Cathedrals of Spain Part 12

Far more ineffaccable even than the record left by Philip's life upon the history of Seville and Spain is that of this immortal soldier and scribbler, who "believed he had found something better to do than writing comedies."

The soft, sonorous syllables of Guadalquivir (from the Arabic Wad-el-Kebir, or The Great River) would picture to the imaginative eye a river far more poetic than the sluggish stream that loiters across the wide plain and fruitful valley until it pierces the amber girdle of crenelated walls and embattled towers which enclose the treasures of Seville. On its broad bosom have swept the barks and galleys of Phnicia and Greece, of Roman, Goth, and Moor. On its sh.o.r.es Columbus lowered the sails of his caravel and presented Spain with a new world on Palm Sunday, 1493; Pizarro and Cortez here first embarked their greedy and daring adventurers; hither Pizarro returned with h.o.a.rds of gold and silver treasures from Mexico and Peru, for the Council of the Indies restricted all the trade of the colonies to the port of Seville. The valley through which the river descends is sheltered from the cold tablelands lying northward by the Sierra Morena chain. Gray olive trees, waving pastures, and fields of grain cover its slopes. A soft, tempered wind whispers through the gra.s.sy meadows of La Tierra de Maria Santissima, and the atmosphere is so dry and clear that far away against the horizon objects stand out in clear silhouette. So vivid are the colors that the smoky olive groves, the orange and lemon-colored walls, the fir trees, the chalky white of the stucco, the fleshy, p.r.i.c.kly leaves of the cacti, and the tall standards of the aloes seem photographed on the brain.

In a fair and fruitful land lies the city, and her spires pierce a smokeless, unspotted sky.

In the heart of the city, set down in the very centre of her life of song and laughter and childish simplicity, surrounded by crooked streets and great airy courts, in the widest sunlit square, lies her Cathedral.

The first impression made by a building is generally not only the most distinct but the truest. That produced by Seville's Cathedral is its immensity of scale.

Toledo la rica, Salamanca la fuerta, Leon la bella, Oviedo la sacra, Sevilla la grande,

runs the Spanish saying. The size is overpowering. Each of the four side aisles is nearly as broad and high as the nave of Westminster Abbey, while the arcades of Seville's nave have twice the span. To the impressionable sensitiveness of Theophile Gautier it was like a mountain scooped out, a valley turned topsy-turvy. Notre Dame de Paris might walk erect under the frightful height of the middle nave; pillars as large as towers appear so slender that you catch your breath as you look up at the far-away, vaulted roof they support.

Here are the first impressions of two early Spanish writers. Cean Bermudez finds that, "seen from a certain distance, it resembles a high-p.o.o.ped and beflagged ship, rising over the sea with harmonious grouping of sails, pennons, and banners, and with its mainmast towering over the mizzenmast, foremast, and bowsprit." Caveda is struck by "the general effect, which is truly majestic. The open-work parapets which crown the roofs; the graceful lanterns of the eight winding stairs that ascend in the corners to the vaults and galleries; the flying b.u.t.tresses that spring lightly from aisle to nave, as the jets of a cascade from cliff to cliff; the slender pinnacles that cap them; the proportions of the arms of the transept and of the b.u.t.tresses supporting the side walls; the large pointed windows to which they belong, rising over each other, the pointed portals and entrances,--all these combine in an almost miraculous effect, although they lack the wealth of detail, the airy grace, and the delicate elegance that characterize the cathedrals of Leon and Burgos."

Such are the varying impressions of ancient critics. To the student's question, "To what period of architecture does the Cathedral of Seville belong?" we must answer, "To no period, or rather to half a dozen."

Authorities and writers will give completely different information, and Seville has found more willing and loving chroniclers than any other of Spain's churches. Gallichan cla.s.ses it as the "largest Gothic cathedral in the world," and Caveda calls it "a type of the finest Spanish Gothic architecture."

The interior of the main body of the church is pure, severe Gothic, the sacristy major, highly developed Renaissance; the main portions of the exterior are what might be termed for want of a better word "Spanish Renaissance--plateresco"; other details are Moorish, cla.s.sical, late florid Gothic, rococo, and so forth. As if to add to the incongruity of the architectural hodge-podge, it is surrounded by shafts of old Roman columns as well as Byzantine pillars from the original mosque, sunk deep into the ground and connected with iron chains. The total impression to any student of architecture is one of outraged law and order, composition and unity. Recalling the carefully membered and distinctly developed plan of the great Gothic churches of France, the expressive exteriors of the huge Renaissance cathedrals of Italy, the satisfying perspective of English monastic temples, one feels the hopelessness of attempting a comparison between this huge, impressive undertaking and any accepted standards or schools. It is something so entirely different and apart, a mighty and unbridled effort which cannot be cla.s.sified nor grouped with other churches, nor studied by methods of earlier architectural training. It is full of romance,--a building romantic as the Cid, a child of architectural fervor or even architectural furor.

