MANRESA--LÉRIDA.
THE railway which connects Barcelona with Zaragoza enables the
ecclesiologist to see some of the best buildings in this part of Spain
with great ease. As far as Manresa its course is extremely picturesque,
as it winds about among the Catalan hills, in sight, for a considerable
part of the way, of that wonderful jagged mountain-range of Montserrat,
which, after much experience of mountains, strikes me more each time
that I see it as among the very noblest of rocks. I know not its height
above the sea, but its vast precipitous mass, rising suddenly from among
the ordinary features of a landscape, and entirely unconnected with any
other mountain range, produces an impression of size which may possibly
be vastly in excess of the reality. Its sky-line is everywhere formed by
grand pointed pinnacles, or aiguilles of rock, and the whole mass is of
a pale grey colour which adds very much to its effect. The convent is a
considerable distance below the summit; but as there appears, so far as
I can learn, to be nothing left of any of its mediæval buildings, I was
obliged to deny myself the pleasure of the climb to the summit of the
rock, which a visit to the monastery would have excused, and in part,
indeed, entailed. To the north of the line of the railway the hills rise
gradually almost to the dignity of mountains, and suggest a beautiful
situation for that old episcopal city--Vique--whose fine cathedral seems
to have been destroyed and rebuilt, but where there is still to be seen
a very rich late middle-pointed cloister. Everywhere the richly-coloured
soil teems with produce; here vineyards and there corn-fields, all of
them divided by long parallel lines of olives and standard peaches;
whilst the deep river dells, clothed with cork-trees, stone pines, or
underwood, add immensely to the interest of the road, which constantly
crosses them.
Beyond Manresa the character of the country changes completely; and when
he has once reached the frontier of Aragon, the traveller has his only
pleasure in the fine distant views of the Pyrenees; and if his journey
be made in the spring--in the sight of a vast extent of corn-fields,
stretching on all sides far as the eye can see. In the summer nothing
can be more saddening than the change which comes over this country; the
corn is all cut before the end of May, and then the universal
light-brown colour of the soil makes the landscape all but intolerably
tame and uninteresting.
[Illustration: MANRESA: COLLEGIATE: CHURCH:--Ground: Plan: Pl. XIX.
Published by John Murray Albemarle St. 1865]
Two or three old buildings are seen from the railway. Between Sardanola
and Sabadell is a house with a tower, in which is a very good
round-arched _ajimez_ window. At Tarrasa the churches evidently deserve
examination. There is one with a lofty central lantern, and of
transverse triapsal plan, which seems to be entirely Romanesque in
character; and there is another of the usual later Catalan type, seven
bays in length, with an apse of five sides, a tower on the south side of
the choir, and a large rose-window at the west end. Near the same town,
to the north, is a Romanesque village church with a lofty belfry, which,
like that of the early church in the town itself, has belfry-windows of
two lights, with a dividing shaft, and a low square spire-roof. A church
of the same type is seen near Monistrol--the station for
Montserrat,--and from this point there is nothing to be noticed until
Manresa is reached, picturesquely situated on the steep hill above the
river Cardener, with two or three churches and convents, and a great
Collegiata--or collegiate church--towering up imposingly above
everything else. But if the situation of this church is noble, the
building itself is even more so; and having passed it in my first
journey, I was so much struck by its size and character that I made a
point of going again to the same district, in order to examine it at my
leisure. The town is poor and decayed; but I was there on a _festa_, and
have seldom had a better opportunity of seeing the Catalan peasantry,
who thronged the streets, the Plazas, and the churches, and made them
lively with bright colours and noisy tongues. There was a church
consecrated on the same site in A.D. 1020, and it is of this probably
that a fragment still remains on the north side. The rest has been
destroyed, and Fr. J. Villanueva[347] says that the existing church was
commenced in A.D. 1328,--a date which accords very well with the detail
of the earlier portion of the work,--but he does not give his authority
for the statement. I have not been able to find any other evidence which
would fix the date of the dedication or completion of the building; but
as Arnaldo de Valleras, one of the architects consulted in 1416 as to
the design for Gerona cathedral, speaks of himself as then engaged on
the construction of the church of Manresa, there can be but little doubt
that at this time the Collegiata was still unfinished, having, as the
detail of the design suggests, been a long time in progress. It is of
the common Catalan type of the fourteenth century, and though it is one
of the most important examples of its class, it presents so few new or
unusual features that it hardly seems to require a very lengthy
description. Its design is in nearly all respects of the same kind as
those of the Barcelonese churches of the same age; but its plan[348] is
very remarkable, as giving, perhaps, the widest span of nave anywhere to
be seen in a church with aisles and a clerestory. Or perhaps I ought to
limit myself to examples on the mainland, for at Palma in Mallorca the
width of the nave of the cathedral seems to be even greater, and the
plan is almost exactly the same. The scheme is very similar to that of
Sta. Maria del Mar, Barcelona, but the width of the nave here is
considerably greater, and the general effect of the interior is even
finer. The buttresses are necessarily of vast size, and are formed
partly inside and partly outside the church. A lofty tower is erected
over one of the bays of the north aisle, and the two nave columns which
carry it are in consequence built of larger dimensions than any of the
others. A fine Romanesque doorway still remains in the wall, just
outside this tower, and leads now into the modern cloister court; but
the principal entrances to the church are by grand doorways of the same
age as the church, whose jambs and arches have rich continuous
mouldings. These doorways are opposite each other, and just to the west
of the apse, a position of much importance in regard to the ritual
arrangements of the church. There is also a western doorway, but this,
together with the rest of the west front, has all been modernized,
whilst the cloister and its chapels appear to be entirely modern.
