TUDELA--OLITE--PAMPLONA.
FROM Zaragoza the railway to Pamplona passes by Tudela. The line is
carried all the way along the valley of the Ebro, the southern side of
which is a fairly level open country, whilst on the north bold, barren
hills, stream-worn and furrowed in all directions, rise immediately
above the river. The broad valley through which the railway passes is
well covered with corn-land, which, when I first passed, was rich with
crops. To the south, as Tudela is approached, are seen the bold ranges
of the Sierra de Moncayo, whilst in the opposite direction, far off to
the north, soon after leaving Zaragoza the grand and snowy outlines of
the Pyrenees come in sight.
Alagon is the only considerable town passed on the road, and there seems
to be here an old brick belfry of the same character as the great
steeple of Zaragoza, and, like it also, very much out of the
perpendicular.
The cathedral dedicated to Sta. Maria at Tudela is one of the same noble
class of church as those of Tarragona and Lérida, and quite worthy in
itself of a long pilgrimage. It is said by Madoz to have been commenced
in A.D. 1135, and consecrated in 1188, and was at first served by
Regular clergy, but Secularized in 1238. It is slightly earlier in date
than the churches just mentioned, yet some of its sculpture, as will be
seen, has, perhaps, more affinity to the best French work, and is indeed
more advanced in style, than that with which the other two churches are
decorated. This may be accounted for, most probably, by its more
immediate neighbourhood to France. Its scale is fairly good without
approaching to being grand, and thus it affords a good illustration of
the great power which the mediæval architects undoubtedly possessed, of
giving an impression of vastness even with very moderate dimensions, and
of securing a thoroughly cathedral-like effect in a building much
smaller in all its dimensions than the ordinary cathedral of the middle
ages. No power is more to be desired by an architect; none marks more
distinctly the abyss between the artist and the mere mechanical
builder; and none has been more lost sight of during the three centuries
which have elapsed since the eclipse of the Pointed style in the
sixteenth century. We see here the usual subdivisions of parts, all
well-proportioned and balanced. The nave[392] is of four bays only in
length, and this is now, and perhaps was always in great part, occupied
by the Coro: but, on the other hand, the proportions of the transept are
very fine, and its internal perspective compensates in great degree for
the loss of that of the nave. Out of this transept five arches in the
east wall open to the choir and to four chapels, two on either side: and
it is remarkable that two of these have square east ends, whilst all the
rest have circular apses.
The plan of the columns is almost identical with that seen at Tarragona
and Lérida: but it is one of which the eye is never satiated, inasmuch
as it is well defined in its outlines, strong and massive-looking, and
evidently equal to all that it has to perform. The vaulting is all
quadripartite, except in the two eastern chapels on each side of the
centre apse, or Capilla mayor, which are roofed with semi-domes, the
Capilla mayor having its apse groined in five bays, with very bold
groining ribs.
The arches are all pointed, very simply moulded with bold, broad, flat
soffeits, generally of only one order, and with labels adorned with
dog-tooth. The bases and abaci of the capitals are all square. The
former have the transition from the circular members to the square
managed with admirable skill, tufts of foliage occupying the angles. The
latter throughout the church are deep and boldly carved, as also are the
capitals themselves. These seem to be of different dates: all those on
the eastern side of the transept, and all the lower capitals of the
nave, save the west end and first column, being very classical in their
design, and probably dating from early in the thirteenth century, whilst
the remainder appear to be generally of the latter part of the same
century. In the earlier capitals the abaci are all set square with the
walls, whereas in the later work they are set at right angles to the
arch which they have to carry, and often, therefore, at an angle of 45°
to the walls.
[Illustration: No 50.
TUDELA CATHEDRAL.
INTERIOR OF CHOIR]
The groining ribs are very bold, and well moulded. There is no
triforium, and the clerestory windows come down to a string-course just
above the points of the main arches. They are of two lights, with a
circle in the arched head, and their rear arches are moulded and carried
on engaged jamb-shafts. The transepts have rose-windows in the bays
next the choir, and lancet-windows in the north and south bays, and the
carved abacus is carried over these as a label. There seem to have been
rose windows round the principal apse at a lower level than the other
clerestory windows; but only one of these is visible on either side,
owing to the reredos: and I found it impossible to get any near exterior
view of the east end, owing to the way in which it is built against by
houses.