Centuries of Spanish history and religion and the various temperaments of different and inspired races have created it and fostered its growth. Like many of its sister churches, the artisans that labored on it were gathered from different lands and their work stretches through centuries of time and architectural thought. There is the sparkling, oriental fancy of the Mudejar, the cla.s.sic training of the Italian, the brilliant color and technique of the Fleming and Dutchman, the skilled and masterful chiseling of the German, and the restless pride and domination of the Spaniard. You find it expressed in every way,--on canvas, in wood and clay and stone, on plaster and in gla.s.s. It is a museum of art from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, with portions still waiting for the work of the twentieth. The artists range from Juan Sanches de Castro, "the morning star of Andalusia," in 1454, to Francisco Goya, the last of the great Spanish painters.

It is colossal, incongruous, mysterious, and elusive. It breathes the spirit of the middle ages with all their piety and loyalty to church and crown, and their unparalleled ardor in building religious temples.

Gazing at it, you feel the same religious fervor that flung the arches of Amiens and Chartres high into the northern air and rounded the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore under Lombardy's azure vault.

If you stand in the Calle del Gran Capitan, or better, the Plaza del Triumfo, best of all, near the gateway of the Patio de las Banderas, where the Cathedral and the Giralda pile up in front of you, unquestionably you have before you Spain's mightiest architectural work, a sight as impressive as the view from the marble pavement of the Piazzetta by the Adriatic.

The lofty tower is entirely oriental. The walls of the Cathedral which rise from a broad paved terrace consist below of a cla.s.sical screen, whose surface is broken by a Corinthian order carrying a Renaissance bal.u.s.trade and topped by heavy, meaningless stone terminations. Windows with Italian Renaissance frames pierce the ochre masonry. Above rises a confusion of b.u.t.tresses, kettle-shaped domes, and Renaissance lanterns, simple, ma.s.sive walls, some portions entirely bare, others overloaded with delicate Gothic interlacings full of Spanish feeling; flowers and rosettes, broad blazons and coats-of-arms,--above all, a forest of Gothic towers, finials, crockets, parapets, and rails peculiarly Spanish in carving and treatment. There is practically no sky line. The interior of the nave and aisle vaulting are entirely concealed externally by the parapets and walls.

So lacking in sobriety is the first view!--but you are ready to echo the Spanish saying,--

Quien no ha visto Sevilla No ha visto maravilla.[17]

or the words of Pope, "_There_ stands a structure of majestic fame!"

The Spanish Christians in Seville, like those who obtained possession of other Moorish strongholds, first appropriated the old Arab mosque for their house of worship. Later, when it no longer sufficed, they and their fellow-believers elsewhere built the new cathedral on, around, or adjacent to, the old consecrated walls. Like all other churches from which Islam had been driven, the great mosque of Seville was dedicated to Santa Maria de la Sede. The famous Moorish conqueror, Abu Jakub Jusuf, had laid the foundation stones of his mosque and tower in 1171, building his walls with the materials left by imperial Rome, and laying out orange courtyard and walls in a manner befitting his power and the traditions of his race. It belongs to what architectural writers have for convenience called the second period of the Spanish Arabs, between 1146 and about 1250, under the Almohaden dynasty. This was the period of the Moors' greatest constructive energy,--they no longer blindly copied the ancient architecture of Byzantium, but endeavored to create a bold and independent art of their own.

After the capture of Seville in 1248, Ferdinand at once consecrated the mosque to Christian service, and it was used without alteration until it began to crumble. Its general plan was probably very much like the one in Cordova, a great rectangle filled with a forest of columns: its high walls of brick and clay supported by b.u.t.tresses and crowned with battlements enclosed an adjacent courtyard with fountain and rows of orange trees, ab.u.t.ted by the bell or prayer tower. The courtyard and tower remain with but slight changes or additions; portions of the foundation walls, the northeast and west porticos, decorative details and ornamentation still to be found on the Christian church are all Moorish. The plan and general structure have been restricted by the lines of the old Moorish foundations. There are no doc.u.ments extant that give a trustworthy account of what portions of the old mosque were allowed to remain when the Christians finally decided to rebuild, but the most cursory glance at the outline of the Cathedral shows how organically it has been bound by what was retained. The mosque must have been built on as large and magnificent a scale as the one which still amazes us in Cordova. The peculiar, oblong, quadrilateral form was probably common to both.

On the 8th of July, 1401, the Cathedral Chapter issued the challenge to the Catholic world which to the more practical piety of to-day rings with a true mediaeval fervor. Verily a faith that could remove mountains!

The inspired Chapter proclaimed they could build a church of such size and beauty that coming ages should call them mad to have undertaken it.

