Cathedral Cities of Spain Part 7

Suffice it to say that nowhere in Spain is there a Gothic building of such well-proportioned dimensions, such simplicity in its leading features, such a fine idea in the interior of the s.p.a.cing out of light and shade, as in this magnificent Cathedral--the grandest of the three due to French influence.

And Toledo's churches? There are nearly sixty still remaining, every street seems to contain one! And Toledo's convents? There are almost as many. Of the former, San Juan de los Reyes, on the high ground above the bridge of Saint Martin, the last remnant left of a once wealthy Franciscan convent, was built by Cardinal Ximenes in commemoration of the "Catholic Kings" victory of Toro. On its outer walls still hang the manacles and chains of the captive Christians who were set free at the conquest of Granada, and the interior is embellished with the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella, and covered with sculptured heraldry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOLEDO. THE ZoCODOVER]

Santa Maria la Blanca, originally a Jewish synagogue, is in the _Mudejar_ style, and has some charming arabesques, with a fine cedar ceiling said to be of wood from the trees at Lebanon. Almost opposite--we are in the Juderia, or Jews' quarter, to the south-east of San Juan de los Reyes--is another synagogue, el Transito. Built in 1366 by Samuel Levi, Pedro the Cruel's treasurer, in the Moorish style, it is almost a better piece of architecture than Santa Maria la Blanca. Levi lived next door, in the house known now as La Casa del Greco, that painter having occupied it during his residence in Toledo. The house and synagogue are connected by a secret pa.s.sage from the vaults of the former. These are of immense size and strength, and in Levi's day held an enormous amount of treasure--too much for the poor man's good. His royal master, when sufficient was acc.u.mulated, put him to death and appropriated all he could find.

El Cristo de la Luz, one of the most interesting churches in Toledo, was originally a tiny mosque. It is divided into nine different compartments by four columns, from the capitals of which spring sixteen arches. It was here that Alfonso VI. attended the first Ma.s.s after the city was captured. Close by is the Convent of San Domingo el Real, where a glimpse may be had of picturesque nuns while at their devotions during early service.

As the station 'bus rattled up the steep winding ascent to the Des.p.a.cho Central we dashed through the Zocodover, the square celebrated for numerous _auto de fes_ and other executions. All day long it is crowded with sauntering folk, who walk up and down, quietly enough now, on the scene of much former cruelty, bloodshed, and many bull-fights.

On its eastern side a fine Moorish arch leads down the hill by a footpath to the Bridge of Alcantara. Immediately the arch is pa.s.sed on the left lies the old Hospital de Santa Cruz. It is one of the best examples of the Transition to Renaissance in Spain. The portal is deeply undercut and elaborately carved in soft "white rose" stone and marble.

The inner gate is plateresque and only surpa.s.sed by San Marcos at Leon and the gateway of the university at Salamanca. Cardinal Mendoza's arms adorn the beautiful _patio_, which has a double arcade of great elegance, and the stone work on the bal.u.s.trade of the staircase leading out of this is very fine. Opposite, on the other side of this steep descent, are the Military Governor's quarters which are dominated by the huge Alcazar, now the Military Academy for Infantry Cadets. Destroyed by fire in 1886, the present edifice, rebuilt soon after, is seen in the ill.u.s.tration of the Alcantara Bridge rising a great square ma.s.s on the top of the hill. It was the fortress and palace of Moorish days. Alvaro de Luna had a share in its alteration and Herrera completed it to the present size by additions executed for Philip II. Many a time has it been sacked by the conquerors of Toledo and many a prisoner of note pa.s.sed his last hours within its gloomy walls, before being led out to death in the Zocodover.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOLEDO. THE ALCaNTARA BRIDGE]

Both Toledo's bridges are magnificent. The Alcantara, crossed on the way from the station, has but a couple of arches which span the mighty river at a great height. It is defended by a gateway at either end, that on the inner side being the Moorish Tower in my sketch. The Bridge of Saint Martin has one arch of enormous span with four smaller, which carry it over the rushing Tagus. Between these two bridges from the opposite bank of the river one gets the best idea of Toledo's strength. Nothing in Spain surpa.s.ses the grim majesty of the city, which rises above the sun-baked and wind-blistered crags that form the gorge below through which the river has cut its way. No spot could have been better chosen for defence than the hill enclosed in this "horseshoe" of mad waters.

Small wonder that within its encircling walls grew up a race of Prelates whose rule spread far beyond the borders of Castile, and whose powerful hand was felt in countries of an alien tongue.

Of the eight city gates the most interesting is the Puerta del Sol, a Moorish structure with two towers on either side of a horseshoe arch. It is close to the little church of el Cristo de la Luz, and from either of the towers a very good idea is obtained of Toledo's defences. Near the Puerta del Cambon, another of the gates, is the site of the old palace of the last of the Spanish Goths, Roderic, who lost his life on the banks of the Guadalete near Cadiz when giving battle to Tarik and his Berbers.

My whole impression of Toledo was that of a city of gloom. Its larger houses were forbidding in the extreme. In these a huge portal, with armorial bearings and ma.s.sive pillars, defended by a stout iron-bound door, opens into a dark porch, from which one enters the _patio_ through an equally strong entrance. The windows that look on to the street are heavily barred and none are within reach of the pedestrian. Its streets, too narrow and steep for vehicular traffic, are as silent as the grave (most Spaniards wear shoes made of esparto gra.s.s or soft leather), save when a young cadet from the Alcazar pa.s.ses along rattling his sword, and attracts the attention of the senoritas who sit high up in those inaccessible balconies. Built on the Moorish plan, these tortuous thoroughfares twist and turn like a maze, and it seemed to me that the sun never entered them.

Houses and streets, walls and towers, still remain as they were in the great Cardinal's days, and stand, even now, as symbols of the iron rule of the Church. The Cardinal's hat is to be found graved in stone over many a door, and the "Sheaf of Arrows," the arms of the "Catholic Kings," is still to be seen over the entrance of what was once the palace of Pedro the Cruel.

Toledo blades are still made and proved in the ugly factory a mile outside the city. Toledo ware (made in Germany) is sold by most of the shops. The growing trade in liquorice is a modern industry, but if it were not for another recent innovation, the Military Academy, it would take no stretch of the imagination to carry one back again into the Middle Ages and to sink one's individuality and become a human atom under the rule of the great Church.

SALAMANCA

Before I ever thought that Fate would take me to Spain, I had formed in my mind, as one is apt to do, a Spain of my own, a Spain of glorious romance. I had been in many cities throughout the country, but it was not until I reached Salamanca that, "Surely," thought I, "the Spain of my imagination is now realised."

Here in the middle of the plain, with which one's thoughts are somehow familiar, rises the great Cathedral, its towers are landmarks for miles round. Here is a beautiful river winding through valleys deep cut in the ochre-coloured soil, its banks are clad with verdure and it is spanned by an ancient bridge. Away over the plain, just visible in the haze, are the blue mountains of the south. In the midst of all, the dull mud and yellow walls of the city, the many-hued roofs of red and brown, with deep shadows under their eaves, rise tier above tier to the Cathedral above. And this, the prototype of Spain's greatness, her Church, the ever-present reminder that in days gone by its princes led her armies to victory and placed her in the van of nations.

I am standing on the n.o.ble bridge, half of which is even now as it was in the days of the Roman occupation. Those ma.s.sive walls up there of monasteries and convents always formed part of the picture of my imagination. They bake under a September sun, just as all Spain ought to do. A long string of heavily laden mules trots past, their bells jingling merrily, their drivers shouting and cracking their whips. A well set-up peasant with his head in a handkerchief and broad-brimmed hat, cut-away tunic, red sash and tight knee breeches, canters by seated on a high peaked saddle. His well-bred horse shows a good deal of the Arab strain, across its quarters are a couple of rugs and its rider carries an umbrella. A beggar stops before me, and prays that, for the love of the Holy Mary, I will give him a _perro chico_. Two wizened old cronies go by chattering about Manuelo's wife. One carries a couple of fowls tied together by their legs, the poor birds are doing their best to hold their heads in a natural position. Some little urchins are throwing stones at the washerwomen by the riverside below. An old man seated on a donkey's rump ambles past. Yes, this is what I imagined Spain to be. I turn my steps towards the city. I wander by the Cathedral and reach the great university of the middle ages. What would Salamanca have been without its university! I pa.s.s many fine houses, with coats-of-arms emblazoned over their portals. I gaze at their high walls and windows barred to keep the intruder from the fair s.e.x. Most of them seem falling into decay, but this only adds to the romance. At length I reach an arcaded square. The columns of the arcades are wooden, they are at all sorts of angles, but the houses above still stand. The sun blazes down on scores of picturesque market folk, who sell almost everything from peaches and fowls to little tinsel images and double-p.r.o.nged hoes.

Dogs are sniffing about picking up stray sc.r.a.ps. Children run in and out, fall down and get up laughing. Every one is busy. The animation of this little square, as I suddenly come upon it out of a deeply shaded and aristocratic street, is just the Spain I had always thought of--a Spain of contrasts. Brilliant sun and grateful shade. Seclusion behind high walls, and a strange medley of noisy folk, for ever bargaining, buying and selling. Certainly in Salamanca it is all here. I hear the click of the castanets and the sound of the guitar in the evening, I see the ardent lover standing at those iron bars whispering soft raptures to his mistress, and the picture is complete.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALAMANCA]

Salamanca is a sleepy old city which the world seems to have left behind. In the summer it is a veritable furnace, in the winter it is swept by icy blasts. Before the Christian era it was known as Salmantica. Hannibal came and captured it in B.C. 247 and under the Romans it was the ninth military station on the great road which they built connecting Cadiz and Merida with Astorga and Gijon. Alfonso IX. of Leon founded the university, which reached its zenith as a seat of learning during the sixteenth century. Philip II., having transferred his Court from Valladolid to Toledo, made Salamanca's bishop suffragan to that city's, since when it seems to have been left out in the cold and slowly but surely proceeded down hill. This is the reason, I think, why it attracted me so much. It is essentially a city with a Past and of the Past. The French under Thiebaut pulled it to pieces and used the material from its demolished buildings to fortify the place. This was in 1811. The following year saw Marmont's troops utterly routed by Wellington, three miles south of the fortifications. It was this victory that gained him his Marquisate and a grant from Parliament of 100,000.

Like Saragossa, Salamanca possesses two Cathedrals. The older intensely interesting in every way, the later, a huge late Gothic pile begun in 1513 and finished in 1733. This immense structure affords a good study of the changes of architectural taste spread over the years which intervened between these two dates.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALAMANCA. THE OLD CATHEDRAL]

The west facade is a marvel of intricate sculpture in the richly-coloured soft stone that has been used as if it were plaster or wax. Late Gothic predominates amidst a deal of Plateresque and Barroque ornament. Despite its incongruities it is extremely fine, but would look even better if some of the numerous niches had not lost their statues, and if little boys did not find a pastime in lodging stones amongst those that are left, greatly I fear to their detriment. Over the double doorway are high reliefs of the Nativity and Adoration of the Magi, a negro prince being an especially good figure in the latter subject.

Above is a Crucifixion.

The north porch is also very fine and gains in effect, as indeed does the whole of this side of the Cathedral, by the raised piazza on which it is built. The approach is up some dozen steps, the whole of the piazza being surrounded by pillars as at Leon and Seville.

Juan Gil de Hontanon, who designed this and the sister Cathedral at Segovia, surpa.s.sed himself with the Great Tower and its finely-proportioned dome, the top of which is 360 feet high. The crocketed pinnacles, the flying b.u.t.tresses, the dome over the crossing, and the wonderful deep yellow of this huge church, whatever may be one's opinion about the architecture, make it one of the most impressive of Spain's Cathedrals.

I was disappointed with the interior on first acquaintance, but it has only to be known to be appreciated. The imposing proportions, it is 340 feet long, 158 feet wide and close on 100 feet high, gradually a.s.serted themselves, and before I left Salamanca I was much in love with Hontanon's masterpiece. A pierced bal.u.s.trade takes the place of a triforium, flamboyant Renaissance in the aisles and cla.s.sical in nave.

It runs round the whole church and in the transepts and choir these two occur together. Medallions in the spandrils of the arches add to the rich effect.

Many details in this interior I found to be worth a second and third visit. The Chapel of Dorado, a veritable museum, contains the tomb of the builder, Fransico de Palenzuela. Its walls are covered with a profusion of coloured saints on gilt pedestals. There is a very curious old organ, standing at the back of an also curious old minstrel's gallery. A sad-looking skeleton, with "Memento Mori" cut on a slab at his feet, occupies a dark hole in one of the walls. Fine _azulejos_ decorate the chapel, and many other antiquities too, which I cannot enumerate.

In the Capilla del Carmen rest the remains of Geromino, the Cid's bishop and confessor. An ancient wooden crucifix stands over the altar, it is the identical one carried by the bishop in the wars of the Cid. Another relic of the great Campeador is to be seen in the Relicario. A small Byzantine bronze, "el Crucifijo de las Batallas," studded with chequer work--a fine specimen of early Limoges enamel.

All this interested me muchly, but the "Catedral Vieja," a grand example of late Romanesque style, interested me more. Fortis Salmantica, as it was called, on account of the thickness of its walls, has not been used for service since its huge neighbour was erected.

I made a drawing of the only view which can be obtained of the exterior from the Plazuela chica. The central lantern is surmounted by the emblem of n.o.bility, a c.o.c.k, and is formed by an octagonal tower with a stone dome. The tower is arcaded and has four domed turrets and dormers at the corners similar to those at Zamora. Street considers that he has "never seen any central lantern more thoroughly good and effective from every point of view than this is."

To reach the interior one has to retrace one's steps to the "Catedral Nueva" and from its south aisle pa.s.s through a doorway into the other building. This was erected on a lower level than its big neighbour and with the attendant verger I descended ten steps and found myself in a very beautiful mellow-coloured church. The arches of the nave and aisles are pointed, but the windows and arcading are round. The capitals of the columns are a museum of carved fantasies, imps, animals, birds, &c. On the wall of the north aisle, which was partly demolished when the "Catedral Nueva" was built, are some very curious frescoes; the church has a clerestory of single lights but no triforium.

There is a wonderful _retablo_ in the Capilla Mayor by an Italian, Nicolas Florentino. It is still in perfect preservation, and the fifty-five frescoes set in white and gold of which it is composed have a beautiful effect in the semi-gloom of the dark chapel. The Mozarabic Ritual is celebrated six times a year in another chapel, La Capilla de Talavera. The groining of its roof is the only one of the sort I have seen, it is composed of parallel ribs which cross one another. In the Capilla de San Bartolome lies Bishop Diego de Anaya. His tomb is surrounded by one of the finest examples of wrought and hammered iron work in the whole of Spain. Some other members of this family are also interred in the chapel, which contains a mediaeval organ covered by a screen of coloured Moorish arabesques.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALAMANCA. AN OLD STREET.]

The cloisters were built in 1170, but have been partly modernised and totally disfigured by a coat of whitewash. An uncared-for garden filled with rubbish occupies the centre. Surely some one might be found to tend this little secluded patch of quietness and make it a place for delightful repose instead of the disgrace it now is!

Before the French occupation Salamanca was a city of churches and monastic buildings. To build their fortifications they destroyed thirteen convents and twenty colleges besides many churches. The south-west corner of the city is still an empty desert full of rubble and stone strewn about everywhere, the remains of the now dismantled fortress which overlooked the valley of the Tormes.

