Cathedral Cities of Spain Part 13

The Cathedral was founded by Fruela in 781, and enlarged in 802 by Alfonso the Chaste, who made Oviedo the capital of Asturias, and with his Court resided here. He created the See in 810. The present edifice was begun by Bishop Gutierrez of Toledo in 1388, and the tower added by Cardinal Mendoza in 1528.

Hedged in, although fronting on to a little _plaza_, the grand west facade with its beautiful porch can hardly be said to be visible. This lofty portico of richly ornamented Gothic, under the shelter of which the gossips parade to and fro, leads into the Cathedral and stands thrust out and between the two towers. Only one of these towers is completed, and it is surmounted by a good open-work spire the top of which rises two hundred and seventy feet from the ground.

I wandered about hopelessly trying to gain some idea of the exterior of the Cathedral and found that it was only by walking outside the city that anything at all can be seen of it, and then the towers and roof of the nave, with the flying b.u.t.tresses attached, were the only features that came into view.

The entrance by the south door leads through a dark pa.s.sage, in which many votive offerings hang over a tiny shrine where burnt a little flickering lamp; going in I found myself at the spot from which I had made my sketch the previous day. What a relief it was to find no _coro_ blocking up the nave! The eye could wander over the whole of this lofty interior--could follow the beautiful open work of the triforium and rest on the stained gla.s.s of the clerestory windows. The aisles are very shadowy, all the light being concentrated in the nave and the crossing, and the vision, with a great sense of good effect, is led up to the white tabernacle on the High Altar and the immense _retablo_ beyond. A little theatrical if you like, but it is business, and the Church understands this so well.

Among the chapels, good, bad and indifferent, is one containing a gorgeous silver-gilt shrine wherein rests the body of Santa Eulalia, Oviedo's patroness. In another, tucked away behind the north transept, the Capilla del Rey Casto, lies buried Alfonso the Chaste who did so much for the city. Six niches in the walls contain stone coffins, which are supposed to hold the remains of Fruela I., Urraca, wife of Ramiro I., Alfonso el Catolico, Ramiro, and Ordono I. The bodies of these royalties at one time lay here, and a modern inscription on a mural tablet relates how they were removed, but not how their tombs were destroyed. Many other kings and princes we are told by this tablet also lie here, and as there are but half a dozen coffins their bones must be _bien melange_.

There are the usual overdone chirrigueresque altars which do their best to mar this imposing church, though I am glad to say they hardly succeed. From them, however, it was a relief to be taken by a very intelligent verger up the winding stairs which led to the Camara Santa.

This is by far the most interesting portion of the Cathedral. Built by Alfonso in 802 to hold the sacred relics brought hither from Toledo at the time of the Moorish invasion, it stands above a vaulted bas.e.m.e.nt; the reason for this arrangement evidently being the damp climate, and the wish to keep so holy a charge free from moisture. The chapel is divided into two parts. The inner, of very small dimensions, has a low barrel vaulting borne by arches with primitive twelfth-century figures.

The _sanctum sanctorum_ is slightly raised, and from this inmost Holy of Holies the relics are shown to the devout who kneel in front of a low railing every day at 8.30 A.M. and 3.30 P.M. The cedar wood _arca_ in which they are kept is of Byzantine workmanship. The relics include some of Mary Magdalene's hair, and crumbs left over from the feeding of the five thousand.

The outer chamber of the chapel has a finely-groined roof, attached to the columns supporting which are statues of the twelve apostles. The richly-tesselated pavement resembles the Norman-Byzantine work of Sicily, and was not uncommon in Spain prior to the thirteenth century.

A bell tower, in which at one time hung "Wamba," the great bell of the church cast in 1219, stands partly on the roof and at the south-east corner of the Camara Santa. It was erected by Alfonso VI., and to judge by its present state will not long survive, most decidedly "Wamba" could not swing there now.

