TARRAGONA.
No one should go from Valencia to Barcelona without paying a visit to
Tarragona. It is even now easy of access, and before long will be still
more accessible by means of the railway which is being made between the
two towns. I travelled from Barcelona to Tarragona and back again by
diligence, and both journeys, unfortunately, were made for the most part
by night, so that I am unable to speak very positively about the scenery
upon the road. But both on leaving Barcelona and again before I reached
Tarragona the road was very beautiful, and I have no doubt it would
reward any one who could contrive to give up more time and daylight to
it than I could. There is but one town of any importance on the
road--Villafranca de Panades,--and here I caught a glimpse of an old
church, which seemed to be of the fourteenth-century Catalan type, and
fully to deserve examination.
The approach to Tarragona is very lovely. The old city stands on the
steep slope of a hill, crowned by the stately mediæval cathedral, and
surrounded on all sides by walls, which are still very perfect and in
some parts unusually lofty and imposing. Below and beyond the walls to
the left, as you approach, is the mean and modern town which covers a
low promontory, and is now the centre of all the trade and business of
the city. A broad street, in which are the principal inns, divides the
two halves of the city, on the upper side of which the whole
architectural interest is centred. The views on all sides are beautiful.
Looking back to the east one sees hill after hill, ending in point after
point, which jut out into the sea one beyond the other, and, combining
with the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean, produce the most
charming picture. To the south, looking over the modern town, mole, and
harbour, is the sea; whilst to the west the eye wanders, well content,
over a rich green expanse of level land, studded all along its breadth
with rich growth of trees, till the view is bounded by the hills which
rise beyond the old town of Reus, now an active and enterprising centre
of manufacturing industry.
I ought, no doubt, to fill many pages here with an account of the Roman
antiquities, which are numerous and important, Tarragona having been one
of the most important Roman stations in Spain. But they have been often
described, and the time at my disposal allowed only of a hurried glance
at them, unless I chose to neglect in their favour the--to me--much more
interesting Christian remains, which I need hardly say I was not
prepared to do. The city walls are, I believe, to a considerable extent
Roman. There are remains--though but slight--of an amphitheatre; the
magnificent aqueduct, some little distance from the city, is one of the
finest in Europe; and, finally, there is a museum full of Roman
antiquities, which seem well to deserve due examination. But I was
obliged to neglect all these, giving them the most cursory inspection,
as I found in the cathedral ample occupation for every minute of my
time.
This is certainly one of the most noble and interesting churches I have
seen in Spain. It is one of a class of which I have seen others upon a
somewhat smaller scale (as _e.g._ the cathedrals at Lérida and Tudela),
and which appears to me, after much study of old buildings in most parts
of Europe, to afford one of the finest types, from every point of view,
that it is possible to find. It produces in a very marked degree an
extremely impressive internal effect, without being on an exaggerated
scale, and combines in the happiest fashion the greatest solidity of
construction with a lavish display of ornament in some parts, to which
it is hard to find a parallel. Unfortunately the documentary evidence
that I have been able to find as to the age of the various portions of
this church is not so complete as I could wish. A very elaborate and
painstaking history of the city is in course of publication; but when I
was there[265] the first volume only of this had been published, and
this was confined entirely to the Roman antiquities contained in the
Museum and other collections. The volume of España Sagrada, which
relates to Tarragona, contains but few documents of any value, and I
have been unable to put my hands upon any other which contains any at
all. Yet there cannot be much doubt that a see whose history is so
important, and whose rank is so high,[266] must have in its archives a
vast store of information, out of which might be gathered all the
material facts as to the foundation of, and additions to, the church.
A few notices of the building of the cathedral have, however, come under
my eye, and of these the most important are the following:--In A.D.