The magnificent scale of the plan is perhaps hardly supported as it
should be by the beauty of the design in detail. In its present state it
is hardly fair to judge of the original effect of the exterior, but
inside one is struck by the enormous width and height, and not at all by
the beauty of the details. The columns are of vast height and size: but
plain piers, with poor bases and capitals, and poverty-stricken arches,
seem out of place in such a church, and, owing to the enormous size of
the vault, the clerestory windows are but little seen in the general
view of the interior.
The columns are simple octagons in plan, and of great size: they have
poor, shallow, carved capitals, which support the very thin-looking main
arches, and the large moulded piers which carry the groining. This is
quadripartite throughout, and has very bold ribs, with carved bosses at
the meeting of the diagonal ribs. The window traceries throughout are of
rich geometrical character, and savour rather of German influence than
of French. Those in the aisles are generally of two lights, and in the
clerestory of three and four lights--the window in the eastern bay of
the apse being of four lights, whilst those in the other bays are only
of three.
The whole roof of the aisles is paved with stone laid on the back of the
vault, as at Toledo cathedral, with gutters following the lines of the
vaulting ribs, and the water is carried down into the pockets of the
vaults, and thence through the buttresses into gurgoyles. Over this
roof--which seemed to me to be undoubtedly the old one--a modern wooden
roof covered with pantiles has been erected, which blocks up all the
lower part of the clerestory windows, and is carried in a very clumsy
fashion on arches thrown across between the flying buttresses. The nave
roof is now all covered with pantiles laid on the vault itself, so that
from below the church has the effect, already noticed at Barcelona, of
being roofless. This is certainly not the old arrangement, but whether
of old there was any visible roof to any of these late Catalan churches
I am wholly unable to say.
The flying buttresses are double in height, the lower arches abutting
against the wall a few feet above the sills of the clerestory windows,
and the upper somewhat above their springing. It is possible that this
upper flying buttress is an addition to the original design, provided to
meet some settlement in the fabric, for many of the buttresses have only
the lower arch, which would hardly be the case if they had all been
executed at the same time. The buttresses generally are finished with
crocketed pediments, but there are now no traces to be seen of their
pinnacles, or of the parapets between them. A lofty octagonal staircase
turret is carried up to the height of the clerestory against one of the
outer angles of the aisle wall, and a passageway from it to the
clerestory roof is boldly carried upon an arch, which takes the place of
a flying buttress.
[Illustration: No. 43.
MANRESA p. 342
INTERIOR OF THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH.]
The steeple is lofty: it is entered by old doorways opening on to the
paved roof of the aisles, and is groined both under and above the bells.
An old newel staircase in one angle has been destroyed, and steps
projecting from the side walls have been ingeniously introduced
instead. On the top of the tower a large bell is suspended from the
intersection of four arched stone ribs; these ribs rise about
twenty-five feet from the roof, are about one foot six inches thick, and
abut against piers or dwarf pinnacles at the base, about four feet deep
by one foot eleven inches thick. Two architects, said to be
French--though their names seem to me to be those of Catalans--Juan Font
and Giralt Cantarell, are said to have worked at this steeple from 1572
to 1590,[349] and no doubt it was this upper portion on which they
wrought.
The sacristies on the south-east side of the apse are old, but not
interesting. The only antiquities I saw in them were four fine
processional staves, with tops of silver richly wrought with tracery in
the sides, and crocketed gables over the traceries. Behind the openings
of tracery the plate is gilt, the rest being all silver.
The arrangement of the interior of the church for service follows that
usually seen in these enormously wide buildings. Within the apse the
choir is formed by means of iron _grilles_, leaving a passage some ten
feet wide all round it, and under the choir is a crypt as at Barcelona
cathedral, approached in the same way, by a flight of steps from the
nave. The Coro is placed, according to the common fashion, in the nave,
occupying about two of its bays in length, and there is an equal space
to the west of it, between its eastern screen and the steps to the
Capilla mayor. The width of the Coro is much less than that of the nave,
and its enclosing walls are mainly old. At first sight, therefore, it
seems to be a good example of an early introduction of this common
Spanish arrangement: but on closer view it appears to have been taken
down and rebuilt, and may not, possibly, retain its old position. But,
on the other hand, the two great doors in the side walls would never
have been placed where they are if the Coro had occupied its usual
English position to the west of the altar enclosure. The plan of
Barcelona cathedral has just the same arrangement of great doorways
north and south between the Coro and the altar, and there, beyond any
doubt, the Coro is in its old place; and seeing how close the points of
similarity are in both churches, it must, I think, be assumed that even
if this screen at Manresa has been rebuilt it still occupies its old
place. It is a work of the fifteenth century, of stone, arcaded on
either side of a central western doorway. The divisions of the arcade
have figures painted within them of the apostles and other saints. The
stalls and fittings of the Coro are all of Renaissance character.
On either side of the altar there still remain three octagonal shafts
with carved capitals, to which, no doubt, were originally hung the
curtains or veils which protected the altar. They are of the same date
as the church, and about ten feet six inches in height. The footpace is
also old, and placed exactly in the centre of the apse. The richest
treasure here is, however, still to be described. Among a number of
altar-frontals, neither better nor worse than are usually seen, there is
still preserved one which, after much study of embroidery in all parts
of Europe, I may, I believe, safely pronounce to be the most beautiful
work of its age. It is 10 feet long, by 2 feet 10¾ inches in height,
divided into three compartments in width, the centre division having the
Crucifixion, and the sides being each subdivided into nine divisions,
each containing a subject from the life of our Lord.[350] An inscription
at the lower edge of the frontal preserves the name of the artist to
whom this great work is owing. It is in Lombardic capitals, and as
follows:--
GERI: LAPI: RACHAMATORE: MEFECIT: INFLORENTIA.