The Cathedral possesses three remarkable crosses, La Cruz de los Angeles, Maltese in shape, is studded with uncut gems. It dates from 808, and like the cross at Santiago is 1200 years old. La Cruz de la Victoria, the cross of Pelayo, is encased in beautiful filigree work, and is the identical one borne aloft before Pelayo at his glorious victory over the Moor at the Cave of Covadonga. The third is a crucifix on an ivory diptych, absolutely identical with the Cristo de las Batallas of the Cid at Salamanca. Many other relics of great archaeological interest belong to the Cathedral, and make it well worth the journey to see. This journey from Leon is long and trying, but the line, which climbs to an alt.i.tude of 4110 feet, is one of the finest pieces of engineering skill in Spain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OVIEDO. THE CLOISTERS]

The dark entry of the south door leads not only into the Cathedral and up to the Camara Santa, but also through a side door opens on to the fourteenth-century cloisters. They are well kept and the little garden court a paradise in comparison with some of those I know. The capitals of the columns are well carved with prophets and saints under canopies, angels and angels' heads, grotesques and good floral cutting; while into the walls beneath them and round the arcades are let many tombs and gravestones brought here from different ruined or desecrated churches.

I went off one morning to see the earliest Christian church in the country. Braving the rain I tramped through mud ankle-deep for an hour up the hill slopes westward. It was a case of two steps forward and one back, but the spirit of the tourist was on me. I could not leave Oviedo and acknowledge I had not been to Naranco. I was desperate and I got there. What a charming out-of-the-way spot it is! Hidden behind a grove of ancient chestnut trees, under the brow of the mountain, stands Santa Maria.

A triple arched porch at the top of a dozen steps gives entrance on the north side to this minute and primitive place of worship. I entered and found myself in a barrel-vaulted parallelogram, with a curious arcade running round the walls. The west end is raised three steps above the nave, from which it is cut off by three arches ten feet high at the centre. The east end also has this feature, but the floor is level with the nave. All the columns in the church are of twisted cable design with shield capitals containing figures in low relief. The arcades, which are walled up, have depending from the plain groining bands slabs of cut stone with plaques below, something like a ribbon and medal in the way they hang. The interior is but thirty-five feet in length and fifteen feet across.

Beneath the church is a semicircular stone crypt, similar to that beneath the Camara Santa; it is entered from the cottage in which at one time lived the officiating priest. The caretaker inhabits this cottage, which is built on to the church, and I had come at her dinner hour.

Alas! she could not leave me in peace, and I must own to a defeat. I was practically driven away, for the meal was spoiling and required her undivided attention, but I had seen Santa Maria de Naranco; I had grasped how in the early days, when the Infidel was overrunning the land, this little building on the lone hillside was a centre of the Faith, and how from the surrounding mountain fastnesses worshippers had gathered here and gone away strengthened by prayer, and how from this little seed of the Church sown on the forest-clad hill Spain's mightiness had grown.

VALLADOLID

For nearly one hundred and fifty years, from the reign of Juan II., 1454, to Philip II., 1598, Valladolid was a royal city and the capital of Castile. It lies on the plain through which the river Pisuerga meanders, just touching the outskirts of the city on the western side.

In the Moorish days Valladolid was known as Belad al Wali, "The Town of the Governor," and flourished as a great agricultural centre. It is still the focus of the corn trade of Old Castile. It was here that Prince Ferdinand, despite attempts on the part of his father Juan II. to frustrate it, was introduced to Isabella the reigning Queen of Castile and Leon. Many suitors had proposed themselves and paid their addresses to this paragon among women, but possessing a will of her own she made her choice and selected the Prince whom she married on October 19, 1469.

Valladolid suffered more severely at the hands of the French than any other city of Spain. They demolished most of the good houses and despoiled the churches; among those that are left, however, I found plenty to interest me and to make a stay, after I had discovered them, well worth the while.

I made a sketch of Santa Maria la Antigua, which is the most interesting edifice in the place. The fine Romanesque tower is surmounted by a tiled steeple which recalls Lombardy, and although many additions have been made to the original fabric the whole building piles up very well, the early Gothic east end being particularly beautiful. This church dates from the twelfth century, but the greater part of it is pure Gothic. The roof is richly groined; there are three parallel apses, and the _coro_ is at the west end--an always welcome place to find it. The _retablo_ by Juan de Juni, whose work is scattered throughout the churches of Valladolid, is fine though over-elaborate.