1089[267] Pope Urban II. addressed an epistle to the faithful,
recommending them to aid in every way in the restoration of the church,
which had then just been recovered from the hands of the Moors. Not long
after this, in A.D. 1131, Pope Innocent II. issued a Bull, wherein he
recommended the suffragan churches to contribute to the cost of
rebuilding the cathedral.[268] More than a century after this, works
were again in progress, for in the necrology of the cathedral, on 11th
March, 1256, mention is made of “Frater Bernardus, magister operis hujus
ecclesiæ;” whilst again, in 1298, Maestro Bartolomé is mentioned as the
sculptor who wrought nine statues of the apostles for the western
façade, the remainder having been executed by Maestro Jayme Castayls in
1375.
Comparing this cathedral with that of Lérida, of which the date is
tolerably well ascertained, it is difficult to pronounce decidedly which
is the oldest, except that the eastern apse here, which is very peculiar
in its character, has every appearance of being a work of the middle of
the twelfth century, at the latest, and earlier by far, therefore, than
the foundation of the church of Lérida, which was not commenced until
A.D. 1203, and which was finished and consecrated in A.D. 1278. I
believe, indeed, that the eastern part of this cathedral may most
probably have been commenced about A.D. 1131, in consequence of the Bull
of Innocent II., though the greater portion of the fabric (including the
nave and its aisles and the cloister) seems to me to have been executed
at the end of the twelfth and during the first half of the thirteenth
century; and it is very possible, therefore, that the Brother Bernardus,
who died in 1256, may have been the architect of the larger part of the
existing fabric, both of the church and its cloister.
The original plan of the cathedral was very simple. It had a nave and
aisles, transepts, with apsidal chapels to the east of them, a raised
lantern or Cimborio over the Crossing, and three parallel apses east of
it. On the north-east side of the church--an unusual position, selected
probably in obedience to some local necessity--is a large cloister of
the same age as the church, with a Chapter-house on its southern side.
The piers throughout are clustered in a very fine and massive style, and
of a section which is often repeated in early Spanish Gothic; each arch
being carried on two coupled half-columns, and the groining-shafts being
placed in a nook in the angle between each of these pairs of columns.
The nave piers are no less than 11 ft. 9 in. in diameter, the clear
width of the nave being about 40 ft. 8 in., and the span of the arches
east and west about 20 ft. The bases are finely moulded, and have
foliage carved on the angle between their circular and square members.
The capitals and abaci are carved generally with a most luxuriant
exuberance of conventional foliage, whilst the broad solid unmoulded and
unchamfered sections of the arches which rise above them seem to protest
gravely against any forgetfulness of solidity and massiveness as the
greatest elements at the disposal of the architect. The groining of the
nave and its aisles is all quadripartite, as also is that of the
transepts, save at the extreme end of the northern transept, which is
covered with a pointed waggon-roof. The choir has two bays of
cross-vaulting on its western portion and a semi-dome over the apse--a
form of roofing which is repeated over the other early apses; that of
the north transept having been rebuilt in the fourteenth century, and
vaulted in the usual manner. It is probable that the cross-vaults in the
choir were not originally contemplated, as they are carried on small
shafts raised on the capitals of the main groining-shafts, which may
perhaps have been intended to carry a waggon-vault. The roof of the apse
is considerably lower than that of the choir, and a small rose window is
pierced in the spandrel between the two. The arch in front of the
semi-dome of the apse is--like all the other main arches--pointed,
though those which open into the smaller apses are semi-circular. The
latter, being in the lower part of the wall, were, no doubt, completed
at an early date; whilst the former, being on the level of the groining,
would not be finished until much later. The apse is lighted with three
windows in the lower part of the wall, which are richly shafted inside,
and by seven small and perfectly plain round-arched windows, pierced in
the lower part of the semi-dome with very singular effect. On the
exterior all these windows are remarkable for a very wide splay from the
face of the wall to the glass--a feature of early work in England, and
usually preceding the common use of glass. The walls are carried up a
considerable height above the springing of the dome, in order to resist
its thrust, and are finished at the top with a rich projecting
corbel-table, from which, at regular intervals, five divisions are
brought still further forward, looking much like machicoulis, and yet
evidently introduced only for the sake of effect, as there is no access
to them. These projections are square in plan, carried on very large
corbels, and the cornice under the eaves has a course of square stones
set diagonally--a kind of enrichment very common in brickwork, and which
I saw in the early church of San Pedro at Gerona. The great depth of
this cornice is very imposing. The stone roof above it abuts against a
gable-wall, carried by the arch on its western side; but owing to the
destruction of the original finish of the staircase turrets, and the
erection of a steeple in the angle between the choir and the transept,
the general view has to some extent lost its original stern Romanesque
character.