The work is all done on fine linen doubled. The faces, hands, and many
other parts--as, _e.g._, the masonry of a wall--are drawn with brown ink
on the linen, and very delicately shaded with a brush. The use of ink
for the faces is very common in early embroidery, but I have never
before seen work so elaborately finished with all the art of the
painter. The faces are full of beauty and expression, and have much of
the tender religious sentiment one sees in the work of Fra Angelico. The
drawing is extremely good, the horses like those Benozzo Gozzoli
painted, and the men dressed in Florentine dresses of the early part of
the fifteenth century. The subjects are full of intricacy, the
Crucifixion having the whole subject, with the crucifixion of the
thieves, and all the crowd of figures so often represented.
The work is marvellously delicate--so much so that, passing the hand
over it, it is difficult to tell exactly when it ends and the painting
begins. The colours are generally very fresh and beautiful; but the gold
backgrounds being very lightly stitched down are a good deal frayed.
There are borders between and around all the subjects. Such a piece of
embroidery makes one almost despair. English ladies who devotedly apply
themselves to this kind of work have as yet no conception of the
delicacy of the earlier works, and reproduce only too often the coarse
patterns of the latest English school.[351]
In the choir-aisle is a wheel of bells in its old case, and under the
organ is the favourite Catalan device of a Saracen’s head.
A picturesque effect was produced in the church here by the large white
flannel hoods which all the women wore at mass. The church was crowded
with people, and these white hoods contrasted well with the
many-coloured bags or sacks--red and violet predominating--which the men
always wear on their heads.
[Illustration: Wheel of Bells.]
I saw two other old churches here. That “del Carmen” is of the same age
as the Collegiata, with a nave of six bays and an apse of seven sides.
It is forty-seven feet wide in the clear, without aisles, has chapels
between the buttresses, and is lighted by large clerestory-windows.
Here, as at the cathedral, almost all the windows are blocked, and
sufficient light seems to be obtained for the whole church by some ten
or twelve holes about two feet square pierced here and there. The other
church is of the same description, but less important.
Between Manresa and Lérida, the only town of any importance is Cervera.
Here there is a vast and hideous university building going to ruin; and
two churches, one of which, with a square steeple, seems to be early in
date, and the other--that of Sta. Maria, I believe--of the usual Catalan
fourteenth-century type. This steeple was completed, in A.D. 1431, by an
architect of Cervera, Pedro de Vall-llebrera; but it must have been long
in progress, inasmuch as the principal bell--which was never to be
tolled save for the funeral of a peer, a royal officer, or a bishop--was
put in its place in A.D. 1377.[352] This bell has disappeared. On
another, however, is this inscription:--“I.H.S.. Mateus. de. Ulmo.
magister. cimbalorum. ville. Cervariæ. me. fecit. anno. a. nativitate.
Domini. millesimo. quadringentesimo. vigesimo. quarto. Si. ergo. me.
queritis. sinite. os. habire.” And on another--“+ Barbara. nos. serva.
Christi. sanctissima. serva.”
Between Cervera and Lérida the country is very uninteresting until near
the end of the journey, when a good view of Lérida, and the cliff above
the river, is obtained. I have twice visited this interesting old city.
In the autumn of 1861 I passed a day there, when the greater part of my
time was spent in endeavouring to get admission into the cathedral, so
that I only saw enough to make me wish to repeat my visit; and this I
was fortunately able to accomplish in the spring of 1862. My readers
will agree with me, when they have realized to themselves what is to be
seen, that such a cathedral as that of Lérida is in itself worth the
journey from England. Unfortunately its examination will always be beset
with difficulties--if indeed it is allowed at all when visitors become
more numerous than they have been hitherto.
The town consists mainly of one very long, tortuous street parallel with
the river Segre, a broad, rapid stream, carrying the waters of a large
part of the southern slopes of the Pyrenees into the Ebro at Mequinenza.
There is an Alameda all along the river-bank, and at about midway in its
length a large stone bridge across the river. Behind the town a hill
rises rapidly--in some parts abruptly--to an elevation of, I suppose,
about three hundred feet above the river; and on the summit of this
stand the old cathedral, and some remains of other coeval buildings, now
the centre of a formidable-looking, though really neglected, system of
fortifications. Two other old churches--San Lorenzo and San
Juan--remain, one in the upper part of the city, and the other on the
Plaza, near the bridge. A modern cathedral, of the baldest and coldest
Pagan type, but of great size, was built in the main street, near the
river, when the old cathedral was converted into a fortress; and I
cannot do better than quote Mr. Ford’s rather ironical statement of its
history:--“The ruin,” he says, “of the old cathedral dates from 1707,
when the French made it a fortress: nor has it ever been restored to
pious uses; for in the piping times of peace the steep walk proved too
much for the pursy canons, who, abandoning their lofty church, employed
General Sabatani! to build them a new cathedral below, in the convenient
and Corinthian style.” From the date of its desecration nothing whatever
has been cared for; and it goes to one’s heart to see so noble a work,
and one so sacred, put to such vile uses, and to so little purpose: for
even now when Spain bristles with soldiers, and the whole nation is
bitten with the love of military sights and sounds, the desecration of a
sacred building is all that has been accomplished; for I believe that
the Spaniards have seldom managed to hold possession of it against the
French, and in its present dilapidated state are less than ever likely
to do so.[353] The position is, however, a very strong one; and another
hill to the west of the city is crowned with a second fort connected
with it. Admission is only to be obtained by an order from the
commandant of the district, who resides in the city below; and he very
kindly sent a sub-officer to remain with me whilst I was in the fort,
and with true Spanish courtesy came up himself to see that I gained
admission to every part, and took great trouble to open doors some of
which seemed hardly to have been opened since the Peninsular war!
