest, which
are undoubtedly the roses in the principal gables. That in the south
transept is one of the finest I know;[198] and whilst it is remarkable
for the vigorous character of its design it is also to be noted for a
peculiarity which I have before observed in early Spanish traceries.
This is the mode in which the traceries are, as it were, packed against
each other. It is especially noticeable in the outer line of circles
which are inserted like so many wheels abutting against each other, and
without the continuous central moulding to which we are generally
accustomed. Here, as well as in the interior, the dog-tooth ornament is
freely used; and the outer mouldings of the circle are of good
character.
The exterior of this church is of as great interest as the interior. The
two western steeples are of the very plainest possible character,
pierced merely with narrow slits, which light the small chambers in the
interior of the tower.
The buttresses are of enormous size; and in the angles between them and
the walls are set engaged shafts, which run up to and finish under the
arcaded eaves-cornices with which the walls are finished under the roof.
At the west end these shafts are carried up to a greater height, and
support three bold arches, one in each division of the façade,
corresponding in height pretty nearly with the groining inside. I find,
on looking at my notes on this church, that I observed upon this as a
feature which I recollected at Notre Dame, Poitiers; and there is some
significance, therefore, in the record of the fact that the second
bishop, in whose time probably this part of the church was built, was a
native of that city.
The western door is round-arched, but the cornice over it has been
destroyed; and the finish of the buttresses and whole upper part of the
west front have been modernized. The transept doors are not old, but
seem to be in their old places, placed close to the western side, so as
not to interfere with the placing of an altar against the eastern wall.
At Tudela cathedral the old doorways still remain just in the same
place; and viewed in regard to convenience, and not with a view to
making the most important and regular architectural elevation, there is
no doubt as to the advantage of the plan.
In addition to the two western steeples there is also one of more modern
erection and smaller dimensions on the east side of the south transept.
The other late additions to the church are some chapels on the south
side of the choir, a grand sacristy on its north side, some small
chapels between the buttresses on the north side, and the Parroquia of
San Pedro, running north and south, near the west end. This and the
chapel on the south side of the choir are of late Gothic date, and of
very uninteresting character. Indeed it is remarkable how little the
work of the later Spanish architects ordinarily has in it that is of
much real value. The early works always have something of that air of
mystery and sublimity which is the true mark of all good architecture,
whilst the later have generally too much evidence of being mere
professional cut-and-dried works, lifeless and tame, like the large
majority of the works to which a vicious system of practice has reduced
us at the present day.
The cloister, to which also the same remark will apply, was finished in
A.D. 1507 by Cardinal Mendoza, as we learn from an inscription in Roman
letters with a Renaissance frame round them, which is let into the wall
on the south side;[199] and I noticed that the very florid early
Renaissance altar-tomb and door to the cloister, which fills a great
part of the inside of the north transept, is inscribed to the memory of
the same cardinal.[200]
The buildings round the cloister are not remarkable. The summer
Chapter-house is of grand size, with a rather good flat painted ceiling,
and pictures of the Sibyls against the walls. At the south end is a
chapel with an altar, divided by an iron Reja from the Chapter-room.
A Renaissance doorway to another room on the east side of the cloister
has the inscription, _Musis. sacra. domus. hec_, and leads to the
practising-room for the choir.
The ritual arrangements here are of the usual kind. The bishop’s stall
is in the centre of the west end, and was made for its place; but the
whole of the woodwork is of the latest Gothic, and proves nothing as to
the primitive arrangement. Gil Gonzalez Dávila[201] gives an
inscription from the tomb of Simon de Cisneros, who died in 1326, and
who is there said to be the bishop: “Qui hanc ecclesiam authoritate
apostolica ex regulari in secularem reduxit ac multis ædificiis
exornavit.” I hardly know what buildings still remaining can be exactly
of this date; but it is evident that the statement refers to subordinate
buildings and not to the main fabric of the church.
The people of Siguëuza seem to be more successful than is usual in Spain
in the cultivation of green things. The cloister garden is prettily
planted, and has the usual fountain in the centre. There is a grove of
trees in the Plaza, on the south side of the church; and a public garden
to the north is really kept in very fair order, and looks pleasantly
shady.
I saw no other old building here except a castle on the hill above the
town, with square towers projecting at intervals from the outer wall;
but it seemed to have been much modernized, and I did not go into it.
[Illustration: SIGÜENZA: Ground Plan of the Cathedral &c. Plate XIII.
Published by John Murray. Albemarle Street 1865]