[Illustration: Apse of Choir.]
[Illustration: Newel Staircase.]
The exterior of the other apses on the south has the same appearance of
age. The wall of one of them has been raised several feet at a later
date, but the other is still altogether in its original state. Both are,
of course, very low and insignificant as compared with the choir. The
whole detail of the great eastern apse appeared to me to have much more
the air of having been the work of an Italian than of a French
architect. The masonry is in extremely large square blocks, many of the
window-heads being cut out of one block of stone, and in this part of
the church I found a large number of masons’ marks on the face of the
stones. These tally, like most of those I have seen in Spain, very
closely with those which are found in our own buildings, and indeed with
those which are used by our own masons at the present day: it is,
however, comparatively rare to find them on the outer face of the
stones.[269] The stones marked in this way are tooled on the face, and I
observed that stones worked by the same man were marked indifferently
with perpendicular and diagonal tooling lines. On the south side of the
choir, just at its junction with the principal apse, is a staircase
which leads to the roof: this is carried up in a large square turret,
and is of remarkable construction. The newel is 1 ft. 6 in. in diameter,
and worked in stones, each of about 2 ft. 3 in. in height. Each of these
has three corbels, with sockets for the steps, which are thus supported
by the newel and yet independent of it. The aisles on either side of the
choir seem to have been intended to form the lower stage of steeples. On
the south side the Romanesque tower seems to have been built no higher
than the height of the side walls of the church; but subsequently--circa
A.D. 1300-1350--it was carried up as an octagonal steeple, with
buttresses against the canted sides of the lower stage over the angles
of the square base, finished with crocketed pinnacles. This tower
occupies the angle between the choir and transept, and I suppose that
traces would be found of a corresponding tower on the opposite side,
somewhat in the way so commonly met with in all the German Romanesque
churches. Unfortunately the north choir aisle was altered if not rebuilt
in the fourteenth century, and I was unable to examine the walls above
it, where the evidence of the existence of a second tower would have to
be sought. The roof of the apse on the east side of the south transept
presents an admirable example of a semi-dome, with the masonry arranged
in the usual fashion in regular horizontal courses, and the moulding of
the abacus of the arch in front of it carried round it as a
string-course at its springing.
The rest of the church is of rather later date than the east end. It is
all just of that transitional period in which, whilst the pointed arch
was used where great strength was required, the round arch was
nevertheless retained for the smaller openings in the walls. But the
capitals throughout the church are sculptured so magnificently, and in
so well-developed a style, that it is impossible to regard the work
anywhere, except at the extreme eastern end, as one in which a
Romanesque influence was paramount. We have, indeed, here one of those
cases in which almost all the character of the work has been stamped on
it by the hands of the sculptor rather than of the architect; for I
believe that, had it presented us with a series of plain Romanesque
capitals, we should have felt no difficulty about classing the whole
work as essentially Romanesque in style, whereas now the effect is
rather that of a glorious Pointed church, the exuberance of whose
sculpture is kept in subordination by the stern simplicity of the bold
unmoulded arches, the massive section of the piers, and the regularity
of the outline and firmness of shadow which the deep square abacus
everywhere enforces. Here, then, I thought I saw one of those openings
which are now and then almost accidentally given us for the infusion of
new vigour and greater spirit into our own works. It is no copying of a
Spanish work that I should wish to see attempted, but only a deliberate
determination on the part of the builder of some one building in England
to emulate the grand solidity of this old Spanish church; and if he
feels that this is by itself too rude and unpolished for an
overcivilized age like ours, then let him take a lesson from the same
old Spanish work, and show the extent of his refinement in the subtle
delicacy of the sculpture with which he adorns it. We have few if any
such churches in England. Our transitional examples are neither very
numerous nor very fine; and it is in Germany and in Spain--so far as my
experience goes--that we find the finest examples of this noble period.