The west front had a large rose-window, which has been blocked up, and
it still retains a noble doorway, of which I shall have to speak more in
detail presently.
The north transept is now the least altered part of the church, and in
the extreme simplicity of its bold buttresses, the refined beauty of its
sculptured doorway, and the well-proportioned triplet which fills the
upper part of the wall, it recalls to mind an English building of the
thirteenth century. Unfortunately the gable has been destroyed, and the
walls and buttresses are now finished with the straight line of the
eaves. Almost the only peculiarity in the detail here is the wide,
external splay of the windows between the glass and the jamb-shafts in
the centre of the monials. The south transept has a triplet similar to
that in the north transept, and has also lost its gable, and, being more
shut in than the other, is perhaps the most picturesque in effect. A
narrow lane leads up to it along the east wall of the cloister, and
this, turning abruptly when it reaches the church, passes under a broad
archway, which forms the south front of a porch, and then, out of an
eastern archway, the street goes on again, twisting and turning in a
fashion which is not a little eccentric. The exterior of the eastern
apse retains its buttresses of slight projection, which run up to, and
finish under, the eaves-cornice, which is carried, as all the cornices
throughout the church are, upon boldly-moulded corbels.
It is only at some distance from the cathedral that anything is well
seen of the turrets and tower, which give it most of the character it
possesses. The west end had, I think, two small square towers, finished
with octagonal turrets of smaller diameter than the towers. Of these the
south-western still remains, but on the north side a lofty brick steeple
was erected in the eighteenth century. Another turret is strangely
placed over the centre of the principal apse. This is octangular in
plan, with lancet-windows in the cardinal sides, and the sides of its
spire pierced with two rows of small lights. The tile-roof of the apse
slopes up on all sides from the eaves to the base of this turret; and,
novel as its position is, it seemed to me to be well chosen and
effective.[393] Other turrets rise out of the chapels which have sprung
up round the church, and these, with the altered form of almost all the
roofs, give a strange, informal, and disjointed look to the whole
cathedral, which is eminently the reverse of attractive. Nevertheless
the old work is there, and only requires a moderate amount of attention
in order to understand the whole general character of the original
scheme.
There are three grand doorways, one to each transept, and one at the
west end. The former are not placed in the centre of the gable, but
close to the western side of the transept, either, as is most probable,
from a proper desire to leave space in front of the altars of the small
transept chapels, or because then, as now, the ground was covered with
houses, which made it impossible to place them centrally.
The finest of the three doorways is in the centre of the west front of
the church, and its opening is more than nine feet in the clear, each of
the jambs having eight shafts in square recesses. Two corbels support
the tympanum, which has now no sculpture, nor any signs of ever having
had any, and the arch has eight orders of sculptured moulding. The
capitals of the columns in the jambs are all sculptured with subjects in
a very exquisite fashion. There is here no grotesqueness or intentional
awkwardness, but extreme beauty of design, simplicity of story, and
fitness for the position chosen. The abaci are carved throughout with
conventional foliage, well arranged and delicately cut. I know little
even of French carving of the thirteenth century which surpasses this
beautiful work, and none anywhere which more entirely deserves our
admiration, or which may more worthily kindle our emulation. It is true,
indeed, that here as elsewhere the cold formal critic may come and prove
to his own satisfaction that some portions of the work are not
academically correct: on the other hand, it is equally true that it is
not academically cold and soulless, for the men who wrought here wrought
of their love and enthusiasm, and not merely because they were drilled
and paid, and they afford us, therefore, an example not to be despised
of the truths, that in art enthusiasm is worth more than skill, and
feeling more than knowledge; truths specially valuable in these days,
when men fancy they can convert all who call themselves architects into
artists, not by making them rejoice in their work, but simply by
teaching them how to draw.
The subjects in the capitals are arranged in the following order:--Nos.
1 to 8 are those in the left or northern jamb, and Nos. 9 to 16 those in
the right or southern jamb. Nos. 1 and 9 are next the opening, and Nos.
8 and 16 the extreme capitals right and left of the centre.
1. The Creation of Angels.
2. Do. of Earth, Stars, &c.
3. Do. of Trees.
4. Do. of Birds and Beasts.
5. Do. of Adam.
6. Do. of Eve.
7. The Fall.
8. Eve sleeping with a fig-leaf in her
hand, and the Serpent mocking her.