Another good church is San Pablo, partly rebuilt by the great Cardinal Torquemada, whose name will for ever be a.s.sociated with the terrors of the Inquisition. I found another subject for my brush in its very intricate late Gothic west facade. The upper part of this contains the arms of the Catholic Kings, below which on either side are those of the Duque de Lerma. The niches are luckily all filled with their original figures, and the wonderful tracery of the round window is also in good preservation. The grey finials are weather-worn and contrast well with the rich yellow and pink of the rest of the front, a facade which is absolutely crammed with intricate design. Two hideous towers of later date and of the same stone as that with which the Cathedral is built, flank this and detract unfortunately from one of the best examples of late Gothic work in the country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VALLADOLID. SANTA MARIA LA ANTIGUA]

Hard by, up the street pictured in my sketch, stands the Colegiata de San Gregorio, with an equally fine facade, though being an earlier Gothic it is more severe in type. The doorway of this is surmounted by a genealogical tree and the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella. Some of the figures of rough hairy men with cudgels are very primitive. San Gregorio was a foundation of Cardinal Ximenes, it is now used as munic.i.p.al offices. Pa.s.sing through the doorway I entered a beautiful little court, rather dark, but with sufficient light to enable me to appreciate the good artesonade ceiling of its cloisters. The second court is a blaze of light. Spiral fluted columns form the cloister, the ceiling of which is picked out in a cerulean blue and white; they support a recently restored gallery, a mixture of Moorish, Romanesque and plateresque work, into which the sheaves and yoke of the Catholic Kings is introduced as at Granada and Santiago, making a very effective whole. A fine old stone stairway leads from this court up to what in the old collegiate days was a library.

Of the Cathedral I fear I can write but little. It is a huge gloomy edifice without a single redeeming feature, and of all those I saw the most incomplete and disappointing. The exterior north and south walls are still unfinished, the stone work is not even faced! The east are built of brick, and the west facade, altered by Chirriguera himself from the original plan of Herrara, is extremely bald and ugly.

This enormous building is four hundred feet in length and over two hundred wide, yet these proportions give it no grandeur. The interior is absolutely devoid of ornament, and if it were not for the _silleria_ in the _coro_, which were originally intended for San Pablo and are good, there would be nothing to warrant a visit to this cold and depressing church. By the way, the sacristy contains a silver _custodia_ in the shape of an open temple, a good example of the work of Juan de Arfe.

There is a third-rate French air about Valladolid, at least so it struck me, and it was only after a visit to the old Colegio de Santa Cruz, wherein is the museum, that my first disappointment wore off and I felt that I was still in Spain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VALLADOLID. SAN PABLO]

The contents of the museum are mostly objects which the French plundered from the churches and monasteries of Castile, and were recovered after their disastrous defeat at Vitoria. The styles of Berruguete, Hernandez and Juan de Juni can be examined here at leisure. Some of the life-size carved wooden figures of the last named, formerly used on the processional cars which parade the streets at certain festivals, are remarkable more from the extravagant att.i.tudes of the figures than from their artistic merit. The custodian who accompanied me was a pleasant fellow, and evinced surprise that a _pintor_ could not see the beauties he pointed out. I fear he thought little of my artistic discrimination; especially when in the Sala de Juntas he invited me to ascend a pulpit over which hung a large crucifix, and with fervour solicited my admiration of the face of Christ, on which was a most agonised look, "cheap" and quite according to academic rules. "No, no, it is bad."

"But, senor, He suffers." I could not make him understand that acute suffering need not be so painfully apparent.

In this Sala are placed the whole of the _silleria de coro_ from the church of San Benito. Arranged on either side of the room they give it a superb effect. At the far end are the red velvet-covered chairs of Spanish Chippendale used by the Council of the Academy of Arts at their meetings. Beyond them, on a raised platform, are the two bronze-gilt kneeling figures of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess de Lerma. A few pictures hang on the walls and other treasures and relics help to make this fine Sala an ideal council chamber for the academicians.

Of the hundreds of carved figures in other rooms those by Berruguete, very Greek in type, flat brow and straight nose, are artistically by far the best, though the "Death of our Lord," a life-size composition by Hernandez, follows not far behind. Just as Madrid contains the finest armoury in the world, I doubt if any other museum can compete with Valladolid's for figures and compositions of carved wood.

The University holds at present a high rank, most of its professors being progressive. The building itself is a chirrigueresque concern of the seventeenth century with a very extravagant facade. It possesses a good library which is get-at-able, and not like others belonging to the church which are very difficult of access. a propos of this one of the professors here told me the following hardly credible experience of a friend of his, whom I will call A.

There is a movement at present in Spain to catalogue some at least of the many thousands of priceless historical Arabic doc.u.ments and MSS.

which, hidden away in Cathedral and other libraries, would throw invaluable light on the history of early times if they could be examined. A. is engaged in trying to compile this catalogue, and, hearing that in a certain Cathedral city--not Valladolid--the Cathedral library contained some treasures of Arabic lore, procured an introduction to the bishop, and requested permission to search the archives of the diocese.