In neither of these countries was the progress of architectural
development so rapid as it was in England and in the north of France,
and consequently such churches as the cathedrals of Tarragona, Lérida,
and Tudela were rising in Spain at the same time as the more advanced
and scientific, but perhaps less forcible and solemnly grand cathedrals
of Salisbury, Lincoln, and Wells were being built in England.
I hardly know when I have been much more struck than I was with the view
of the interior of the transept, of which I give an engraving. For
though the picturesque furniture of later times, the screens and
pulpits, the organs and other furniture, are in great contrast with the
glorious solidity of the old work, the combination of this with them
makes a singularly beautiful picture.
The nave of the cathedral at Tarragona has been a good deal altered by
the introduction of large fourteenth-century clerestory windows of three
lights. There is not and there never was a triforium, and the clerestory
throughout was, I have no doubt, the same in design that it still is in
the transepts, lighted by a simple round-headed window in each bay. The
groining has transverse arches or ribs of very large size, diagonal ribs
formed with a bold roll moulding only, and no wall ribs.
[Illustration: No 34.
TARRAGONA CATHEDRAL. p. 280.
VIEW ACROSS TRANSEPTS.]
The lantern over the Crossing still remains to be described. It is
octagonal in plan, segmental arches being thrown across the angles of
the square base to support its diagonal sides. The groining springs from
immediately above the apex of the main arches, and the light is admitted
by windows alternately of three and four lights. Its interior is very
fine. The ribs of its eight-celled vault are very bold, and the
dog-tooth enrichment is freely used round all the arches and along the
string-courses. The diagonal or canted sides of the lantern are carried
on pointed arches, the space below which is filled in with pendentives,
with the stones arranged in courses radiating from the centre. Such a
form of pendentive is rarely seen in works of this age. The details of
this lantern are all rather rude, and its height is not great, as it
rises only some twenty-five feet above the roofs. The outside has at
each angle a buttress, with an engaged shaft in front of it, and the
windows are all set within simple enclosing arches. Their tracery is
that of ordinary first-pointed windows, the three-light windows having
lancet lights, with the centre light longer than the others, and the
four-light windows having the two centre lights longest. The old outside
roof is destroyed; but the finish of the lanterns of Lérida and of the
old cathedral of Salamanca seems to make it pretty certain that it was
intended to have a pyramidal or domical stone roof. Access is now gained
to the top of the lantern by means of a passage boldly carried on an
arch which is thrown from the belfry window of the south-east steeple to
the side of the lantern. I ought to have mentioned that the upper stage
of this steeple is groined, and that the bells are hung in the window
openings; but this is not their original place, the jambs having been
cut away to make room for them. Its upper stage seems to have been
finished with a pinnacle at each angle, and a gable over each window
rising through the parapet--a somewhat similar design to that of the
great tower at Lérida, and to that of the Micalete at Valencia, both of
which ought, therefore, to be compared with this, and with which it is
probably contemporary.
The roofs are covered throughout with pantiles; but these are evidently
not the old covering, being put on very carelessly and interfering with
the design of the stonework. The position of the windows in the central
lantern proves that in the beginning of the thirteenth century the roofs
must have been very flat, and the probability is, therefore, that they
were all covered with flat-pitched stone roofs, similar to those of
Toledo and Avila.
Few of the original windows remain save those already noticed in the
eastern apses. At the west end of the aisles there are circular windows,
without tracery and with very bold mouldings enriched with two or three
orders of dog-tooth ornament. The windows in the aisles of the nave have
all been destroyed by the addition of chapels against the side-walls,
whilst the clerestory has been filled for the most part with early
geometrical tracery windows in place of the lancets, with which it was,
no doubt, originally lighted.