The buildings now remaining consist of a church with an enormous
cloister on its western side, and a lofty steeple at the south-west
angle of the cloister. On the north side of the cloister is a large
stone-roofed hall, and north of this again, and detached from the
cathedral, are considerable fragments of what is called a castle, and
these include another noble groined hall.
My ground-plan of the cathedral and its dependences will show at a
glance how unusual and remarkable the whole scheme is. The south side of
the church is built on the very edge of the precipitous cliff above the
town and river, and the lofty tower is daringly balanced as it were on
the most dangerous point of the whole ground. The mass of the whole
group seen from below, and the vast height of the tower, are therefore
singularly imposing, whilst the view obtained from the summit is one of
rare magnificence. It is true that here the immediate neighbourhood is
not lovely, but still the river does much towards converting to
fruitfulness the usually arid-looking Aragonese soil of the district by
clothing it with trees and verdure, and when last I saw it not only was
the Segre a torrent of rushing waters, but on all sides the hills were
covered with a wide expanse of vineyards and corn-fields; and beyond
these were to be seen towering up in the far distance the grand range of
the Pyrenees, touched here and there--on the Maladetta and some of the
other high peaks--with lines of snow; whilst on the other side the lower
mountain ranges of Aragon completed one of the most beautiful panoramas
I have ever seen from church tower.
The site of the cathedral has long been occupied. It was an important
stronghold in the time of the Romans, and the first cathedral was
erected as early as in the sixth century. The Moors in course of time
gained possession of the city, and it was not until A.D. 1149 that the
Christians, under Ramon Berenguer, finally drove them out and regained
possession.
The documentary evidence as to the age of the existing buildings is
fairly clear, and may as well be given at once. I derive all my facts
from the papers printed in ‘España Sagrada;’[354] and besides those
which more particularly interest me as an architect, there are in the
volume which relates to Lérida some most interesting extracts from the
proceedings of councils held there from A.D. 1175 to 1418, and of
diocesan synods from the year 1240. These are full of information as to
the customs of the church, and the rules affecting the clergy.[355]
The first stone of the new cathedral was laid in the time of the third
bishop after the restoration, and in the presence of the king Don Pedro
II. An inscription on a stone on the Gospel side of the choir, which I
did not see, gives the date[356] as the 22nd July, 1203; and in A.D.
1215 the cloister was, in part at any rate, built, one Raymundo de
Segarra having desired that he might be buried within its walls.[357]
From this time to the consecration we have no notice of the building, if
I except the following inscription still remaining on the eastern jamb
of the south transept doorway, which proves the existence of that part
of the church at the time mentioned:--“Anno Domini M: CCº: XV xi: Kal:
Madii: obiit Gulielmus de Rocas: cuj: aīe: sit:” and there is a
mention in ‘España Sagrada’ of the burial of Bishop Berenguer, in A.D.
1256, by one of the doors, called thenceforward after him. On the last
day of October, A.D. 1278, the church was consecrated by Bishop Guillen
de Moncada, and the record of this on the west wall is now concealed,
but I give a copy of it.[358]
In 1286 Pedro de Peñafreyta, who had been master of the works,
died;[359] he had probably been employed on the central lantern and the
cloister, for which latter work, on the 21st of August, 1310, the king
Don Jayme II. gave the stone;[360] circa A.D. 1320 Bishop Guillen
founded a chapel; in 1323 the work of the “cloister and tower” was still
going on;[361] and in 1327 alms were asked for the completion of the
same work;[362] and again in 1335 the vicar-general, in the absence of
the bishop, appealed for alms, “pro maximo et sumptuoso opere claustri
ecclesiæ catedralis.”
In A.D. 1391 Guillermo Çolivella contracted to execute the statues for
the doorway at the price of 240 sueldos each; and in A.D. 1490 Francisco
Gomar contracted for the erection of a grand porch for 1600 sueldos. The
steeple at the angle of the cloister seems to have been commenced about
the end of the fourteenth century. The fabric-rolls for 1397 contain an
item of 350 feet of stone from the river Daspe “for the work of the
tower.” Other similar notices occur, and among them the names of two
masters of the works, Guillelmo Çolivella and Cárlos Galtes de Ruan. It
was probably completed before 1416; for in this year Juan Adam, “de
burgo Sanctæ Mariæ, Turlensis diocesis, regni Franciæ,” contracted for
the making of the great bell, which was finished in 1418, and commended
by the chapter in these words--“Cujus sonitu et mentis vulnera sanari,
et divinitatis singularis gratia possit conquiri.”[363] There are no
other notices of the main portion of the fabric; but we know that, in
A.D. 1414, Pedro Balaguer was sent from Valencia to examine the tower at
Lérida before he built the tower called the Micalete in his own city;
and we may conclude therefore that before this date the work at Lérida
had been completely finished.