Among the churches left, that attached to the now suppressed Dominican Convent of San Esteban is by far the finest. It is a miniature Cathedral in itself. The Gothic exterior is extremely good. The great west facade is highly enriched with Plateresque ornament. An elliptical arch of great dimensions roofs the porch. Below it is a realistic group ill.u.s.trating the martyrdom of St. Stephen, with the date 1610 cut upon a stone which one of the figures is picking up to hurl at the saint. The _coro_ is over the west end, and for once the whole of the interior is visible. This is very lofty, and the view up to the immense High Altar, executed by Chirriguera himself, superb. There are two more altars in the church by the same hand, and although his flamboyant style is not to my liking, I could not help admiring the way in which he had evidently allowed himself all the licence he was capable of in their sumptuous design.

To the south of the little _plaza_ in which San Esteban stands are the cloisters of the convent, in the upper storey of which is Salamanca's museum. Unfortunately it contains nothing of interest. Columbus was lodged by the Dominicans in this convent, and propounded those schemes to the monks, which the learned members of the university had p.r.o.nounced worthless and crack-brained. He found in Fray Diego de Deza and the other brothers warm supporters.

The once magnificent Convent of las Agustinas Recoletas, founded by the Count of Monterey, has a beautiful church in the shape of a Latin Cross.

Over the High Altar is one of Ribera's masterpieces--_The Immaculate Conception_. Monterey was known as "the good slow man" and was Viceroy of Naples in Philip IV.'s reign. He acc.u.mulated great wealth during his Viceroyalty and built himself the fine palace which stands close to the convent. There is an anecdote current in Salamanca that when a peasant woman craved an audience of the King, which he granted, she prayed "G.o.d might make him also Viceroy of Naples."

The University which made Salamanca famous was united with that of Palencia by Ferdinand, and very soon took the foremost rank as a seat of learning in Europe, though at the Council of Constance in the year 1414, Oxford was given precedence, a ruling which much disgusted the patriotic Spaniard.

The building was entirely altered by the "Catholic Kings," who erected the marvellous west facade, one of the best examples of Plateresque work in the country. Like that of the Cathedral and San Esteban, it is a wonderful example of what can be done with soft stone, and how well the most delicate modelling has survived in this dry climate. Some of the Moorish ceilings of the interior have been restored. The grand staircase leading to the upper floors and cloister is especially well carved with dancers and foliage. Over the door of each _aula_, or lecture room, is a tablet denoting the science taught within. The fine library is rich in theological lore and early editions of Aristotle, &c.

The little square on to which the west facade opens also leads through a good doorway into the Grammar School, with a delicious cloister and shady garden.

The four sides of the square and the walls of the Cathedral are covered with numerous hieroglyphics and names in Roman characters. They are the initials, signs, and names of the numerous scholars who have distinguished themselves in different walks of life. A custom now followed in all our own schools on boards of honour.

The Collegio Mayor de Santiago Apostol is a seminary for Irish priests.

The number in training is generally about twenty. This building, originally founded in 1592 by Philip II. and dedicated to St. Patrick, is a very good example of cinquecento architecture.

Among the many fine houses still left after French depredations, that of La Casa de las Conchas is the most celebrated. It dates from 1512, and is so named on account of the scallop sh.e.l.ls which decorate the exterior walls. The window grilles are exceptionally fine. The Spanish proverb "La mujer y el vidrio siempre estan en peligro"--"a woman and gla.s.s are always in danger," evidently held good when these intricate and beautiful guards were let into the stone. The house has a lovely _patio_ and a very fine staircase. La Casa de Sal is another house with a good court, the gallery above being supported by life-size figures. La Casa de las Duendes, or Ghosts, built by Archbishop Fonseca, was supposed to be haunted, hence the name. The Torre del Clavero is a good specimen of the Castilian keep. It was built in 1488 by a Sotomayer who was Clavero or Key-bearer to the Alcantara Order, and is still in the possession of this n.o.ble family.

Throughout the churches, in these houses, and the convents which remain unsuppressed are many fine pictures, and except for Seville, I found here more of interest than in any other city of Spain. In the convents of course mortal man is forbidden entrance, and I could only look at their lofty walls and wish myself a nearer acquaintance with the artistic treasures which I was told lay buried behind them.

Perhaps the best example of a square in the whole of the country is the Plaza Mayor. A lofty colonnade runs around the four sides and every evening the beauties and others of Salamanca make it their promenade.