9. Expulsion from Paradise.
10. Adam tilling, Eve spinning.
11. Cain and Abel sacrificing.
12. Cain killing Abel.
13. God cursing Cain.
14. Cain, a fugitive.
15. Entry into the Ark.
16. The Sacrifice of Abraham.
The two corbels which support the tympanum have on their face angels
blowing trumpets, and under them two lions, eating, one of them two
wyverns, the other a man. The archivolt has a series of eight figures
carved on key-stones at its intersection. These are--beginning with the
lowest--(1) the Agnus Dei, (2) the Blessed Virgin, (3) an angel, (4) a
martyr, (5) a king, (6) a bishop, and (7) another king. On the sides the
archivolt has on the left the Resurrection, and the happiness of the
blessed, who are all represented in pairs; and on the right, the
tortures of the damned, full of terror and horror of every kind. In the
first rank of these unhappy ones are two bishops and an abbat learning
the truth of our Lord’s aweful saying, “Where their worm dieth not, and
their fire is not quenched”--a saying practically ignored by our
sculptors and carvers at the present day, who seem to believe in no Last
Judgment, no masculine saints, and nothing but female angels; so far, at
least, as one can judge by the figures with which they cover so
profusely the walls of some of our new churches. The outer order of the
archivolt has angels all round it, with crowns and sceptres in their
hands. There can be little doubt, I suppose, that the tympanum was
intended to have a sculpture, or, perhaps, had a painting of a sitting
figure of our Lord in Judgment; without this figure the whole scheme
wants the key-note, to give tone and significance to all its varied
story. With it there would be few doorways which would be altogether
finer or more worshipful than this.
The transept-doors are rightly much more simple than the western door,
and the character of their sculpture has so much Byzantine feeling that
there can he no doubt they are of somewhat earlier date.
The north transept doorway has on its eastern capitals: 1, The Baptism
of our Lord by St. John; 2, Herod’s Feast; 3, The head of St. John
brought in a charger;--and on its western capitals: 4, St. Martin giving
his cloak to a beggar; 5, Our Lord holding a cloth (?). and two angels
worshipping; 6, St. Nicolas restoring the two children to life. The
door-arch is pointed, and all its orders and the label are very richly
carved, but with foliage only. The south transept door is round-arched,
and its tympanum is not filled in. On the capitals of the western jamb
are: 1, St. Peter walking on the Sea; 2, The Last Supper; 3, The Charge
to St. Peter;--and on the eastern jamb: 4, The Incredulity of St.
Thomas; 5, The Walk to Emmaus; 6, The Supper at Emmaus.
The west front has two large square turrets, one of which only is
carried up above the line of the roof. Its highest stage is octagonal,
with a lancet opening on each face, and is finished with a low spire. A
bold row of corbels is carried round the turret between the octagonal
and square stages, as if for the support of a projecting parapet which
no longer exists. The western rose-window was inserted under a
broadly-soffeited and bold pointed arch, which spans the whole space
between the turrets and rises nearly to the top of the walls.
The internal furniture of this church is not interesting. The metal
screens are of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Coro
occupies the second and third bays of the nave, and iron rails are
placed from its eastern door to the doorway in the Reja or screen of the
Capilla mayor, so as to preserve a passage for the clergy. The reredos
of the high altar contains sixteen paintings, enclosed within a
complicated architectural framework of buttresses, pinnacles, and
canopies. In the centre is an enormous canopy and niche, in which is a
modern effigy of the Blessed Virgin. This combination of rich
architectural detail with paintings is not satisfactory to the eye; and
it is evident that sculptured subjects would have been much more in
harmony with the framework.
In the south-east chapel of the south transept there is a magnificent
monument to the “Muy Hoñorable Señor Môsen Francis de Villia Espepa,
Doctor, Cabalero, et Chanceller de Navarre,” and his “Muy Hoñorable
Duenya Doña Ysabel,” who died in 1423. The two effigies lie under a
deeply-recessed arch filled in with tracery, the recess being adorned
with sculptured subjects on its three sides. There are eight Weepers in
the arcade on the side of the tomb. It was too dark to see what all the
subjects were; but at the back our Lord is seated and censed by angels;
and below this He is represented in His tomb, with His arms bound, with
a weeping angel on either side.