And their own fat pockets were the first to be emptied of half their stipends. The pennies of the poor, grants from the crown, indulgences published throughout the kingdom, all went to satisfy the ever-grasping building fund.

In 1403 the work of tearing down and commencing afresh on the old foundations was begun. These measured about some 415 feet in length by 278 feet in width. The old mosque or the present church proper is now only the central edifice in a rectangle of about 600 by 500 feet. This is the size of a village, with its courts, its tower, the great library of the Cathedral Chapter where books were collected from all over the lettered world by the son of Columbus, the parroquia or parish church, the endless row of chapels, some larger than ordinary churches, the sacristy, the chapter house and offices. It became the largest church of the middle ages, covering 124,000 square feet; Milan covers only 90,000, Toledo, 75,000, and Saint Paul's in London, 84,000. Among the churches of all ages, Saint Peter's, with an area of 162,000 square feet, alone exceeds it in size.

In 1506, under the archbishops Alfonso Rodriguez and Gonzalo de Rojas, the building was completed. For a century the work had been carried on with such reckless haste that inferior building methods had been employed, which led to subsequent disasters. On December 28, 1511, to the consternation of the devout workmen, the great central dome fell in during an earthquake, carrying with it or weakening many of the vaults and much of the masonry below. After the earthquake, some of the large piers supporting the great crossing as well as the adjacent ones were found filled with the most carelessly laid rubble and earth, with no carrying power nor resistance. About 1520 the building might in the main be said to be finished. Externally it has never been completed, although in the nineteenth century the west front was finished and its central doorway ornamented. An extensive restoration which took place in 1882 was interrupted by the second earthquake of 1888, during which the dome again fell in. To-day it is all rebuilt.

The entrance is at the west end. The plan, as I have said, was governed by the old basilica-shaped mosque. The transepts do not project beyond the chapels of the side aisles, and at the east end it differs from most Spanish churches in having a square termination instead of an apse. Also along the east wall chapels have been built between the b.u.t.tresses similar to those between the north and south sides. The central portions of the east end open into the great Capilla Real. There are nine doorways to the church.

In studying the plan, it is interesting to note what Mr. Ferguson has indicated, that similarly to what is found in the Indian Jain temples, the diagonal of the aisle compartments has the same length as the width of the nave. The original doc.u.ments and accounts of the church, which have disappeared, were probably burnt among Philip II's papers destroyed by the great Madrid fire.

Scarcely two of the Cathedral's many biographers agree as to its architects, its historic precedents or what part of the work was actually inspired by earlier Spanish architecture and national builders.

Naturally Spanish writers attribute workmanship, precedents and builders all to their own Peninsula, while the different foreign authorities vary in their estimates. Distinctly Spanish features of construction as well as ornamentation are found side by side with others which unquestionably came from masters trained beyond the Pyrenees. In various places vaulting is found thoroughly German in its complexity and florid detail.

Several authorities point out the resemblances between Milan and Seville, not that the ornamentation of the frosted and encrusted Italian misconception can be intelligently compared with the Plateresque carving, but there is a certain mixture of local and foreign feeling in both. In Seville French and German feeling seems to be struggling under Spanish fetters, just as in Lombardy the German seems to be laboring with Italian comprehension of Gothic, finally abandoning the inorganic scheme for a lovely, riotous, and marvelous attempt at carving to which the material no longer placed any limitations.

The Spanish architect of the middle ages was placed in a novel situation, and his art had very peculiar and unusual influences bearing upon it. Gothic methods of construction and ornamentation had slowly spread over the country with the growing sovereignty of Aragon and Castile, and in spite of the corresponding decline of the Arab kingdoms, Moorish art began to work hand in hand, as far as was possible, with the forms of the Christian invader, although the hostility between the races hindered any extensive fusion of the two. They began, however, to influence each other for good or bad and to flourish side by side. The result might be called architectural volapuk. In Seville it is certain that, whatever the nationality of the original architect and however incongruous and expressionless the exterior may finally have become, the interior is less exotic, less unquestionably a French importation, than in either of the great Gothic churches of Toledo or Burgos. When we recall the organic completeness, the truthful exterior expression, of interior lines and construction in the greatest Gothic cathedrals of France, we turn with sadness to the outer form of so fair a soul as that of Santa Maria of Seville, the work of the most famous architects of her age. Some attribute the original plans of the church to Alfonso Rodriguez, others to Alfonso Martinez, who was Maestro Mayor of the chapter in 1396, others again to Pedro Garcia; a long list of names follows: Juan the Norman, Juan de Hoz, Alfonso Ruiz, Ximon, Alfonso Rodriguez, and Gonzalo de Rojas, Pedro Mellan, Miguel Florentin, Pedro Lopez, