BARCELONA
The architectural history of Barcelona is much more complete, whilst its
buildings are more numerous, than those of any of our own old cities, of
which it is in some sort the rival. The power which the Barcelonese
wielded in the middle ages was very great. They carried on the greater
part of the trade of Spain with Italy, France, and the East; they were
singularly free, powerful, and warlike; and, finally, they seem to have
devoted no small portion of the wealth they earned in trade to the
erection of buildings, which even now testify alike to the prosperity of
their city, and to the noble acknowledgment they made for it.
The architecture of Cataluña had many peculiarities, and in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when most of the great buildings of
Barcelona were being erected, they were so marked as to justify me, I
think, in calling the style as completely and exclusively national or
provincial, as, to take a contemporary English example, was our own
Norfolk middle-pointed. The examination of them will, therefore, have
much more value and interest than that of even grander buildings erected
in a style transplanted from another country, such as we see at Burgos
and Toledo; and beside this, there was one great problem which I may
venture to say that the Catalan architects satisfactorily solved--the
erection of churches of enormous and almost unequalled internal
width--which is just that which seems to be looming before us as the
work which we English architects must ere long grapple with, if we wish
to serve the cause of the Church thoroughly in our great towns.
For a manufacturing town, this, the Manchester of Spain, is singularly
agreeable and unlike its prototype. The mills are for the most part
scattered all over the surrounding country, which rises in pleasant
undulations to the foot of the hills some four or five miles inland from
the sea, and beyond which the country is always beautiful and wild, and
sometimes--as in the savage and world-renowned rocks of
Montserrat--quite sublime in its character. On my first journey I
arrived at Barcelona by a steamer from Valencia. The views of the coast
were generally extremely beautiful, until shortly before our arrival, as
we passed the low level land through which the Llobregat finds its way
to the sea; beyond this the great rock and fortress of Monjuic rise
boldly in front, and rounding its base into the harbour, the tall
octagonal towers and turrets of the cathedral and other churches came in
sight. Little, however, is seen of the sea from the city, the
fortifications of Monjuic on the one side, and the harbour and new
colony of Barcelonette which occupies a point jutting out beyond it
seaward on the other, completely shutting it out. One result of this is
that, whilst nothing is seen of the sea, so, too, the seafaring people
seem to confine themselves to Barcelonette, and not to show themselves
in the thronged streets of the city. Another fortress, a little inland
on the east, places Barcelona under a cross fire, and prevents its
growth in that direction; but wherever possible it seems to be spreading
rapidly, and every external sign of extreme prosperity is to be seen.
The streets are generally narrow, tortuous, and picturesque, with the
one noble exception of the Rambla, a very broad promenade running from
the sea quite across the city, which has a road on either side, and a
broad promenade planted with trees down the centre. Here in the early
morning one goes to buy smart nosegays of the Catalan flower-girls from
the country, and in the evening to stroll in a dense mob of loungers
enjoying the cold air which sweeps down from the hills, and atones for
all the sufferings inflicted by the torrid midday sun.
[Illustration: West front of San Pablo.]
It will be best, in describing the buildings here, to begin with those
of the earliest date, though they are of comparatively unimportant
character, and in part fragments only of old buildings preserved in the
midst of great works undertaken at a later date. The Benedictine convent
of San Pablo del Campo, said to have been founded in the tenth century
by Wilfred II., Count of Barcelona,[278] was restored by Guiberto
Guitardo and his wife about 1117, and in 1127 was incorporated with the
convent of San Cucufate del Vallés.[279] The church is very
interesting. It is small and cruciform, with three parallel apses, an
octagonal vault on pendentives over the Crossing, and a short nave,
which, as well as the transepts, is covered with a waggon-vault. The
apses are vaulted with semi-domes. The west end is the only perfect part
of the exterior, and deserves illustration. The work is all of a very
solid and rude description, though I am almost afraid to give it credit
for being so old as is said. The circular window is, however, an
interpolation; and if this were removed, and another small window like
the others inserted in its place, the whole design would no doubt have
an air of extreme antiquity. The ground-plan is a typal one here, and
prevails more or less in all the early churches from Cataluña to
Galicia. One or two others of the same description seem to have a fair
amount of evidence of the date of their consecration, and it is at any
rate unlikely that a church built in A.D. 914 would require rebuilding
in about a hundred years, which must have been the case here, if we
assume that we have not still before us the original church. On the
south side of the nave there was a cloister added, probably in the
course of the eleventh century, and there is some difference in the
character of its design and workmanship, and that of the church and its
west front. This cloister is very small, having on each side four
arches, divided by a buttress in the centre of each side. The openings
are cusped some with three and some with five heavy foliations, plain on
the outside, but both moulded and carved on the inside face. The cusping
is not at all Gothic in its character, being stilted in a very Eastern
fashion, nor is it constructed like Gothic work, the stones being laid
over each other, and cut out in the form of cusps, but not constructed
anywhere with stones radiating on the principle of an arch. The shafts
between the openings are coupled one behind the other, and have
well-carved capitals. A fourteenth-century doorway, with a cross for the
finial of its label, opens from the north wall of the cloister into the
nave; and in the east wall is an extremely good entrance to the
Chapter-house of the same date, and showing the usual arrangement of a
doorway with a two-light traceried opening on either side. There are
also some old monumental arches in the walls.
This church, which forms so important a feature in the early
architectural history of Cataluña, is near the western end of the city,
and its west front and cloister are enclosed within the walls of a small
barrack; but as Spanish officers and soldiers are always glad to lionize
a stranger, there is no difficulty in the way of seeing them. A simple
early-pointed doorway, under a very flat tympanum, has been added to the
north transept, and there is some evidence of the small apse near it
having been arcaded on the outside. The pendentive under the dome is
similar in its construction to those under the dome of the curious
church of Ainay, at Lyons. Above them there is a string-course, and then
the vault, which rises to a point in the centre, and is not a complete
octagon, the cardinal sides being much wider than the others. The west
doorway has in its tympanum our Lord, St. Peter, and St. Paul; over the
arch are the angel of St. Matthew and eagle of St. John, and above, a
hand with a cruciform nimbus, giving the benediction.