I have left to the last all notice of the beautiful cloister on the
south side of the nave. The arcades, which open into the cloister-court,
are carried on columns, which are alternately coupled and tripled or
quadrupled; larger piers are introduced in the centre of each side, in
order to give additional strength. The arches are generally simple and
pointed, but on the north and south sides they are chevroned on the
inside. The engraving which I give of the south-east angle of this
cloister will show how elaborate the whole of the work is. The capitals
throughout are carved with subjects and foliage, and most of the latter
is of extremely delicate character. The acanthus-leaf is largely
introduced. I had not time to catalogue the subjects carved in the
capitals; but so many of them are concealed and so many damaged, that I
fear it would be almost impossible at present to do so at all
completely.
[Illustration: Angle of Cloister, Tudela.]
I may with safety class this small church at Tudela among the very best
it has been my good fortune to visit in any part of Europe; and there is
much in its Iconography and in its sculptured detail which would reward
a much more lengthened examination than I was able to afford.
I saw but one other old church here--that of la Magdalena, in the Calle
de Sta. Cruz. It consists of a nave and choir, vaulted with a pointed
waggon roof, with bold transverse ribs carried on carved capitals built
in the side-walls. The chancel makes a very decided bend to the north.
There is a simple tower on the north side, with a round-arched window of
two lights in the belfry stage, and a window of one light in the stage
below it. The west doorway is very fine: it is round-arched, and has in
the tympanum our Lord seated in a quatrefoil, surrounded by the emblems
of the four Evangelists. The label is carved, and the orders of the arch
are in part carved with acanthus, and in part with figures. Among the
latter are the twelve Apostles and (apparently) the Descent of the Holy
Ghost. The capitals are also storied.[394]
From Tudela I availed myself of a special train on the railway to
Pamplona, which ran solely for the purpose of carrying the passengers of
a diligence from Madrid, and in which the station-master obligingly gave
me a seat. On the road we passed the towns of Olite and Tafalla, the
view of the former of which gave so much promise that I returned there
in order to examine its remains properly.
Tafalla and Olite were of old called the Flowers of Navarre. Olite now
is dreary, desolate, and ruinous; and though Tafalla looks a little more
thriving, it too has lost all its former claim to the title of a flower!
In Olite there are the extensive remains of a very fine castle, which
was built as a palace by the kings of Navarre, and two interesting
parish churches, Sta. Maria and San Pedro. Sta. Maria consists of a wide
nave of four bays in length, and a small apse at the east end. On the
west side is a small cloister in front of the principal entrance, which
gives great picturesqueness to the whole work. The cloister is a work of
the fifteenth century, an irregular square in plan, and arcaded with a
good simple open arcade. The east side has been destroyed, in order to
allow of the grand western doorway of the church being seen. This is
protected by a penthouse roof, supported on two tall columns, which have
taken the place of the old arcade. The church was built within the walls
of the castle, but the cloister seems to have been thrown out beyond
their line on the town side. There is a tower on the south of the nave,
finished with a gabled roof, and pierced with some good early-pointed
openings.
[Illustration: TUDELA: Ground Plan of Cathedral: Plate XXIV.
W. West, Lithr.
Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]
The west front is a very elaborate work of the fourteenth century. It
has a central doorway, and a row of niches with figures on each side of
it, above a stringcourse, which is on the same level as the springing of
the doorway. The tympanum of the door has sculptures of the Blessed
Virgin Mary and our Lord under a canopy in the centre; on the (proper)
right, the Baptism, the Flight into Egypt, and the Massacre of the
Innocents; and on the left, the Presentation, the Annunciation, and the
Nativity. The carving of the archivolt is rich, mainly of foliage, but
with two or three figures under niches introduced capriciously in its
midst. The jambs, too, are covered with carvings of subjects arranged in
the oddest way; _e.g._ there are in succession an Agnus Dei, an
Annunciation, the Creation of Eve, Adam tilling the ground, wyverns, an
elephant and castle, the Fall, a pelican vulming its breast with a goat
standing on its hind-legs and looking on; and so on with subjects which
seem to exhibit nothing but the odd conceits of the workman, and to be
arranged in no kind of order. The carving is all of that crisp, sharp,
clever kind, so seldom seen in England, but so common in the
fourteenth-century buildings of Germany, and in which some of the
Spanish sculptors were unsurpassed by all save perhaps their own
successors in the latest period of Gothic art, whose works I have
already described at Burgos, Miraflores, and Valladolid. There are
extensive traces of old painting on the stonework of this doorway; and I
noticed that the detached shafts (of which there are four in each jamb)
were covered with a trailing branch of ivy, with green leaves and red
stems.