The doorways are numerous and somewhat remarkable for their position.
There are three at the west end, whereof those to the aisles are of the
date of the earliest part of the fabric, whilst the great central
western doorway, being an addition of the fourteenth century, will be
described further on. The tympanum of the western door of the north
aisle is sculptured with the Adoration of the Magi, the figures all in
niches and carved in small and very delicate style. The door of the
south aisle is similar in style, but simpler and without sculpture. The
other doors are, as will be seen on reference to the plan, placed in a
most unusual position in the north and south choir aisles. It is rare in
churches of this plan to find any doorway east of the transept, and
where the aisles or chapels are so short this seems to be a very good
rule. Here the access to the church is so near the altars of these
aisles as to produce a bad effect. The north door was evidently so
placed because it was necessary to put the cloisters in a most unusual
position, to the north-east of the church, and I suppose we must assume
that the south door was put in a corresponding position for no better
reason than that it might match the other.
[Illustration: No. 35
TARRAGONA. p. 283.
INTERIOR OF CLOISTER.]
The door from the cloister into the church is the finest in the church.
It is a round-arched doorway, with four engaged shafts in each jamb, and
a central shaft, which is remarkable for the grand depth and size of its
sculptured capital and base. All the capitals are very delicately
wrought, and with an evident knowledge of Byzantine art; and that of the
centre shaft has a subject sculptured on each face, of which the three
which are visible are: (1) The Procession of the Kings; (2) their
Worship of our Lord; and (3) the Nativity. The fourth side is concealed
by the modern door-frame, the doorway not having had a door at all
originally. A deep plain lintel forms the head of the door, and above
this the tympanum is filled with that often-repeated scheme, our Lord in
a vesica-shaped aureole, surrounded by the emblems of the Evangelists,
each of which has a book, as also has our Lord, who holds His in the
left hand, whilst He gives His blessing with the right hand. The small
spandrel between the round arch of this door and the pointed arch of the
vault above, is filled with a circle containing the monogram,
[Illustration: monogram] supported by two angels. On the same (south)
side of the cloister is the entrance to the Chapter-house, which follows
the invariable type of Chapter doorways, having a central doorway with a
window on either side of it. One of the groining-ribs is brought boldly
down between the doorway and one of the window openings, a peculiarity
which should be compared with the similar arrangement of the
Chapter-house at Vernela.[270] The detail is precisely the same as that
of the rest of the cloister, the arches all being semi-circular, and
the side openings being of two lights, with coupled shafts in place of
monials. In the east wall of the cloister, and close to the
Chapter-house, is another fine doorway of the same early style. Its door
was painted very richly with angels holding coats-of-arms; but this
delicate work is now almost all defaced. This spacious cloister is one
of the most conspicuous of the earlier portions of the cathedral. A
public thoroughfare does now, and probably did always, bound the
cathedral close to its southern wall, so that there was no room for the
cloister in the usual position to the south of the church. But it is
very rare, I think, to find the Chapter-house built as it is here,
opening out of the southern alley of the cloister, in place of the
eastern. Its character is unusually good, even in this country of fine
cloisters. Each bay has three round-arched openings divided by coupled
shafts, and above these two large circles pierced in the wall. The
arches and circular windows are richly moulded, and adorned largely with
delicate dog-tooth enrichments. Some of the circular windows above the
arcades still retain--what all, I suppose, once had--their filling in,
which was of very delicate interlacing work, pierced in a thin slab of
stone, and evidently Moorish in its origin, though, at the same time,
the work probably of Christian hands, as in some of them, the figure of
the Cross is very beautifully introduced.[271]
It is so rare to find any such influence as this exerted, that these
traceries have an artificial interest. Yet they are in themselves very
charmingly designed, and serve admirably to break the too-powerful rays
of the sun. Indeed, nothing in its way can be much prettier than the
effect of the shadows of these delicate piercings thrown sharply on the
pavement by the brilliant sunlight. The groining is carried by triple
engaged shafts, and its thrust resisted by buttresses, with an engaged