San Pedro de las Puellas, on the other side of the city, was rebuilt in
A.D. 980, by Suniario Count of Barcelona, and his wife Richeldi, and was
consecrated with great pomp in A.D. 983.[280] This church has been
wofully treated, but it is still possible to make out the original
scheme. It was a cruciform church of the same general plan as San Pablo,
with a circular dome at the Crossing, and a waggon-vault to the south
transept, the nave, and the western part of the chancel. The other
parts were altered at a later date. Very bold detached columns with rich
capitals carry the arches under the dome, and another remaining against
the south wall of the nave suggests that there were probably cross
arches or ribs below its waggon-vault. The sculpture of the capitals is
very peculiar; it is quite unlike the ordinary Romanesque or Byzantine
sculpture, and is very much more like the work sometimes seen in Eastern
buildings. It is a type of capital first seen here, but reproduced
constantly afterwards all along the southern coast, and not, so far as I
know, seen at all in the interior of Spain.
There is no mark of a chapel on the east side of the south transept,
and, as the apse has been rebuilt, it is impossible to say what the
original plan of the head of the church was.
In the Collegiata of Sta. Ana, we have the next stage in the development
of Catalan architecture. This is said to have been built in A.D.
1146,[281] and is also a cruciform church, with a central raised
lantern, barrel vaults in the transepts, and two bays of quadripartite
vaulting in the nave. The nave probably dates from about the end of the
twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century, being lighted with
simple lancet-windows, and having bold buttresses. When I visited this
church the chancel was boarded up for repairs, and I am unable to say
certainly whether the east end is old, but it appeared to me to have
been modernized. The exterior of the lantern is very peculiar; above the
roof it is square in plan, but with eight buttresses around it,
radiating from the centre, and evidently intended to be carried up so as
to form the angles of an octagonal central lantern, of which, however,
only the lowest stage remains. The present finish of the lantern is a
steep tiled roof, which springs from just above the point at which the
angles of the square base are cut off; and on the western slope of this
roof a steep flight of stone steps leads to the very summit. The object
of this arrangement is quite unintelligible. At the west end of the
church, and set curiously askew to it, is a cloister of the fourteenth
century, with a Chapter-room on its east side, opening to the cloister
with a round-arched doorway, on either side of which is a good early
middle-pointed two-light window, making the group so invariably found in
old Chapter-house entrances. The west doorway of the church is severely
simple, with a square opening and plain tympanum, under a pointed arch.
Along the north side of the cloister is a fine ruin of a hall of the
thirteenth century, the construction of which is very characteristic and
peculiar. It is of two stages in height. Segmental arches across the
lower rooms carry the floor beams, which are placed longitudinally, and
over them in the upper room bold pointed arches are thrown to carry the
roof. The roof was of very flat pitch, and consisted of a series of
purlines resting on corbels built into the wall over the stone arches,
upon which were laid the common rafters. I shall have to illustrate a
similar roof which still remains in the church of Sta. Agata, so that I
need not say more on the subject now than that this type is an
exceedingly effective one, and occurs repeatedly in the Barcelonese
buildings. The cloister of Sta. Ana is of two stages in height, and very
light, graceful, and Spanish in its character. The columns are
quatrefoil in section, and the capitals are later works of the same
eastern character as those already described in San Pedro, and have
square abaci. There is, perhaps, scarcely sufficient appearance of
solidity and permanence in such extremely light shafts, seeing that they
have to support a double tier of arcades all round the cloister; but
nevertheless the whole effect of the work is very beautiful. The old
well with its stone lintel remains, and some fine orange-trees still
adorn the cloister court.
The other early works here are doorways and fragments now incorporated
in other and later works, so that we need no longer delay our inspection
of the cathedral, which is, as it ought to be, the pride of the city.
The ground-plan which I give[282] will best explain the general
arrangements of this remarkable church. Its scale is by no means great,
yet the arrangement of the various parts is so good, the skill in the
admission of light so subtle, and the height and width of the nave so
noble, that an impression is always conveyed to the mind that its size
is far greater than it really is. Of course such praise is not
intelligible to those who believe with some enthusiasts that the
greatest triumph of architectural skill is to make a building look
smaller than it really is--a triumph which the admirers of St. Peter’s,
at Rome, always claim loudly for it--but most unsophisticated men will
probably prefer with me the opposite achievement, often, indeed, met
with in Gothic buildings, but seldom more successfully than here.
The history of this church is in part given in two inscriptions on the
wall on either side of the north transept doorway,[283] from which it
appears that the cathedral was commenced in A.D. 1298, and was still in
progress in A.D. 1329. The latter date no doubt refers to the transept
façade. But this was not the first church, for one was consecrated here
in A.D. 1058, and the doorway from the cloister into the south transept,
and another into the chapel of Sta. Lucia, at the south-west angle of
the cloister, are probably not very much later than this date. But the
bulk of the work is evidently not earlier than the beginning of the
fourteenth century, and its design appears to be owing to one Jayme
Fabra or Fabre,[284] an architect of whom we first hear at Palma in
Mallorca. In the deed which I give in the Appendix, he describes himself
as “lapiscida,” citizen of Mallorca, and says that he is about to go to
Barcelona, to undertake a certain work there at the request of the King
of Aragon and the bishop. This was in A.D. 1318, and it is clear, I
think, from the terms of his contract,[285] that Fabre was something
more than architect, and really also the builder of this church in
Palma. The term used might indeed lead us to suppose that he was a mere
mason, but the request of the king and the bishop proves that he was
much more than this, and is useful as showing that these titles
literally translated are very apt to mislead.[286] The crypt of Sta.
Eulalia under the choir was completed in A.D. 1339. Jayme Fabre is said
to have been master of the works until A.D. 1388, in which year he was
succeeded by el Maestro Roque, who had an assistant, Pedro Viader. He
received three “sueldos” and four “dineros” a day, and a hundred sueldos
each year for clothing, and in course of time his salary was raised to
“two florins or twenty-two sueldos” a week. His assistant received fifty
sueldos a year for clothes and three sueldos and six dineros a day for
his double office of substitute for the principal architect and workman.