It is easy to distinguish the works referred to in these notices. The
church, of which the first stone was laid in A.D. 1203, and which was
consecrated in A.D. 1278, still remains almost as it was built; and
there can be but little doubt that the greater part of the cloister is
of the same date. The works for which stone was given, in A.D. 1310,
were probably those in its western half, and possibly the lower part of
the steeple; and the chapel, founded in A.D. 1320, must be one of those
added on either side of the great south door, or on the east side of the
south transept.
It is impossible not to feel greatly more interest in a church whose
scheme is unusual, than in one of a common type, even when its detail is
not of so high a value, or its scale less imposing. Here, however, we
have both extreme novelty in the general scheme,[364] and extreme merit
in all the detail. As one climbs the steep street which leads to the
cathedral, where the open space around the fortifications is reached,
the first general view of the buildings is most puzzling. The low outer
wall of the cloister, with an enormous western doorway, the point of
whose archway reaches to the top of the wall, the steeple on the extreme
right, and the central lantern appearing to rise only just above the
cloister wall, make a most unintelligible group. Making my way to the
great doorway, I was astonished to find it to be the entrance, not of
the church, as I at first assumed it to be, but only of the cloister;
and not less disgusted to find that three sides of this cloister had
been turned into barracks, a floor having been inserted all round at the
level of the springing of the vault, so as to afford ample accommodation
for some hundreds of soldiers, who sleep, cook, and live within its
walls; whilst the eastern side is now a storehouse for arms and
accoutrements, similarly divided by a floor, and without any visible
trace of the doors of communication between church and cloister, which
are said to be on this side. Yet this cloister is certainly, even in its
present desecrated state, the grandest I have ever seen. Its scale is
enormous, and much of its detail very fine. I have no doubt that it was
a long time in progress, and this would account to some extent for the
extreme irregularity of some of its parts. The bays, for instance, vary
in width: the buttresses are variously treated; and the sculpture, which
on the eastern side seems to be coeval with the earliest portion of the
church, is evidently on the other sides of much later date--probably not
earlier than A.D. 1300. The buttresses on the eastern side are carried
on bold engaged columns with sculptured capitals, whilst most of the
others are square in outline, with small engaged shafts in recesses at
their angles. The arches are now all built up and plastered; but in two
of those on the eastern side it is just possible to detect the
commencement of traceries, from which it would seem that each arch had
tracery above an arcade of three or four divisions. In its present state
it is impossible to say more than this, or whether these traceries were
original, though they seem to have been geometrical in style, and
therefore probably later in date than the enclosing arches. The eastern
half of the cloister has the outer arches richly adorned with
complicated chevron and cable ornament, and the remainder of the arches
are finely moulded. The interior is more uniform in character, the vault
being quadripartite throughout, with very boldly moulded ribs; and the
main piers, and the piers at the angles, being very exquisitely planned,
with a number of detached shafts with well moulded bases, bands, and
capitals, the latter carved with foliage and heads. The capitals and
bases are square throughout the cloister. On the south side this
cloister has openings in the outer wall corresponding with those opening
into the inner court; and these, I think, also had traceries. Owing to
the fall of the ground towards the edge of the cliff, these windows are
high above the terrace outside, and very bold buttresses are placed
between each of them. The effect of the cloister on the south side is
that of an enormous ball: and this, in truth, is what it is. Its clear
internal width varies from 26 ft. 6 in. to 27 ft. 6 in., and the height
is quite in proportion. Occupied as it now is by hundreds of soldiers,
one is tempted to ask, whether a building so far larger than could be
required for a mere cloister may not have been built in the first
instance to serve some double purpose; being, for instance, not only an
ambulatory, but a refectory, and dormitory also. The way in which some
of our own old buildings were fitted, with a chapel at the end of a
series of cubicles on either side under the open roof of a great hall
(as, _e.g._, St. Mary’s Hospital at Chichester, Chichele’s College
Higham Ferrers, and a hospital at Leicester), seems to point to the
possibility of some such utilizing of the vast space which these
cloisters afford; and the more as it seemed to me that there were not
the evidences that might have been expected of the existence at any time
of the other dependent buildings required by a cathedral body in all
cases, and more than usually here where the church was so far above and
away from the city. I mentioned the western entrance of the cloister as
being very large: it is a double doorway with niches for six statues in
either jamb, and the orders of the archivolt are alternately of
mouldings and niches for figures. The outer arch is crocketed between
two great pinnacles. The carving has mostly been destroyed; but there is
a poor sculpture of the Last Judgment in the tympanum. The doorway has
evidently been added between two of the earlier buttresses of the
cloister at about the end of the fourteenth century; its detail is
extremely delicate and rich, and somewhat similar to that of the west
doorway of Tarragona cathedral; and both are quite like very good French
fourteenth-century work.
Unfortunately the doorways from the cloister to the church are now quite
invisible, the wall being completely hidden by military packing-cases
and arms.[365] This is the more to be regretted as the grandeur of the
other doors leads me to suppose that the western doorway would be very
fine.