shaft on their outer face. The groining is simple quadripartite, and the
ribs are well moulded; many of the capitals are carved with great
vigour, and some of their abaci are covered also with stories admirably
rendered. Take, for instance, this story of the Cat and the Rats, which
I sketched on one of the abaci of the southern walk of the cloister. It
is full of a spirit and humour which are thoroughly foreign to the
conventional traditions of our present school of workmen. Give one,
now-a-days, such a story to illustrate, and the result would probably
be simply absurd, whilst in the hands of this natural Tarragonese artist
the whole thing is instinct with life and humour, to as great an extent
now as it was when his brother workmen first gathered round him and
laughed their approval of the speedy retribution which met the silly
rats when they forgot to tie the limbs of their enemy. I ought to have
sketched the capitals which were under this abacus, for they were
sculptured with cocks fighting, with their wings and heads so
ingeniously arranged as to conform to the ordinary outlines of the early
thirteenth-century foliage capital. It is rarely that so much fine and
original sculpture of various kinds is to be found in one such church as
this; and I recommend those who follow my footsteps here to go prepared
to devote some little time to the accurate delineation and careful study
of it.
[Illustration: Sculptured Abacus in Cloister.]
Much of the flooring of the cloister appears to be coeval with it;[272]
and though composed of the very simplest materials, it is most
effective. Most of the patterns are formed with red tiles of different
sizes, fitted together so as to make very simple diapers, and with the
addition here and there of small squares of white marble, which are used
with the tiles. Some of these have an incised pattern on their face,
sunk about a quarter of an inch; and in one case I found that this
pattern had been filled in with red marble. The pattern is arranged with
a broad stripe down the centre of the cloister, and on either side of
this a succession of varying arrangements of tiles is contrived, each
pattern being continued for but a short distance. Here, with the
simplest materials, very great variety of effect is obtained, whilst,
with the much smarter and very elaborate materials of the present day,
we seem to run every day more risk than before of sinking into the
tamest monotony.
In the west wall of this cloister there is a monumental recess of
completely Moorish character, very delicately adorned; and on one of the
doors I noticed that the wood had been covered with thin iron plates,
stamped with a pattern, gilded, and fastened down with copper nails. The
Chapter-house, of whose entrance archways I have spoken, is a square
room, roofed with a stone waggon-vault of pointed section; and at the
south end of this is a seven-sided apse, which seems to have been added
to the original fabric circa A.D. 1350. On the eastern side of it are
some large sacristies, but they did not appear to be old.
So far the work I have had to describe has been all, with the exception
of part of the steeple and Cimborio, not later than the end of the
thirteenth century. It is evident, however, that considerable works were
undertaken in various parts of the fabric at a later date. Most of the
nave windows were taken out, in order to insert others with very fair
geometrical traceries; the upper part of the steeple was, as we have
seen, erected; and finally the west front was, in great part,
reconstructed. The original west front of the aisles still remains, with
a simple doorway, and richly moulded and carved circular windows,
without tracery. Pilaster buttresses are placed at their north-west and
south-west angles, and these have shafts at their angles, but have lost
their old finish at the top. Probably another door and circular window
of large size occupied the end of the nave in the original design; but
these have been entirely removed, to make way for a work which, though
it seems to have been commenced in A.D. 1278,[273] has all the air of
complete middle-pointed work, and was evidently not completed until
late in the fourteenth century. The existing central doorway is of grand
dimensions, with figures under canopies on either side, and round the
buttresses which flank it. In the centre is a statue of the Blessed
Virgin with our Lord, and above, on the lintel, the Resurrection; and
the tympanum is pierced with rich geometrical tracery. The pedestal
under the statue of the Blessed Virgin has sculptured on its several
sides--(1) the Creation of Adam; (2) of Eve; (3) the Fall; (4) Adam and
Eve hiding themselves; and (5) the Expulsion from Paradise. These
subjects are very fitly placed here, the Fall in the centre coming just
under the feet of her who bears our Lord in her arms, and thus restores
the balance to the world. The arch is lofty, but only moulded; and above
it is a pediment of extremely flat pitch. Above this, again, is a large
and finely-traceried circular window. The lower part only of the gable
remains, and this is of very steep pitch, and must always have been
intended to be a mere sham. Whenever this sort of thing is done, there
is always some ground for suspicion that the architect may have been a
foreigner, unused to the requirements of a southern climate; and, at any
rate, most of the work in this façade might very well have been executed
by a German architect, for its character is all that of German, rather
than of Spanish art. It recalls, to some extent, the façade of the north
transept of Valencia Cathedral, though scarcely so much as to appear to
be the work of the same hands. It is to be regretted that the great
western gable is incomplete, for, unreal as it is, its outline must have
been fine; and even now, seen as it is in its small Plaza from the
steep, narrow, dark and shady street, surmounting the flights of steps
which lead up to it, the effect is very striking. The traceries, both of
the tympanum of the doorway, and of the circular window above, are sharp
geometrical works, very delicately executed. The upper part of the
western gable above the circular window seems to have had three windows,
but these are now partially destroyed. The hinges and knockers of the
western doorway are elaborately designed, covered with pierced
traceries, made with several thicknesses of metal. The doors are
diapered all over with iron plates, nailed on with copper nails, and
with copper ornaments in the centre of each plate. The buttresses are
bold, but rather clumsily designed. The statues of the door-jamb are
carried round their lower parts, and the stage above is occupied with
traceried panels. A great crocketed pinnacle conceals the set-off, and
forms, with the flat pediment of the doorway, a group in advance of the
real face of the western wall. Other crocketed pinnacles probably
finished the angle buttresses on each side of the main gable, but they
are now destroyed.
The north side of the nave is not easily seen, being enclosed within
walls and behind houses; but the south side is fairly open to view.
Here, however, much of the original design is now completely concealed
by modern additions. The two western bays have chapels, added in the
fifteenth century; the third bay a domed chapel of the seventeenth
century; and there are two other late Gothic chapels in the two bays
nearest the south transept. On the north, side chapels have been added
in the same fashion, those in the two western bays alone being mediæval.
From the west side of the south transept a fair view is obtained of the
best portion of the old exterior. The transept gable is extremely flat
in pitch; the buttresses are all carried up straight to the eaves, and
the trefoiled eaves-arcading, which recalls the favourite brick
eaves-cornices of the Italian churches, is returned round them at the
top, and a deep moulding, covered with billets, is carried along over
the eaves-arcading. The original semi-Romanesque window, with its very
broad external splay, still remains in the bay of the transept next to
the Crossing; but the other windows have been altered; and there is a
rich traceried rose window in the southern façade. The exterior of the
lantern is certainly not very attractive. The entire absence from view
of its roof is a fault of the most grievous kind; though, otherwise, its
windows, recalling as they do the traceries of our own first-pointed,
are not at all to be condemned. I doubt very much whether this lantern
was ever a fine work on the exterior; but we may well be content to have
anything so fine as the interior, and may fairly pardon its architect
for his failure to achieve a more complete success.
The internal arrangements here do not present much subject for notice.
The Coro is in the nave, and in the screen on its western side the
entrance-doorway still remains. It is of marble, of two well-moulded
orders, and the outer order of the arch has voussoirs of grey and white
marble counterchanged. The steps are of dark marble, with three shields
in low relief on the riser of each, and the bearings which occur here
are seen also in the keystone of the tower vaulting--both being works of
the fourteenth century. The choir stalls and the panelling behind them
are of the very richest and most delicate fifteenth-century work; and
the great desk for books, in the centre of the Coro, is of the same
age.[274] The stall-ends are covered with delicate tracery, put on in a
separate piece against the end, and not carved out of the solid. The
divisions between the panelling at the back of the stalls are wrought
with foliage and animals of really marvellous execution, and a band of
inlaid work with coats-of-arms goes all round just above the stalls.
There is a throne on the right hand of the entrance to the choir, and
another at the east end of the south side; but both of these are of
Renaissance character.
Many of the choir books are mediæval, with large knops at their angles,
and a piece of fringed leather under each knop. At the east end of the
Coro, and in a line with the west wall of the transepts, is the iron
Reja, and on each side of it a pulpit facing east. These have all the
appearance of having been rebuilt. They have the same armorial bearings
as the doorway to the Coro; and as the screen in which the latter is now
built is not old, it is probable that they all form part of the same old
choir screen, and that the two pulpits were the ambons. I saw nothing to
prove decidedly whether the Coro was in its original place, or whether
it has been moved down into the nave as at Burgos.
The great organ is on the north side of the Coro; it is not very old,
but its pipes are picturesquely arranged, and it has enormous painted
wings or shutters.
Much of the pavement is old; that in the choir proper--the Capilla
mayor--is of marble in various stripes of patterns extending across the
church.[275] The nave is also paved with marble, arranged in lines and
patterns divided to suit the position of the columns. The Coro alone is
paved with tiles, and this seems to some extent to prove that this part
of the floor has been altered, which would be the case if the stalls
were moved down from their original position. The high altar has a very
rich reredos executed for the most part in marble, and rich in
sculptured subjects. There is a doorway on each side of the altar,
opening into the part of the apse shut off by this Retablo. Here the
pavement has a large oblong compartment, which seemed to me to suggest
the original position of the altar to have been much nearer the east
wall than it now is. This space is indicated in my ground-plan, and
though it is more than usually set back towards the wall, it was no
doubt a more convenient position in so short a choir than that which the
present altar occupies.
There is a richly-sculptured monument of a bishop on the southern side
of the sacrarium.
It will be seen that here, as is the case with so many other Spanish
cathedrals, though the scale is not very great, the dignity and grandeur
of the whole conception is extreme. The cloister, indeed, yields the
palm to few that I have seen, and it is in scale only, and not in real
dignity and nobility, that the interior of the church does so.
I did not discover any other old church in Tarragona, yet I should
suppose there must be some in so large a city. There is a four-light
_ajimez_ window, of the type so common on this coast, in the Plaza in
front of the cathedral; and in the Plaza della Pallot is an early
round-arched gateway, with a coeval two-light opening above.
In the wall of a chapel to the east of the cathedral I found a fairly
good example of an early headstone, perfectly plain in outline, and
finished with a flat gable, in which is incised a cross under an arch,
the inscription being carried across the stone in the common mode, just
below the pediment.
I had not time to make excursions to any of the other churches in this
district, but there are some which appear, from what I have learnt, to
be so fine, that it is to be hoped others will contrive to inspect them.
The monasteries of Vallbona and Poblet, and the church of Sta.
Creus,[276] not far from Poblet, seem to be all of great interest.
Poblet and Sta. Creus seem both to have cloisters with projecting
chapels somewhat similar to that shown on my ground-plan of the
monastery at Veruela.
The church at Reus, too, is interesting, from the fact that the contract
for its erection is preserved, and has been published by Cean Bermudez.
It dates from A.D. 1510. This town is a few miles only from Tarragona,
and after seeing Poblet and Vallbona, the ecclesiologist would do well,
I think, to make his way across to Lérida, instead of returning to
Barcelona, as I did. But I wished much to examine the Collegiata at
Manresa on my way to Lérida, and for this purpose the line I took was
on the whole the best.
I bade farewell to Tarragona with a heavy heart, and with a
determination to avail myself of the first chance I may have of
returning to look once more at its noble and too little known
cathedral.[277]
[Illustration: TARRAGONA:--Ground: Plan: of: Cathedral: Plate XV.
Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865]