Roque no doubt was able to work elsewhere, whilst his assistant, or
clerk of the works, was confined to one work; in this way the apparent
strangeness of the similar pay to the two men is explained.[287] Roque,
who is said to have commenced the cloister, was succeeded by Bartolomé
Gual, who was one of the architects summoned to advise about the
cathedral of Gerona in 1416, and then described himself as master of the
works at Barcelona cathedral; and, finally, Andres Escuder placed the
last stone of the vault on September 26, A.D. 1448.
[Illustration: No. 36.
BARCELONA.
EAST END OF THE CATHEDRAL. p. 298.]
Having thus shortly stated the history of the building, let me now
attempt to describe its architecture and construction. It will be seen
that the plan is cruciform. The transepts do not, however, show much on
the exterior, as they form the base of the towers which are erected, as
at Exeter cathedral, above them. The plan of the chevet is very good; it
presents the French arrangement of an aisle and chapels round the apse
in place of the common Spanish triapsidal plan; but the detail is all
completely Catalan. The arches of the apse are very narrow and
stilted, and the columns throughout are composed of a rather confused
jumble of thin mouldings awkwardly arranged. Above the main arches is a
very small arcaded triforium, and above this a range of circular
windows, one in each bay. The groining springs from the capitals of the
main columns, so that the triforium and clerestory are both enclosed
within its arched wall-rib; they are consequently very disproportioned
in height as compared with those of northern churches. But here the
architect evidently intended to grapple with the difficulties of the
climate, and, designing his whole church with the one great object of
minimizing the light and heat, he was compelled to make his windows
small. The clerestory windows were traceried, and filled with rich
stained glass, which was well set back from the face of the wall. The
result is a perfect success as far as light and shade and the ordinary
purposes of a Spanish congregation are concerned, but the difficulty of
taking notes, sketches, or measurements, in most parts of the church,
even at mid-day, can hardly be imagined. The dark stone of which the
whole church is built increases not a little the sombre magnificence of
the effect. There is nothing peculiar about the chapels of the chevet;
but under the centre of the choir, and approached by a broad flight of
steps between two narrower flights which lead to the high altar, is the
small crypt or chapel already mentioned as that in which the remains of
Sta. Eulalia are enshrined. An inscription[288] records the date of the
translation of her remains to this spot in A.D. 1339, but the present
state of the chapel is not suggestive of the possession of any
architectural treasures, being remarkable only for the ugliness of its
altar, and the number of its candlesticks. Behind the altar, however,
there still remains the shrine of the saint. This is a steep-roofed ark
of alabaster carried upon eight detached columns. The ark is sculptured
at the sides and ends with subjects from the life of Sta. Eulalia,
whilst the roof has her soul borne aloft by angels. The columns are of
marble, spiral, fluted, and chevroned, with capitals of foliage, and one
or two of the bases are carved with figures in the mediæval Italian
fashion. A long inscription is carried round the base of the ark, which
again records the death of the saint, her burial in Sta. Maria del Mar,
and her translation to the cathedral in A.D. 878, and afterwards to the
spot where she now rests. The detail of this shrine looks very like
that of Italian Gothic of the same age; and as it is particularly
described in the contemporary memorial of the translation, it is no
doubt part of the work on which Jayme Fabre had been engaged.
[Illustration: No. 37
BARCELONA CATHEDRAL
INTERIOR OF WEST END OF NAVE p. 301.]
The transepts are groined at the level of the side chapels, and again
with an octagonal vault just above the aisle roof, and below where the
square base gives place to the octagon on which the upper part of the
steeples is planned. It is therefore only on the ground-plan that the
transepts show themselves, and here they form porches, that on the south
side opening into the cloister. The planning of the nave is very
peculiar. It seems as though the main requirement of the founders of
this church was a plentiful number of altars; for, as will be seen on
reference to the plan, there are no less than twenty-seven distinct
chapels inside the church, and twenty-two more round the cloister. The
chapels in the south aisle have a row of other chapels, which open into
the cloister, placed back to back with them, and the windows which light
the former open into the latter, showing when seen from the nave chapels
their glass, and when seen from the cloister chapels the dark piercings
of their openings. The arrangement is not only extremely picturesque,
but also another evidence of the care with which the sun was kept out of
the building. On the north side the chapels are uniform throughout, and
their windows are pierced in the long unbroken north wall. The Coro here
is in its old position in the two eastern bays of the nave, with the old
screens around it and all its old fittings. It is to be observed,
however, that here, where the late Spanish arrangement was from the
first adopted, the western entrance to the choir was preserved, and so
the awkward blank which the wall of the Coro generally presents on
entering is not felt. There are no signs of any parclose screens across
the transept, and the position of the chapel of Sta. Eulalia makes it
improbable that there ever were any. It seems, indeed, that such a
church as this must from the very first have been built for precisely
the kind of worship still used in it. There was never any proper
provision for a crowd of worshippers joining in any one common act of
prayer or worship. The capitular body filled the Coro and sang the
services of the day unnoticed by the people; whilst, as they separated
to the chapels to which each was attached, the people followed them by
twos and threes to the altar services in which only they wished to join.