[Illustration: No. 44
LÉRIDA OLD CATHEDRAL
VIEW FROM STEEPLE. p. 353]
It will be seen by reference to the plan that there is a steeple
abutting against the south-west angle of the cloister; it is set against
it in the most irregular fashion; and it is worth mention that the
architect of the Micalete, at Valencia, who was directed to study this
tower, imitated it even in this peculiarity. Here there seems, so far
as I can see, to be no reason for the irregularity; and I can only
conjecture that it may have been the consequence of some variation in
the rock on which it stands. The entrance is by a staircase through a
house, and thence by a newel staircase in the thickness of the wall. The
steeple is octagonal in plan, and of five stages in height; the two
lowest lighted by windows of one light; the third with windows of two;
and the fourth with others of three lights, one in each face of the
octagon. There is a rich parapet of open tracery, supported on corbels,
to this stage, and a great pinnacle at each angle. The pinnacles are
carried up from the ground, and are at present partly destroyed, and
made to carry iron beacons instead of their old finish. The fifth stage
stands entirely within the other; and its plan, as being the most
interesting, is shown on my ground-plan of the whole building. Here each
face of the octagon had a bold opening with a crocketed and traceried
gable over it, and pinnacles at the angles, and probably a traceried
parapet which no longer exists. The various stages are groined with
stone vaults, and the whole construction is of the most dignified and
solid description. The height from the terrace on the west side of the
cloister to the top of the parapet is about 170 feet. The steeple looks
much higher than this: but this is no doubt in great part owing to the
enormous height above the city of the cliff on the edge of which it
stands. The view of the church from the summit is so striking, and gives
so clear an idea of its whole scheme, that I have engraved it. My
drawing shows the cloister in the foreground, and the south-west view of
the church beyond it. Here almost every part that is seen is of the
earliest portion of the fabric, which seems to have been carried out on
a regular plan from first to last. The church is cruciform, with a nave
and aisles only three bays in length, and an octagonal lantern over the
crossing. The choir and its aisles had three parallel apses east of the
transept, and a fourth chapel was added in the fourteenth century, as
were also two chapels on the south side of the nave. Two
staircase-turrets on the west sides of the transepts (a favourite
position for them in early Spanish churches) added much to the
picturesqueness of the outline; but the upper part of one of these has
unfortunately been destroyed, and the other was either carried up or
altered at a later date--probably in the fourteenth century.
It will be seen that most of the windows are round-headed. Everywhere,
however, the main arches are pointed; and this is, as I need hardly
say, always characteristic of transitional buildings. The strange thing
is, that in a church which was in building between A.D. 1203 and 1278 we
should find such strong evidences of knowledge of nothing but
twelfth-century art; and assuming the dates to be correct--as I think we
must--it affords good evidence of the slow progress in this part of
Spain of the developments which had at this time produced so great a
change in the north of Europe. Either the whole building was built on
the plan at first laid down, or else, having been commenced vigorously,
and in great part finished, some delay must have been caused in its
completion for consecration. The latter is no doubt the more probable
supposition, because, whilst the whole of the walls up to the top of the
clerestory seem to be of perfectly uniform character inside and out, the
central lantern is evidently a work of circa A.D. 1260-1278, and one
which could not have been designed so early as 1203. The sculpture of
all the capitals throughout the interior, as well as that of the
doorways, must also be set down to the commencement of the century; and
the date of A.D. 1215, which occurs on the south transept front, seems
to make it probable that at that time the work in this part of the
church was well advanced.
Here I may notice one of the remarkable features of this building--that
the external roofs are all of stone. Most of them indeed are modern; but
those of the choir and lantern are undoubtedly original, and there can
be little doubt that the whole church was covered in the same way. They
are formed entirely of stones chamfered and weathered to a flat pitch,
and lapping slightly over each other. Their effect is good, and they
were evidently built by men who hoped their work would last for ever:
yet this has not quite been the result of what they did; for, as I have
said, most of the roofs have been relaid with slabs of stone carefully
fitted together like pavement, and less likely therefore to withstand
the weather than the old roofs were.
The entrances to the cathedral are at present three in number,--a door
in each transept and one in the south wall--in addition to the western
doorway, which, if it exists, is now blocked up. These doors are all
fine. That in the north transept is simple but effective: it has a
simply-moulded semicircular arch, above which is a pointed arch with a
stone in the enclosed space carved with A and [Omega]; and above it a
very finely-sculptured horizontal cornice. The doorway is set forward a
few inches from the wall, in the Lombard fashion. In the gable of the
transept over it is a large moulded but untraceried circular window,
and enough of an original stepped corbel-table under the eaves to show
that the old pitch of the roofs was very flat, though somewhat steeper
than at present. The south transept doorway is much finer: it has a
richly-sculptured round arch; and on each side of the arch are
niches--one containing a statue of St. Gabriel, and the other one of the
Blessed Virgin. Under the exquisitely sculptured cornice which surmounts
the door is inscribed, in large incised letters, the angelic salutation;
whilst on the right jamb of the door is the inscription of the year
1215, given at p. 349. Above the doorway is, as in the other gables, a
circular window; and here the fine early tracery with which it was
filled in still remains. The whole detail of this front is of the finest
kind, and must have been executed by men who knew something of the best
Italian Romanesque work. Nothing can exceed the delicacy and care with
which the whole was executed. The wheel is divided by eight octagonal
shafts radiating from the centre, and these carry an order of sixteen
semi-circular cusps, two to each division. These cusps are covered with
the billet ornament, and their spandrels have sunk carved circles. The
mouldings which enclose the window are rich and delicate in character;
and though it is unfortunately now walled up, it is well preserved, and
still extremely effective.
[Illustration: Cornice of South Transept Doorway.]
