Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This ebook was
produced from scanned images of public domain material at
Internet Archive.)
_THE_ CATHEDRALS OF NORTHERN SPAIN
[Illustration: Bookcover]
[Illustration: inside cover]
_The Cathedral Series_
_The following, each 1 vol., library
12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely illustrated.
$2.50_
_The Cathedrals of Northern
France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_
_The Cathedrals of Southern
France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_
_The Cathedrals of England BY MARY J. TABER_
The following, each 1 vol., library
12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely illustrated.
Net, $2.00
_The Cathedrals and Churches
of the Rhine BY FRANCIS MILTOUN_
_The Cathedrals of Northern
Spain BY CHARLES RUDY_
_L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
New England Building, Boston, Mass._
[Illustration: LEON CATHEDRAL
(_See page 154_)]
The Cathedrals of
Northern Spain
THEIR HISTORY AND THEIR
ARCHITECTURE; TOGETHER
WITH MUCH OF INTEREST CONCERNING
THE BISHOPS, RULERS,
AND OTHER PERSONAGES IDENTIFIED
WITH THEM
BY
CHARLES RUDY
Illustrated
BOSTON L. C. PAGE &
COMPANY MDCCCCVI
_Copyright, 1905_
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Published October, 1905
_COLONIAL PRESS
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U. S. A._
_TO ALL TRUE
LOVERS OF SPAIN,
OTHERWISE CALLED
HISPANOFILOS_
PREFACE
It is _a la mode_ to write prefaces. Some of us write good ones, others
bad, and most of us write neither good nor bad ones.
The chapter entitled "General Remarks" is the real introduction to the
book, so in these lines I shall pen a few words of self-introduction to
such readers as belong to the class to whom I have dedicated this
volume.
My love for Spain is unbounded. As great as is my love for the people,
so great also is my depreciation for those who have wronged her, being
her sons. Who are they? They know that best themselves.
Spain's architecture is both agreeable and disagreeable, but it is all
of it peculiarly Spanish. A foreigner, dropping as by accident across
the Pyrenees from France, can do nothing better than criticize all
architectural monuments he meets with in a five days' journey across
Spain with a Cook's ticket in his pocketbook. It is natural he should do
so. Everything is so totally different from the pure (_sic_) styles he
has learned to admire in France!
But we who have lived years in Spain grow to like and admire just such
complex compositions as the cathedrals of Toledo, of Santiago, and La
Seo in Saragosse; we lose our narrow-mindedness, and fail to see why a
pure Gothic or an Italian Renaissance should be better than an Iberian
cathedral. As long as harmony exists between the different parts, all is
well. The moment this harmony does not exist, our sense of the
artistically beautiful is shocked--and the building is a bad one.
Personality is consequently ever uppermost in all art criticism or
admiration. But it should not be influenced by the words pure, flawless,
etc. Were such to be the case, there would be but one good cathedral in
Spain, namely, that of Leon, a French temple built by foreigners on
Spanish soil. Yet nothing is less Spanish than the cathedral of Leon.
Under the circumstances, it is necessary, upon visiting Spain, to
discard foreignisms and turn a Spaniard, if but for a few days.
Otherwise the tourist will not understand the country's art monuments,
and will be inclined to leave the peninsula as he entered it, not a
whit the wiser for having come.
To help the traveller to understand the whys and wherefores of Spanish
architecture, I have written the "Introductory Studies." I hope they
will enable him to become a Spaniard, or, at least, to join the
enthusiastic army of _Hispanofilos_.
C. RUDY.
MADRID, _July, 1905_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PART I. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES
I. General Remarks 11
II. Historical Arabesques 18
III. Architectural Arabesques 35
IV. Conclusion 66