At present not more than about half the altars are commonly used; yet
still each morning mass was generally being said at three, or four,
or five of them at the same time, and each altar every day seemed to
have a considerable group of worshippers, among whom I noticed a
considerable number of men of the upper class. The high altar seems
always to have had curtains on either side of it, their rods being
supported on columns of jasper in front. These curtains were drawn at
the _Sanctus_, and remained so until the consecration was completed. One
sung mass only is celebrated at this altar each day, and an old treatise
on the Customs of the Church cites in defence or explanation of this
rule the words of a very early council, _una missa et unum altare_.[289]
West of the Coro are two bays of nave, over the western of which rises
the lower part of a rich octangular lantern. This is carried on bold
piers of square outline, which, from the very simple arrangement of the
shafts of which they are composed, have the grandeur of effect so
characteristic of Romanesque work. The cross arches under the lantern
are lower than the groining, and on the east face the spandrel between
the two is filled in with rich tracery and arcading. Arches are thrown
across the angles to carry the octagonal lantern, of which the lowest
stage only--which is well arcaded--is built. The whole of this work is
so good of its kind that it is much to be lamented it was never
completed; the design of the octagonal lantern at the west, and the two
more slender octagonal steeples at the Crossing, would have been as
striking in its effect, doubtless, as it would have been novel in its
plan, though it may be doubted whether, in so short a church, it would
not have been overpowering. Above the side chapels, on each side of the
nave and at the west end, another floor is carried all round. The only
difference is that the rooms above the chapels are square-ended, not
apsidal, and there seems to be no evidence of their having been intended
for altars. I saw no piscinæ and no Retablos in them, and was tempted to
imagine that the present use may, perhaps, have been the old one--that
of a grand receptacle for all the machinery in fêtes, functions, and the
like, of which a Spanish church generally requires no small store.[290]
There are arches in the wall, affording means of communication all round
this upper floor, and the chambers all open to the church with arches,
and have traceried windows in their outer walls. The transverse section
of the nave is therefore novel, and unlike any other with which I am
acquainted, and interested me not a little.
The exterior is, perhaps, less interesting than the interior. The chevet
is fine, but with nothing in any way unusual in its design; the upper
part of the buttresses is destroyed, and the walls finish without
parapet or roof, so as to make the church look somewhat like a roofless
ruin. The steeples are quite plain below their belfry stage, under which
are arcaded string-courses; the belfry stages themselves are richly
panelled and pierced, and surmounted by pierced parapets. They are not
perfectly octagonal in plan, the cardinal sides being the widest, and
their height from the floor of the church is as nearly as I could
measure 179 ft. 6 in., whilst their external diameter is about 30 feet.
It is on ascending these towers that one of the greatest peculiarities
of the Barcelonese churches is seen; they are all roofless, and you look
down on to the top of their vaulting, which is all covered with tiles or
stone neatly and evenly laid on the vault, in such a way as effectually
to keep out the weather. The water all finds its way out by the pockets
of the vaults, and by pipes through the buttresses with gurgoyles in
front of them. Everything seemed to prove that this was _not_ the old
arrangement, for it is pretty clear that the walls had parapets
throughout, and that there were timber roofs, though I saw no evidence
as to what their pitch had been. The present scheme, ugly and ruinous as
it looks--giving the impression that all the church roofs have been
destroyed by the fire of the fortresses above and at the side of the
city--seems nevertheless to have solved one of those problems which so
often puzzle us--the erection of buildings which as far as possible
shall be indestructible. There is now absolutely no timber in any part
of the work; but it is of course questionable whether a roof which
endures the test of a Spanish climate, with its occasional deluge of
rain succeeded by a warm drying sun, would endure the constant damp of a
climate like ours. But at any rate the makeshift arrangement which is
universal here is very suggestive. The flying buttresses are
insignificant, owing to the small height of the clerestory.
Descending from the roof, the only other old portion of the church to be
mentioned is the north transept. It is here that the two inscriptions
given at p. 297 are built into the wall on either side of the lofty
doorway. The doorway is finely moulded, and has a single figure under a
canopy in its tympanum; above it the whole face of the wall is covered
with very rich arrangement of niches, making an arcade over its whole
surface, but there are no figures left in them. Over this again is a
rose window under an arch, and then the octagonal tower. To the east of
the transept are some round-headed windows, but my impression is that
they are not of earlier date than the rest of the work. The outer wall
of the north aisle of the nave has a row of very richly moulded windows
lighting the chapels, and other windows over them which light the
galleries over the aisle chapels. The eaves here have a simple
round-arched corbel-tabling.
The west front is all modern and squalid; the original design for its
completion is said to exist among the archives of the cathedral, and
ought to be examined; I was not aware of this until long after I had
been at Barcelona. Don F. J. Parcerisa[291] gives a view of this
proposed front--an extremely florid Gothic work--but the drawing is so
obviously not the least like an old one, that I hardly know how far to
trust the statements about it which he makes. He describes it as being
on parchment, sixteen palms long, and much defaced. The print is drawn
in perspective, and elaborately shaded. It is a double door, with a
steep gable above filled with extremely rich flamboyant tracery, and
there are large pinnacles on either side and a great number of statues.
The cloisters are not good in their detail, but yet are very pleasant;
they are full of orange-trees, flowers, and fountains. One of these is
in a projecting bay at the north-east internal angle, and is old;
another by its side has a little St. George and the Dragon, with the
horse’s tail formed by a jet of water; and a third, and more modern,
plays in the centre among the flowers. In addition, there are some geese
cooped up in one corner, who look as if their livers were being
sacrificed in order to provide _patés_ for the canons; and finally a
troop of hungry, melancholy cats, who are always howling and prowling
about the cloisters and church, and who often contrive to get into the
choir-stalls just before service, whence they are forthwith chased about
by the choristers and such of the clergy as are in their places in good
time! These cloisters are said to have been completed in A.D. 1448,[292]
and I have no doubt this date is correct. On the exterior they are
bounded on three sides by streets, and the apsidal ends of the chapels
do not show, the wall being straight and unbroken. The cloister is lofty
and has panelled buttresses between the windows, of which latter the
arches only remain, the traceries having been entirely destroyed. The
view from hence of the church is one of the best that can be obtained,
the octagonal transept towers being the most marked features. The floor
is full of gravestones, on which the calling of the person commemorated
is indicated by a slight carving in relief of the implements of his
trade.