The last and grandest of the doors--the “Puerta dels Fillols” or of the
Infantes--is in the centre bay of the south aisle. This is an example of
singularly rich transitional work, with an archivolt enriched with
mouldings, chevrons, dog-tooth, intersecting arches, and elaborate
foliage. There is the usual horizontal cornice over the arch, and above
this a fourteenth-century statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and our
Lord. The horizontal cornice is carried on moulded corbels, between
which and the wall are carvings of wyverns and other animals: whilst the
soffeit of the cornice in each compartment is carved with delicate
tracery panels, in some of which I thought I detected some trace of
Moorish influence. The cornice has a delicate, trailing branch of
foliage; and the label and two or three orders of the arch, in which
sculpture of foliage is introduced, are remarkable for the singular
delicacy and refinement of the lines of the foliage, and for the
exceeding skill with which they have been wrought. There is none of that
reckless dash which marks our carvers now-a-days, but in its place a
patient elaboration of lovely forms, which cannot too much be praised.
The mouldings here are all decidedly characteristic of the thirteenth
century. The whole is now protected by a later--probably fifteenth
century--vaulted porch, which occupies the space between two added
chapels.[366] The effect is very good and picturesque, as will be seen
by the illustration which I give; but as this porch is the storehouse
for rockets and shells, I fear its beauties are likely to be a sealed
book to most travellers, though, owing to the extreme courtesy of the
commandant, I was so fortunate as to be allowed to see and sketch it at
my leisure.
The original windows are all simple round-arched, with moulded arches,
and shafts, with caps and bases in the jambs; those in the lantern and
at the west ends of the aisles are of later date, and pointed. The west
window is circular and very large, but without tracery; and there is a
small lancet below it which is now blocked up by the roof of the
cloister. No doubt this roof was originally a gabled stone roof with a
gutter against the wall, so as to leave this window open.
The lantern is octagonal above the roof, with a window in each side,
pilasters at the angles, and an arcaded corbel-table at the eaves. The
staircase-turret on its north-west side is also octagonal, and rises
above the eaves. The roof is original, and of stone.
[Illustration: No. 45.
LÉRIDA OLD CATHEDRAL
SOUTH PORCH.]
The chapels which have been added seem all to have been built in the
fourteenth century, and are much mutilated: they are good works of their
age, but rather mar the general effect of the church, and do not call
for much notice; two of them were closed, and I was unable to obtain
admission to them.
[Illustration: Pendentive, &c., under Lantern, Lérida Cathedral.]
The interior of the church has been as completely encumbered with
arrangements for soldiers’ convenience as has that of the cloister. A
floor has been erected all over the nave at mid-height of the columns,
and in the south transept at the level of their capitals. The choir is
boarded off, and not actively desecrated. The real floor of the church
is now an artillery storehouse; on the raised floor of the nave a
regiment of soldiers sleep and live; and in the south transept the
bandsmen spend all their time making the most hideous and deafening
discord. It is indeed a shameful use for a church, and there is only one
small crumb of consolation in the fact that, soldiers notwithstanding,
there has hitherto been no great amount of wilful damage done to any of
the old work. The capitals throughout are extremely rich in sculpture,
and are still perfect though obscured by whitewash, and the groining has
nowhere been damaged. I know no style more full of vigour and true
majesty than the earliest pointed, of which this interior is so fine an
example. The lavish enrichment of the capitals, the fine section of the
great clustered columns, the severe simplicity of the unmoulded arches,
and the extreme boldness of the groining-ribs, all combine to produce
this result. Almost all the principal shafts are coupled, and the
groining-bays are kept very distinct from one another by very bold
transverse arches; these, and indeed all the main arches, are pointed.
There is no triforium, and but a small space between the arches into the
aisles and the clerestory windows. The canted sides of the central
lantern are supported on pendentives similar to those which occur under
the angles of some of the early French domes.[367] Above these is an
arcaded string-course, and then the windows: these are all double, and
of varied tracery. There are monials and traceries nearly flush with
both the internal and external face of the wall: this was a necessary
arrangement for a work which was to be seen so entirely from below,
where the external traceries would all have been lost to the view. There
are groining-shafts in the angles of the octagon, and an octagonal dome
or vault, with ribs at the angles. The choir is not used at all: it has
a quadripartite vault over its western half, and a pointed arch in front
of the apse, which is covered with a semi-dome. The western bay is
lighted by clerestory windows like those in the nave, and the apse by
three windows, which on the outside have flat buttresses between them.
None of the old ritual arrangements remain; but there is nothing here to
suggest anything at all different from what might be met with in a
similar church elsewhere.[368] The lantern does not prove anything more
than our own lanterns do as to the arrangement of the choir for worship:
in short, here as elsewhere the central lantern was introduced partly
because it was a custom of the Lombard churches, from which this class
of Spanish church borrowed so much, and in the next place because it was
especially suitable for a climate like that of Spain, where it afforded
the chance not only of lighting the church in the most agreeable way,
but also of ventilating it most efficaciously.
[Illustration: LÉRIDA:--Ground Plan of Cathedral &c. Plate XX
Published by John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1865.]
No doubt the external effect of this church was improved much by the
addition of the great western steeple, though at the same time it is
plain that its somewhat eccentric position has removed it so far from
the main fabric of the church as to render the whole group of buildings
less compact in its outline than it would have been had it been
attached, like most of our own steeples, to the body of the church
itself. On the other hand, nothing is more difficult, usually, than to
build a steeple to a church which already has a central lantern, without
entirely destroying the importance of this, which ought always, where it
exists, to be a main feature; and here, as is generally the case in
examples derived in any way from Italian examples, the central lantern
is not very important in its dimensions, and required therefore more
than usual caution on the part of the artist who ventured to add to it.
Here, as happens often with detached campaniles, the grouping of the
steeple with the church from various points of view is very
diversified, and often very striking. From its great height above the
valley, it is seen on all sides, and generally at some distance. From
the south, the grand size of the cloister, which connects the steeple
with the church, gives it somewhat the effect of being in fact at the
west end of an enormous building, of which the cloister may be the nave;
whilst from the west, as the ground falls considerably, nothing of the
church is seen but the central lantern rising slightly over the
cloisters, whilst the steeple rears its whole height boldly to the
right, and makes the whole scheme of the work utterly unintelligible
until after a thorough investigation. Again, in the views of the
cathedral from the east side the steeple has the effect of being, like
that of Ely, at the west end of the nave, and here it groups finely with
the central lantern. The same results will be found in some of our
English examples, and the parish church of West Walton, near Wisbeach,
illustrates, as well as any that I know, the extraordinary variety of
effect which a detached tower, at some distance from the main building,
produces.
The only portion of the building not yet described is a long hall on the
north side of the cloister: this is vaulted with a pointed stone
barrel-vault, and is gloomy-looking in the extreme, being lighted
entirely from one end. A newel staircase has been taken away from the
other end.
Near the north side of the cathedral, on slightly higher ground, is
another fine fragment of a building of the same age, which looks as if
it had always been built as a defensive work. It contains a magnificent
hall, groined in four bays of quadripartite vaulting, and measuring
about 24 feet by 96 feet. A smaller room next to this has a
waggon-vault. The north and east walls of this hall, and of a building
at right angles to it, are very boldly arcaded on the outside, and have
a simple trefoiled corbel-table under the eaves: the hall windows are
set within the wall-arcade. The bosses at the intersection of the ribs
on the vault of the hall have interlacing patterns of Moorish character
carved upon them, and afford the only distinct evidence of anything like
Moorish influence that I noticed in any of the buildings here.
There are two other old churches in Lérida, San Lorenzo and San Juan.
San Lorenzo is on the hill, not very far from the cathedral. It is a
parallel triapsidal church, the nave vaulted with a pointed
waggon-vault, divided into three bays by arches springing from coupled
shafts in the side walls. The apse has a semi-dome, and is lighted by
three round-headed windows, five inches wide in the clear, and has a
corbel-table under the eaves outside. The side walls of the nave are
eight feet thick (the nave being thirty-three feet wide), and through
them very simple pointed arches are pierced, opening into the aisles. I
have no doubt that these were additions to the original fabric. They
have polygonal apses at their east end, with very good window-tracery of
circa A.D. 1270-1300. On the south side an octagonal steeple was added
in the fifteenth century, projecting from the aisle walls. This has a
two-light window on each side of the belfry, a pierced parapet, and a
simple octagonal spire. There is a fine fourteenth-century Retablo to
the high altar. It has a niche in the centre with a figure of St.
Laurence under a canopy, and a number of subjects and statues on either
side. There is also one of the usual fifteenth-century galleries at the
west end.
The interiors both of this church and of San Juan were so dark that I
found it almost impossible to make even the roughest notes of their
contents or dimensions.
San Juan is another fine early church, perhaps a little later than San
Lorenzo, and of about the same age as the cathedral; neither of them,
however, show any signs of having been, as is the tradition, built as
mosques, and converted into churches after the taking of Lérida from the
Moors in A.D. 1149. The plan here is but little altered, and exhibits
three bays of cross-vaulting, and an apse.[369] On the north side an
aisle has been added; but on the south the façade is nearly unaltered,
and the interior is similarly very perfect. The mode of lighting with
windows very high up is similar to that of the cathedral clerestory, and
is worth the attention of those who wish to adapt the Pointed style for
tropical climates. The rose window and great south door are both very
fine examples, and extremely peculiar in their arrangement. The door,
which is very large and imposing, occupies the whole of the central bay,
and there are fine windows in the bays on either side of it: the
impression produced at first sight is consequently that one is looking
at the west end of a large church, upon one side of which an apsidal
chancel has been added. The door is in fact out of all proportion to the
size of the church, though this very fact gives perhaps somewhat of that
monumental character to the whole work which is so rare in small
buildings. It is worthy of notice that the very same design is to be
seen in the church of la Magdalena at Zamora--already described; and
there is indeed so much identity of character between the two churches
as to make it more than probable that the same architect erected both.
In the street near San Juan is a very fine old Romanesque house of
unusually good style. It is of three stories in height, the lower story
much modernized. The intermediate stage has a very fine row of
three-light _ajimez_ windows with slender shafts and capitals very
delicately sculptured. The string under these windows is also
elaborately carved: above is an eaves-cornice, resting on corbels, and
above this a modern upper stage. A stone with a Renaissance border to
it, in the lower part of the wall, describes this building as the
Exchange of Lérida, “built in 1589.” A more impudent forgery I do not
know; but probably the architect of that day thought his ugly upper
stage the only part worthy of notice, and meant only to record its
erection. The _patio_ or court-yard behind is small, but has the same
kind of windows as the front--though without any carving--and some good
corbel-tables and archways.
I saw nothing else of architectural interest in Lérida; but I
confidently recommend other ecclesiologists to examine its buildings for
themselves. They form an important link between the noble cathedral at
Tarragona and the smaller but beautiful church of Tudela; and belonging
as they do to the most interesting period of our art, the end of the
twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century, they afford examples
for our emulation and study of even more value than the later works at
Barcelona and Manresa, which I have before had to describe.[370]