The interior of Sta. Maria is not very interesting, though its scale is
good, the groined nave being 36 feet wide by 108 feet in length. The
groining-shafts are commendably bold and dignified. There is the usual
late western gallery, and a modern chapel and large irregular porch on
the south side.
Sta. Maria stands, as I have said, partly within the walls of the
ancient castle or palace. This was dismantled in the course of the
Peninsular war, but is still an imposing ruin, with a vast extent of
enclosing wall, out of which rise several fine towers. These are
generally very simple, but lofty, and capped with projecting
machicoulis. I give an illustration of one in which the finish is unlike
any that I remember to have seen.[395] The window here is a good example
of a traceried domestic window, a straight stone transome being carried
across under the tracery, so as to make the window-opening
square-headed.
Two grand towers on the eastern face of the castle are octangular in
plan, and one of them rises in three stages, each slightly within the
other, and each finished with fine corbelled machicoulis.
The gateways have extremely small and low pointed arches, looking like
little holes in the great walls. Some of the walls are finished with the
common Arab type of battlement, the coping of which is weathered to a
point. The keep is a large pile, with square towers at the angles; and
near it is a large hall with battlemented side-walls, which has the air
of being the earliest part of the castle, but into which I was unable to
gain admission.
[Illustration: Castle, and Church of San Pedro, Olite.]
At the other extremity of the town (or village as it ought rather to be
called) is the church of San Pedro. This forms an important feature in
the picturesque view of the place, owing to its fine and peculiar tower
and spire. This is built against the south side of the church, is quite
plain until it rises above the roof, and then has two stages each
pierced with windows; above this a pierced overhanging parapet, carried
upon very bold corbels, and then a low octagonal stage, each side
surmounted by a crocketed gable, and the whole finished with a spire,
the entasis of which is very distinctly marked. An original design, such
as this is, deserves illustration. The height of the spire bears, it
will be seen, but a small proportion to that of the tower, as is often
to be observed in the case of good steeples; but the most unusual
feature is the enormous parapet, and taking into account the position of
the church just at the extreme angle of the town, it may be supposed to
have been built with some view to military requirements. The greater
part of the steeple is a work I suppose of the fourteenth century--much
later than the church, which, saving modern additions, is a fine work of
quite the beginning of the thirteenth century, if not earlier. The west
doorway is round-arched, having three shafts in each jamb, with
sculptured capitals, and an arch of six orders alternately carved and
moulded. The tympanum is sculptured with our Lord and two censing
angels, and below are subjects from the life of St. Peter: (1) His
commission; (2) His walking on the sea; (3) His trial; and (4) His
crucifixion. Above the doorway is a stringcourse carved in the
fourteenth century, and in the gable a wheel window within a pointed
enclosing-arch. The plan of the nave and aisles is of the same kind as
that of the church at Tudela, though on a smaller scale. A curious
difference in the design is the carrying up of the aisle groining almost
to the same level as that of the nave, whilst the transverse arches
across the aisle are at a much lower level, and have fine pointed and
circular windows pierced in the walls between the arches and the
groining. The eastern part of the church is all modern and very bad.
Olite is a very squalid and miserable place; but a few hours may be well
spent here; and the castle in particular, which has been very badly
treated within a few years, ought to be carefully examined and drawn
before it is too late. I was there on a hot day in June,--so hot as to
make it difficult to work,--and yet on the summit of the hills, lying to
the south-south-west of the town, a good deal of snow was lying, and in
the evening, as the sun went down, the cautious Spaniards put on their
great cloth cloaks, and stole about muffled up to the eyes as though it
were mid-winter.
From Olite to Tafalla there was once, or was once intended to be, a
continuous subterraneous communication. The distance must be some three
or four miles, so that the story would appear to be rather improbable.
The intention of Charles III. of Navarre to make such a communication
between the great palace he was building at Tafalla and the already
existing castle of Olite, is mentioned by Cean Bermudez under the date
of 1419; but he gives no authority for his statement.
I was unable to stop at Tafalla: it is a more important place than
Olite, and has two churches, both apparently of the latest Gothic, with
square-ended transepts, and windowless apsidal choirs like those of the
late Burgalese churches.
After leaving Tafalla the country becomes at every step wilder and more
beautiful. The hills rise grandly on either side, and are bare and
rocky. The railway passes under an aqueduct, which in height, length,
and simple grandeur of design, is worthy to be ranked among the finest
European aqueducts. It was built at the end of the last century by D.
Ventura Rodriguez. The only old church I saw on this part of the road
was close to Las Campanas station. Its west front had a good doorway,
and above this a great arch rising almost to the point of the gable,
with a circular window pierced within it. The same design is repeated in
one of the churches of Pamplona.
The towers and walls of Pamplona are seen for some time before they are
reached. The railway follows the winding of a pretty stream, and the
city stands well elevated above it. The situation is indeed very
charming, the whole character of the country being thoroughly
mountainous, and the city standing on an elevated knoll rising out of an
ample and prosperous-looking valley surrounded by fine hills.
The views from the cathedral and walls are very beautiful, and as the
town is large and rather handsomely laid out with a grand arcaded Plaza
in the centre, it gives a very favourable impression of Spain to those
who make it their first resting-place on a Spanish tour.
[Illustration: No 51
PAMPLONA CATHEDRAL
EXTERIOR FROM THE NORTH-EAST.]
The cathedral stands on the outside of the city and close to the walls.
It was commenced in A.D. 1397 by Charles III. of Navarre, who pulled
down almost[396] the whole of the old church (built circa A.D. 1100).
The planning of this church is both ingenious and novel. Its chevet is
entirely devised upon a system of equilateral triangles, and, as will be
seen by reference to my plan,[397] the apse has only two canted sides,
having a column in the centre behind the altar; and though it is
perfectly true that this two-sided apse is in itself not a very graceful
scheme, it is at the same time equally true that the combination of the
chapels with the central apse is very ingenious and clever. The
distortion of the chapel next to the transept is very objectionable,
and seems to be without reason or necessity. There are transepts and a
nave and aisles of six bays in length, with side chapels along the
greater part of the aisles. The extreme shortness of the constructional
choir makes it certain that the church was planned for the modern
Spanish arrangement of the Coro, which now occupies two bays of the
nave, leaving one bay between its eastern Reja and the Crossing. The
Reja of the Capilla mayor is under the eastern arch of the Crossing, so
that the low rails marking the passage from the Coro to the Capilla
mayor are very long. The detail of all the architecture is
characteristic of the late date at which the church was built. The
columns are large, but composed of a succession of insignificant
mouldings, so as to produce but little effect of bold light and shade:
those in the choir are cylindrical, with clusters of mouldings
supporting, and continued on as, the groining ribs, and they all lack
that definiteness of arrangement and plan which is one of the surest
tests of the difference between good and bad Gothic architecture
generally, as it is between the work of men of the thirteenth and
fifteenth centuries almost everywhere.
The internal effect of the cathedral is certainly very fine. The
peculiar scheme of the apse allows of the erection of a Retablo of
unusual height with less interference with the architectural features
than is common; and the whole design has the merit which I have so often
had to accord to the latest school of Gothic artists in Spain, of having
been schemed with an evident intention of meeting and providing for the
necessities of the climate; and one consequence of this is that almost
all the windows are left as they were originally designed, and have not
been blocked up in order to diminish the glare. The clerestory windows
throughout are small, those in the transepts are only small roses, and
owing to the steep slope of the aisle roofs there is a great space
between these openings and the main arcades. The three eastern bays of
the nave have geometrical traceries, whilst in the western bays and the
choir they are flamboyant in character; but I do not imagine that this
slight difference in character betokens any real difference in their
age. They all, in short, have somewhat of late middle-pointed character,
though their actual date and their detail would make us class them
rather with works of the third-pointed style.
The stalls in the Coro are of Renaissance character, but founded closely
on the older models; and the Reja, to the east of them, is of wrought
iron, old, but with a Renaissance cresting. The Reja in front of the
Capilla mayor is much finer; it is of wrought iron, and is made, as is
so usual, with vertical bars, set rather close together, and alternately
plain and twisted. What the lower part lacks in ornament the cresting
more than atones for; it is unusually ornate, consisting of interlacing
ogee arches with crocketed pinnacles between them, all very elaborately
hammered up. The horizontal bars and rails are also all covered with
traceries in relief, and at regular intervals on these there are small
figures under canopies. The whole stands upon a moulded and panelled
base of stone. The total height of this screen is not less than thirty
feet, of which the cresting is about a third.
Of the other furniture I may mention some of the glass in the
clerestory, which is fine; and the old Retablos. Two of these in the
south chapel of the chevet are especially worthy of notice. One of them
has a crucifix (with the figure draped in modern drapery) which has the
feet half plated with silver, and behind it are twelve prophets in rows
of four over each other, and all of them with inscriptions referring to
the Crucifixion--such as the texts beginning “Foderunt manus,” “Vere
languores nostros ipse tulit,” “Post ebdomadas sexaginta dies
occidetur,” “Quid sicut plage iste,” &c.
The western front is a poor Pagan work utterly out of keeping with the
remainder of the fabric, and erected in the last century from the
designs of D. Ventura Rodriguez. The rest of the exterior is Gothic, but
not at all striking. It was once well garnished with crocketed pinnacles
above its flying buttresses, but they have now for the most part
disappeared. The roofs are flat and tiled, and hipped back in an
ungainly fashion even at the transepts. The north transept door has an
unusually fine example of a latch-handle or closing ring: the handle has
writhing serpents round it, and the plate is perforated all over with
rich flamboyant traceries.
This cathedral is fortunate in retaining many of its old dependent
buildings in a very perfect state, but unfortunately I have spent only
one day in Pamplona, and I did not see by any means all that is to be
seen. For Cean Bermudez[398] says that some portions of the first
cathedral, founded in A.D. 1100, still remain; particularly the small
cloister and some of the buildings attached to it. This was the last
cathedral in Spain that observed the rule of St. Augustine, and the
canons always lived in common; the refectory, said to be of the
thirteenth century, the kitchen and offices, all still remain. Of about
the same age as the cathedral are the beautiful cloisters on its south
side, and the Chapter-house to the east of the cloister. It is said,
indeed, that a part of this cloister had been built some seventy years
before the fall of the old cathedral rendered it necessary to rebuild it
from the ground, and the style of much of the work encourages one to
believe the statement. It is certainly a very charming work in every
way: it is a square in plan, each side having six traceried windows
towards the centre court, and a small chapel breaks out into this at the
south-west angle. The windows are all of four lights, filled with
geometrical traceries, with crocketed labels to some and canopies to
others, and delicate buttresses and pinnacles dividing the bays. The low
wall below the open windows is covered with small figures in niches, and
the walls above the windows with panelling, as is also the parapet of
the modern upper cloister. The general conception is very ornate, and at
the same time very delicate and light in its proportions; and it is
rendered very interesting by the number of rich doorways, monuments, and
sculptures with which the walls are everywhere enriched. The door called
“Of our Lady of the Refuge” opens from the transept to the cloister; its
front is in the cloister, of which it occupies the north-western bay. In
its tympanum is a sculpture of the burial of the Blessed Virgin, whose
statue, with the figure of our Lord in her arms, occupies the post of
honour against the central pier. The reveals of the jambs are filled
with little niches and canopies in which are figures and subjects; and
below the bases, in a band of quatrefoils, are on the one side the Acts
of Mercy; on the other, figures playing on instruments. Angels in the
archivolt bear a scroll on which is inscribed--“Quæ est ista que
ascendit de deserto deliciis affluens, innixa super dilectum suum?
Assumpta est Maria in cœlum.” Against the east wall of the cloister
is a sculpture of the Adoration of the Magi, and next to this the grand
triple opening to the Chapter-house--a richly moulded door with a
two-light window on either side. In the southern alley are a fine tomb
of a bishop, the door of the Sala Preciosa adorned with a series of
bas-reliefs from the life of the Blessed Virgin, and another door with
the Last Supper and the Entry into Jerusalem; and close to the latter,
but in the western wall, is a doorway with the Crucifixion, and the
Maries going to the Sepulchre. Between these sculptured doorways the
walls are all arcaded with tracery panels corresponding to the windows;
and as all the mouldings are rich and delicate in their design, and the
proportions of the cloister very lofty, it will be seen that I cannot be
very far wrong in considering this to be, on the whole, one of the most
effective and striking cloisters of its age. The projecting chapel on
the south-west angle is exceedingly delicate in its construction, and is
screened from the cloister with iron _grilles_. A quaintly trimmed
box-garden occupies the cloister-court to the no small improvement of
its effect.