The chapel of Sta. Lucia, at the south-west angle of the cloister, is
probably a relic of the first church; it has a very fine round-headed
doorway with its arch-mouldings covered with delicate architectural
carving, and a lancet window under its very flat-pitched gable. The roof
inside is a pointed waggon-vault. The door from the cloister into the
south transept is of about the same date; it has three shafts in the
jamb (one of them fluted), very deep capitals and abaci covered with
carving of foliage, and an archivolt covered with chevron patterns of a
flat and very unusual character. The label is large and carved with very
stiff foliage. The foliage here is to a slight extent copied from the
acanthus, but much of it is derived from some other leaf--I believe from
the prickly pear.
When the fabric has been passed in review much still remains to be seen
within its walls. A large number of the altars, particularly those of
the cloister chapels, were furnished in the fifteenth century with
Retablos of wood richly carved, and then painted with subjects: these
are always placed across the apse, leaving a space behind the altar, to
which access was obtained by doors on either side of it. Perhaps then as
now the priest attached to the altar kept his vestments in the chapel in
which he ministered, and these spaces may thus have been utilized.
Usually, now-a-days, in Spanish churches, for some ten or twenty minutes
before the offices are sung in the choir, priests may be seen unlocking
the gates of their chapels, vesting themselves, and then going one by
one to their stalls in the choir, and there waiting till, on the clock
striking the hour, the service commences. The paintings in the old
Retablos are sadly defaced and damaged; but many of them have evidently
had much value and interest. They are usually rather of Flemish than of
Italian character, generally well and quaintly drawn, and with those
striking contrasts of colour on gold grounds, of which this early school
was so fond. The doors on either side of the altar have generally a
whole-length figure of a saint painted on them.
[Illustration: No. 38.
BARCELONA CATHEDRAL
VIEW OF THE STEEPLES FROM THE CLOISTER. p. 304]
Across the outer archway of all these chapels is an iron _grille_; very
many of these are mediæval; and in the cloister in particular there is a
very considerable variety in their treatment, and often great delicacy
of execution. I have before noticed the excellence of the smiths’
work in the Spanish churches. Yet though their work is of the latest age
of Gothic, it is never marked by that nauseous redundance of ornament in
which so many of the most active metal-workers of the present day seem
to revel. Hence it is always worthy of study. The doors in these screens
are generally double, and shut behind some sort of ogee-arched crocketed
head, and sometimes there are crocketed pinnacles and buttresses on
either side. The locks are often, of course, specially elaborate; and
the illustration which I give of one of them will serve to show their
general character. In all the screens here the lower part is very
simple, consisting generally of nothing but vertical bars, through which
one can see without difficulty to the altars which they guard. The
ornament is reserved for open traceried crestings, with bent and
sharply-cut crockets, for traceried rails, and for the locks and
fastenings.
[Illustration: Lock on Screen in Cloister.]
The woodwork of the choir-fittings is of very late date,[293] but good
of its kind. The stall-divisions are richly traceried under the elbow,
and the misereres carved with foliage. Behind the stalls, and under the
old canopies, is a series of Renaissance panels, covered with paintings
of the arms of the Knights of the Golden Fleece.[294] The canopies above
are very delicate, and of the same character as the stalls. The carved
oak pulpit is corbelled out at the east end of the north range of
stalls, and is approached by a staircase outside the arcaded stone
parclose, which still remains north and south of the choir. This
staircase, with its arched doorway between pinnacles at the bottom, its
traceried handrail fringed at the top with fantastic ironwork, and its
door cunningly and beautifully made of open ironwork, is quite worth
notice.
The Bishop’s throne, second only in height and elaboration to that of
Exeter, occupies its proper place at the east end of the southern side
of the choir, with one stall for a chaplain beyond it. It will be
remembered that in most Spanish cathedrals it is placed where the door
from the nave into the choir ought to be: here, however, the old
arrangement has never been altered.
The principal altar has a very Gothic Retablo, covered with gilding till
it looks like gingerbread. I imagine it to be modern. It has curtains on
either side, with angels standing on the columns which carry the rods.
The iron screen across, in front of the altar, and round the apse, is
none of it old.
Near the door to the sacristies a hexagonal box for the wheel of bells
is fixed against the wall; and just below it a fine large square box
arcaded at the sides, and painted, appears to contain a couple of larger
bells.
The sculpture here is not very remarkable. Over the east door of the
cloister is a Pietà in the tympanum, whilst the finial of the canopy is
a crucifix. The bosses at the intersection of the ribs in the nave are
of enormous size, and each has a figure or subject. The boss in the
chapel over the font in the north side of west door has the Baptism of
our Lord, and another in the large chapel in the north-west of the
cloister has the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and the eight bosses around
it the Evangelists and Doctors. Some of the monuments are peculiar. The
effigy is generally laid on a sloping stone, so as to suggest the
greatest possible insecurity. There are sculptures on the tombs and
inside the enclosing arch; a favourite and odious device in this last
feature is to make the radius of the label much longer than that of the
arch below it; and the space between the two is then filled with
tracery. The nave groining was once painted. There seems to have been
cinquecento foliage extending from the centre, about half-way across
each vaulting cell; and the ribs were painted to the same extent. In the
aisles there seems to have been no painting anywhere but on the ribs.
[Illustration: BARCELONA:--Ground Plan of Cathedral, Cloister. &c. Plate
XVI
Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865]
The old organ occupies the north tower, and is corbelled out boldly
from the wall. Below it is a pendant, the finish of which is a Saracen’s
head, which, for some reason unknown to me, is held by Catalans to be
appropriate to the position. There are enormous painted shutters, and a
projecting row of trumpet-pipes. The organ was first of all built in the
fourteenth century; Martin Ferrandis, organ-builder of Toledo, having
bound himself, by a contract dated July 25, 1345, to construct it for 80
libras[295] (pounds).
The sacristies are old and vaulted. The sacristan knew of no old
vestments or vessels to be seen there; and as they were always occupied
by clergy I had to satisfy myself with his ignorance.
The bishop’s palace is on the south side of the cloister: its quadrangle
still retains some remains of good late Romanesque arcading, ornamented
with dog-tooth, nail-head, and billet mould; and probably there is more
to be seen if access were gained to the inside. On the opposite side of
the cathedral is a vast barrack, dating from the fifteenth century, and
which, first of all a palace, was given in A.D. 1487 by Ferdinand to the
Inquisition. It seems now to be a mixture of school, convent, and
prison, and is apparently without any architectural interest.