Explaining that he was unable to help in the matter, the bishop sent A.

to the chapter authorities. The basis of their refusal was that any MS.

if taken down from its shelf might be injured, and if once taken down might not be replaced in the same position! "Yes, they certainly possessed many supposed Arabic doc.u.ments, but as none had been disturbed in living memory, why take the trouble to make a catalogue? Surely this would be superfluous, the books were there no doubt, A. could see them in their shelves, the librarian would be happy to show them, but no, they could not be taken down."

In the library of the Escorial the books are all placed with their t.i.tles against the wall and their edges turned towards the spectator, so that no vulgar touch could defame them by reading. Small wonder that the Progressists of Spain shrug their shoulders sometimes at the many petty obstacles encountered in their attempts to better their country, and regard it as an almost hopeless task.

Two foreign colleges are situated in Valladolid, the Scotch and the English. The first named was founded by Colonel Semple in Madrid and removed hither in 1771, the second by Sir Francis Englefield, who came to Spain after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. They are both seminaries for the education of young priests and with the Irish College in Salamanca complete the trio.

The focus of the city's life is in the Plaza Mayor, a fine square where the first _auto da fe_, which Philip II. and his court witnessed, took place in October 1559. It was here also that Alvaro de Luna was executed, after faithfully serving his King, Juan II., for thirty years.

Spain thereby lost the strong will and the arm which enforced it, and which out of chaos had brought the country into a semblance of order by quelling the turbulent n.o.bles. Such has been in the past the fickleness of Spain's rulers that not one of the great men who have served their country, with perhaps the exception of General Prim, and he died a disappointed man, has ever ended his life in peace and quiet. They have nearly all died at the stake, on the scaffold, or been foully murdered.

The much dilapidated house in a narrow street where Columbus died is fast falling into ruin, but that in the Calle de Rastro, where Cervantes lived and wrote the first part of Don Quixote, is in better condition.

BURGOS

Unlike most folk who enter the country from the north, I left Burgos for the end of my last visit to Spain, and found it in a way not unlike Cadiz, the first place I arrived at. They are both clean cities--for Spain; the streets in both are narrow, and the houses tall with double-glazed balconies. There is but little traffic in either, the squares in both are numerous, but the resemblance stops at this. The streets of Burgos run east and west in lines more or less parallel with the river Arlanzon. They are draughty and cold. The city stands 2785 feet above sea level and the winds sweep down from the distant sierra in bitter blasts. The life of Burgos is eminently ecclesiastical with a large sprinkling of the military element, for here all three branches of the service are quartered. It is a quiet place and I worked in peace unmolested.

What a pity the builders of the great Cathedral could not find another site whereon to erect their wonderful church. How much better it would have looked if placed on the flat ground near the river than on the spot where a summer palace of Gonzalez once stood. However, one cannot move mountains and I was perforce obliged to plant my easel on the slope of the hill and paint the stock view from in front of the west facade.

In 1075 Alfonso VI. moved the Archiepiscopal See from Oca to Burgos and gave the site of the royal palace for its erection. The present edifice was founded in 1221 by Ferdinand el Santo on the occasion of his marriage with Beatrice of Swabia, who in her train brought the Englishman, Bishop Maurice. Employing a French architect, Maurice was more or less responsible for the present building, though another foreigner, John of Cologne, added the beautiful open work spires with their parapets to the towers of the west end. It is curious that this, the most richly ornate Cathedral in the country, should be the outcome of patronage of the foreigner, though at the same time it is the most Spanish of the three "foreign" Cathedrals. So rich is this magnificent Church in every style of architectural decoration that it would take a lifetime to know it thoroughly.

John of Cologne's beautiful spires are better than those at Leon and Oviedo, and rise with the towers that support them to a height close on 300 ft. The gorgeous central lantern, with its twelve traceried pinnacles, the grace of those that surmount the Constable's Chapel, the many, many others that break the skyline and adorn this glorious fabric, all go to make it a building that, despite the different styles employed, will be a wonder and a joy as long as man's handiwork lasts.

The lower portion of the west front was renewed in 1790. The Puerta Princ.i.p.al in the centre is flanked by two small doors, with reliefs of the Conception and Crowning of the Virgin, while the chief door has four statues of Ferdinand el Santo, Alfonso VI., and Bishops Oca and Maurice.