On the eastern side is the Chapter-house; a very remarkable work of
probably the same age as the cloister, though of a simpler, bolder, and
much more grand kind of design. It is square in plan, but the vault is
octagonal, the angles of the square being arched and covered with small
subordinate vaults below the springing of the main vault. Buttresses are
placed outside to resist the thrust of each of the eight principal ribs
of the octagonal vault; and these buttresses, being all placed in the
same direction as the ribs, abut against the square outline of the
building in the most singular and, at first sight, unintelligible
manner. They are carried up straight from the ground nearly to the
eaves, where they are weathered back and finished with square crocketed
pinnacles; whilst between them an open arcade is carried all round just
below the eaves. On the exterior this Chapter-house seems to be so far
removed from the east end of the church as to have hardly any connection
with it; they are separated by houses built up close to their walls, and
present consequently a not very imposing effect from the exterior; and
standing, as the Chapter-house does, just on the edge of the city walls,
it is strange that it has fared so well in the many attacks that have
been made on Pamplona. The interior is remarkable only for the grand
scale and proportions of the vault with which it is covered.
There are several other old churches here which deserve notice, though
none are on a very fine or grand scale. That of San Saturnino--the first
Bishop of Pamplona--is remarkable chiefly for the very unusual planning
of its eastern end, which has three unequal sides, out of which three
unequal polygonal chapels open.[399] My impression is that there was
never any altar under the great apse, but that the high altar stood in
the central chapel, at its east end. The Coro is, and probably was
always intended to be, in the western gallery, the under side of which
is groined, and any arrangement of stalls on the floor of such a church
would be obviously inconvenient and out of place. Two towers are built
against the eastern bay of the nave. The window tracery is of good
geometrical middle-pointed character, and the mouldings and other
details all seem to prove that the church was built about the middle of
the fourteenth century. The south doorway has the rare feature at this
period of capitals _historiés_; on the left hand are the Annunciation,
the Salutation, the Nativity, and the Flight into Egypt; and on the
right our Lord bearing His Cross, the Descent from the Cross, the
Resurrection, and the Descent into Hell. The Crucifixion forms the
finial of the canopy over the doorway, and three or four other subjects
are concealed by the modern framework round the door. There seems to be
no reason why the idea of such a plan as this should not be adopted
again: the termination of the nave by a kind of apsis, from one side of
which the chancel projects, is extremely good, and perhaps, on the
whole, the best way of effecting the change from the grand span of so
broad a nave to the moderate dimensions (just half those of the nave) of
the chancel. Such a church would probably hold about six hundred
worshippers, all in sight of the altar, and might, with advantage to its
proportions, be lengthened by the addition of another bay; and, simple
as all its parts would be, it would be a relief to eyes wearied by the
flimsy weakness of our modern Gothic work to look upon anything which
could not possibly be constructed without solid walls, massive
buttresses, and some degree of constructive skill.
The church of San Nicolas is of Romanesque date, but much altered and
added to at later periods. It consists of a nave and aisles of three
bays, a Crossing, and a short eastern polygonal apse. The nave aisles
retain their original waggon vaults, with transverse ribs at intervals;
but the other vaults are all quadripartite. The clerestory of the nave,
too, consists of broad unpierced lancets, which are probably coeval with
the arcades below them.
The exterior of this church is very much obscured by modern additions
and excrescences, but still retains some features of much interest.
There is a fine early western door, and above this a rose window filled
with rich geometrical tracery, over which is a very boldly projecting
pointed arch, which abuts against a tower on the north and against a
massive buttress on the south. The walls appear to have been finished at
the eaves with very bold machicoulis. At a much later date than that of
the church a lofty open cloister, with plain pointed arches, was added
on the western and northern sides.
On either side of the apse of this church, in front of the Retablo and
altar, are what look like two tabernacles for the reservation of the
Sacrament: but I had no opportunity of learning the object of this
double arrangement.
The views from the walls of Pamplona are eminently lovely; I remember
looking across to the east, over the flat which stretches away from them
to where the mountains begin to rise boldly beyond; and, as my eyes
wandered on, I began to turn my thoughts eagerly homewards, and much as
I had enjoyed the Spanish journey which ended at Pamplona, there was
perhaps no part of it which I enjoyed more than this, where I was
ungrateful enough to Spain to allow everything to be seasoned by the
near prospect of home.
[Illustration: PAMPLONA:--Ground Plans of the Cathedral:--and of San
Saturnino: Plate XXV.
Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]