The grandest church, after the cathedral, is that of Sta. Maria del Mar,
a vast building, of very simple plan, and exceedingly characteristic of
the work of Catalan architects.[296] An inscription written in Limosin
(Catalan) on one side, and in Latin on the other,[297] gives the date of
the commencement of the work as A.D. 1328; and it is said by Cean
Bermudez not to have been finished until A.D. 1483;[298] but
Parcerisa[299] says that the last stone was placed on November 9th,
1383, and the first mass said on August 15th, 1384; and I am inclined to
think that the latter dates are the more likely to be correct. I have
found no evidence as to the architect of this church: he was one of a
school who built many and exceedingly similar churches throughout this
district. My impression is that he was most probably Jayme Fabre, the
first architect of the cathedral. Fabre had constructed a church for the
Dominicans at Palma, in Mallorca, between the years 1296 and 1339. Of
this church I can only learn the dimensions; but these point to a church
of the same class as those in Barcelona. It had no aisles, and was 280
palms long by 138 broad. The cathedral in the same city is figured in
Parcerisa, and is similar in plan to Sta. Maria del Mar, but of far
larger dimensions, the width from centre to centre of the nave columns
being 71 feet, and the whole church 140 feet wide in the clear, and with
the chapels 190 feet. There are north and south doors, and octagonal
pinnacles at the west end, and, as will be noticed, its dimensions are
proportioned just as at Sta. Maria del Mar. I do not think that Fabre’s
name occurs in connexion with the cathedral at Palma; but his fame must
have been great, as he was specially summoned to Barcelona by the king
and bishop; and nothing is more likely than that he would then have been
consulted about this other great work going on at the same time, and in
which, though the general design is different, there are so many points
of similarity. The church at Manresa is said to have been commenced in
the same year, 1328; and it is extremely similar in all respects to Sta.
Maria del Mar, as I shall have further on to show when I have to
describe it.
[Illustration: No. 39.
STA. MARIA DEL MAR, BARCELONA p. 308.
SOUTH-WEST VIEW.]
But whether these churches are to be attributed to the influence of one
man suddenly inventing an innovation, or of a school of architects
working on the same old traditions--and I have been unable to find any
kind of evidence of this--it is certain that they are very similar. They
are marked by extreme simplicity, great width, and great height. Usually
they have no arcades and consist of broad unbroken naves, always groined
in stone, and sparely lighted from small windows high up in the walls.
The two examples, so far as I know, which surpass all others, are the
single nave of Gerona, seventy-three feet wide in the clear, and the
nave and aisles of the Collegiata at Manresa, sixty feet wide from
centre to centre of the columns, and a hundred and ten between the walls
of the aisles. The Barcelonese examples do not equal the extraordinary
dimensions of these two churches, but they are still on a fine scale.
Sta. Maria del Mar is the only Barcelonese example with aisles. It
has--as will be seen by the plan[300]--an aisle round the apse, and
small chapels between the buttresses. These apses are all internal only,
so that the side elevation of the church shows a plain straight wall
pierced with windows. This is a very favourite device of this school,
and has been already noticed in the north wall of the cathedral, and in
the wall all round the cloisters. The interior of Sta. Maria del Mar is
very simple. Enormous octagonal columns carry the main arches and the
groining ribs, which all spring from their capitals. The wall rib
towards the nave is carried up higher than the main arches so as to
allow space between them for a small circular and traceried clerestory
window in each bay. The arches of the apse are very narrow, and
enormously stilted. There are small windows above them, but they are
modernized. The aisles are groined on the same level as the main arches,
a few feet, therefore, below the vault of the nave, and they are lighted
by a four-light traceried window in each bay, the sill of which is above
a string-course formed by continuing the abacus of the capitals of the
groining shafts. Below this there are three arches in each bay, opening
into side chapels between the main buttresses. Each of these chapels is
lighted by a traceried window of two lights; and the outer wall
presents, as will be seen, a long unbroken line, until above the
chapels, when the buttresses rise boldly up to support the great vaults
of the nave and aisles. The Barcelonese architects of this period were
extremely fond of these long unbroken lines of wall; and there is a
simplicity and dignity about their work which is especially commendable.
Long rows of little sheds for shops which have managed to gain a footing
all along the base of the walls rather disturb the effect, though they
and their occupants, and the busy dealers in fruit who ply their trade
all about Sta. Maria del Mar, make it a good spot for the study of the
people.
The altar is a horrible erection of about A.D. 1730, and all the
internal fittings are modern and in the worst possible taste.
The view which I give of the west front will explain the whole design of
the exterior. Unquestionably it is a grand work of its kind, with good
detail throughout. The great octagonal pinnacles at the angles are,
however, awkwardly designed, and quite insufficient in scale for the
vast mass of building to which they are attached. They are reproduced in
all the churches of the same class in Barcelona; and indeed most of the
features of one of these churches are common to the others. The tracery
in the circular window at the west end certainly looks later in date
than that of the others in this church, and than that in the west front
of Sta. Maria del Pi, which was commenced in A.D. 1329, but not
completed until much later. It is worth mention that the western doors
of this church are covered with iron, cut out into the form of cusped
circles, with rather good effect.
The church of SS. Just y Pastor is of the same class as Sta. Maria del
Mar, but its foundation is slightly later, as it seems to have been
commenced circa A.D. 1345. It consists of a nave without aisles, but
with chapels between the buttresses--one chapel in each bay. There are
five bays, and an apse of five sides. The altar stands forward from the
wall, and stalls are ranged round the apse. The nave is 43 feet 6 inches
in width in the clear by about 130 feet in length. The vaulting is
quadripartite throughout, with large bosses at the intersection of the
ribs, on which are carved--1, the Annunciation; 2, the Nativity; 3, the
Presentation; 4, the Adoration of the Magi; 5, the Resurrection; 6, the
Coronation of the B.V.M. The whole church has lately been covered with
painting and gilding, in the most approved French style, and to the
destruction of all appearance of age. The light is admitted by
three-light windows with good geometrical traceries, very high up above
the arches, into the side chapels, and by two-light windows in the
chapels themselves. At the west end are remains of the usual octagonal
flanking turrets; but the whole front is modernized. The side elevation
is a repetition of those already described, presenting a long unbroken
wall below, out of which the buttresses for the clerestory rise.
Santa Maria del Pino is a still grander church, but on the same plan,
with the addition of a lofty octagonal tower detached at the north-east
of the church.[301] This is four stages in height, and the belfry-stage
has windows on each face. The traceried corbel-table under the parapet
remains, but the parapet and roof are destroyed. The nave here consists
of seven bays, is fifty-four feet wide in the clear, and has an eastern
apse of seven sides. The chapels between the buttresses are not carried
round the apse, but an overhanging passage-way is formed all round
outside, upon arches between, and corresponding openings through, the
buttresses just below the windows. The north door here is a very fine
early work of just the same character as those already described in the
earliest portions of the cathedral. It appears to be a work of the end
of the twelfth century, and much older than any other portion of the
church. The west front has a doorway with a figure in a niche in the
tympanum, and a system of niches round and above it, enclosing it within
a sort of square projecting from the face of the wall. The whole scheme
is so exceedingly similar both in design and detail to that of the north
transept door of the cathedral, that we may fairly conclude them to be
the works of the same man. Above the door is a large circular window
filled with good and very rich geometrical tracery. A church existed
here as early as 1070;[302] and Cean Bermudez says that the first stone
of the present church was laid in 1380, and that it was concluded in
1414.[303] Parcerisa,[304] on the other hand, says that materials were
granted for the work in 1329, that it was nearly finished in 1413, and
consecrated in 1453;[305] whilst in A.D. 1416 we have Guillermo Abiell
describing himself as master of the works of Sta. Maria del Pi, and of
St. Jayme, in Barcelona, when he was called as one of the Junta of
architects to advise about the building of the nave of Gerona
cathedral.[306]
[Illustration: BARCELONA:--Ground Plans of Sta Maria del Mar:--Sta
Maria del Pi:--and the Collegista of Sta Ana: Plate XVII.
Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]
St. Jayme, of which Abiell was the architect, is a small church in the
principal street of the city, with an ogee-headed door with a crocketed
label between two pinnacles. Above are some small windows; and the whole
detail is poor in character, and exactly consistent with what might be
expected from an architect at Abiell’s time. I believe, therefore, that
either Abiell was only the surveyor to an already existing fabric, who
wished to make the most of his official position among his brethren at
Gerona, or that if he really executed any works at Sta. Maria del Pi
they were confined to the steeple, which is of later character than the
church. I believe that the real meaning of the dates given by the
authorities just quoted is as follows:--In A.D. 1329 stone was granted
for the work which was then no doubt just commenced at the same time as
the similar work in the transept of the cathedral; and the consecration
probably took place in A.D. 1353, a date which occurs in an inscription
in the church, and has been, I suspect, read by Parcerisa by mistake,
1453; and the work commenced in A.D. 1380 was probably the steeple,
which was completed in A.D. 1414. To decide otherwise would be to ignore
altogether all the information to be derived from the character of the
architectural detail, which, after all, is to a practised eye a safer
guide than any documentary evidence. I should assume, too, from the
identity of the character of the two works, that Jayme Fabre was the
architect who designed the church, and that Guillermo Abiell probably
built the tower some time after his death.
[Illustration: Interior of Santa Agata.]
I must now take my readers back somewhat to an earlier church, which is
full of interest, but very different from those which I have been
describing, and of different style. This is the church of Sta. Agata,
situated just to the north of the cathedral. I have been unable to learn
anything as to its history. It has a nave of four bays, spanned by
pointed arches, which carry the wooden roof, and a groined apse of five
sides. East of the apse is a waggon-vaulted chamber, whose axis is at
right angles to that of the church, and out of it rises a delicate
octagonal steeple, the belfry-stage of which has two-light windows on
four sides, and gables on each face. These gables run back till they
intersect the base of a low stone spire, which is now nearly destroyed,
but the lower part of which can be clearly made out from the
neighbouring steeple of the cathedral. A staircase, ingeniously
constructed in the thickness of the south wall, leads up from the nave
to the pulpit (now destroyed), and thence on again to a western gallery.
Some of the windows are like domestic windows in design, having a
slender shaft-monial with the capital of foliage so often repeated in
all the towns from Perpiñan to Valencia. The great height of the windows
from the floor--about twenty-six feet--secures an admirable effect of
light, and their detail is thoroughly good early middle-pointed. The
southern façade has a great deal of that picturesque irregularity which
is always so charming when it is natural. The door is in the western
angle of the south front, partly built under a great overhanging arch,
which carries the wall of a building which abuts on the west end of Sta.
Agata. The lower half of the walls has small windows irregularly placed,
lighting the eastern chapel, the pulpit, and the passage to the gallery;
and then above them the wall is set back a couple of feet between
buttresses, and each bay has an extremely well designed and moulded
window of two lights, with geometrical tracery. The finish of the walls
at the top is modernized. The construction of the roof is very
effective, and at the same time of a most unusual character; it consists
of a series of purlines resting on corbels in the walls over the arches
across the nave; and though it is of flat pitch, this is but little
noticed, owing to the good proportions of these arches, which are so
marked a feature in the design.
The same kind of roof exists still in the great hall of the Casa
Consistorial, and evidently once existed also in the church which I
shall presently mention in the Calle del Carmen. In England we have
somewhat parallel examples at Mayfield and the Mote House, Ightham; but
these Barcelonese examples are useful, as showing how, when a
flat-pitched roof is of necessity adopted, a very good internal effect
may nevertheless be secured. This church is now desecrated, and used as
a sculptor’s workshop.
Another church, of which only the ruins now remain, in the Calle del
Carmen, must, I presume, be Nuestra Señora del Carmen, founded in
1287.[307] This building was evidently greatly altered in the fourteenth
century. It was first of all roofed with a flat roof, carried on arches
across the nave, as at Sta. Agata, and subsequently the walls were
raised and the church was groined. The groining is now destroyed, and
behind it are seen the corbels in the cross wall marking the rake of the
first roof. The aisles had roofs gabled north and south, and their
windows good fourteenth-century tracery. This church of seven bays in
length is 43 feet wide between the columns of the nave, and nearly 80
feet wide from north to south. Compared with Sta. Agata, it seems to
prove that this class of timber-roofed church was introduced here
between the early waggon-vaulting of the chapel of Sta. Lucia and of
Sta. Ana, and the great quadripartite vaults of the cathedral and the
other churches of its class.
The other churches here are not of much interest. The front of San Jayme
has already been incidentally mentioned: its interior is modernized. San
Miguel is probably a very early church, having a Roman mosaic pavement
preserved in the floor. It has a pointed waggon-vault, and a
sixteenth-century stone gallery at the west end. The western front has a
rich west door, half Gothic and half Renaissance, with St. Michael and
the dragon in the tympanum, and the Annunciation in the jambs. The flat
gable has its old crocketed coping and cross, and two very small
windows. The best feature is the tower, a simple structure, square in
plan, from within the parapet of which, over the centre, rises a small
square turret, open at the sides and roofed with four intersecting
gables. It is a pretty arrangement for carrying a fifth bell, the other
bells hanging in the belfry windows, in the Italian fashion. The church
of San Anton has a groined narthex or porch all across the west front,
with three open arches in front. The nave cannot be wide, and has
chapels between the buttresses, but I did not see the interior. Another
church, that of San Gerónimo, is on the same plan, but of later
date.[308] The churches of the Renaissance class are numerous and ugly;
but Berruguete and his followers hardly perpetrated so many freaks in
art here as they did in the centre of Spain; had they been more popular,
there had been much less for me to describe. But in truth, rich as this
old city still is, it was much richer, two or three noble churches
having disappeared at a comparatively late period, either during the war
or in subsequent popular disturbances.
[Illustration: No. 40.
BARCELONA. p. 314.
CASA CONSISTORIAL.]
[Illustration: Ajimez Window.]
The civic buildings are quite worthy of the ancient dignity of the city.
The Casa Consistorial, and the Casa de la Disputacion, face each other
on opposite sides of the principal square, not far from the cathedral,
The former has a modern Pagan front, but on the north side the old
work remains. This building is said to have been commenced in A.D. 1369,
and finished in A.D. 1378;[309] and inside the great hall I noticed an
inscription (which unfortunately I neglected to copy) with the date of
1373. The old front to the north of this building seems worthy of
illustration. The enormous arch-stones of the principal doorway are very
common throughout Cataluña, and are seen indeed as far east even as
Perpiñan. The figure of St. Michael has metal wings; and as the little
church dedicated in honour of the same archangel is just on the other
side of the Casa, it seems as if there was some special connection
between the two buildings. The _patio_ or quadrangle is oblong in plan,
and on the first-floor the passage is open to the air, with delicate
arches all round. On the east side of this passage a door opens into a
noble hall, with a dais for the throne at the upper end, and doorways
on each side of the dais. This hall is spanned by four moulded
semicircular arches rising from corbels formed of a cluster of shafts.
These arches support a flat ceiling of rafters, with boarding between
them, resting on corbels in the cross walls. The light is admitted by
large cusped circles high up in the side walls, and by good _ajimez_
windows of three lights at the dais end. The rafters of the roof are all
painted with coats of arms enclosed within quatrefoils, with a very rich
effect. The dimensions of this room are about 40 feet wide by 90 feet
long, and 45 feet in height. In a passage near it is an admirable
_ajimez_ window, which, as it illustrates this common type very well, is
worth preserving a record of. The marble shafts here are only three
inches in diameter.[310]
The Casa de la Disputacion _was_ still more interesting; but on my last
visit the delicate arcades of its beautiful _patio_ were all being
walled up with common brick, leaving narrow slits of windows, which I
suppose are to be glazed, to save the degenerate lawyers for the future
from any of the chance squalls of wind or rain which their predecessors
have endured since the fifteenth century, when Master Pedro Blay, the
architect, superintended its erection. This _patio_ is of three stages
in height, with a picturesque external staircase to the first floor. The
lofty corridor round the first floor leads to the various courts and
offices, and in one angle of it is the entrance to the chapel,
consisting of three small arches, forming a door and two windows, with
the wall above them covered with an elaborate reticulation of tracery.
The arches have ogee crocketed canopies, and the side arches iron
_grilles_. This chapel is dedicated to St. George, the tutelar saint of
Cataluña, and a figure of the saint rivals that of St. Michael in the
Sala Consistorial. There are here some extremely well-managed
overhanging passage-ways corbelled out from the walls, and various
excellent features of detail. The parapets generally to the various
passages are of plain stone slabs, pierced here and there only with a
richly traceried circle.
Another old building--the Lonja or Exchange--was built near the sea in
A.D. 1383.[311] But everything old has been completely destroyed, with
the one exception of its grand hall, which still does service as of old.
This consists of three naves, divided by lofty and slender columns,
which carry stilted semi-circular arches. The ceiling is flat, of the
same description as that of the Sala Consistorial. The dimensions are
about 100 feet in length by 75 feet in width.
Another great building, founded soon after, circa 1444, was intended for
a cloth-hall:[312] in 1514 it was converted into an armoury, and
subsequently into a residence for the Captains-General of Cataluña; it
has been completely modernized throughout the exterior, and I did not
see the interior.
Cean Bermudez mentions an interesting fact about the construction of the
old Mole. It was built, he says, by Estacio, a famous hydraulic
architect of Alexandria, in A.D. 1477; and the city authorities took
counsel about it with the most learned professors of Syracuse, Rhodes,
and Candia.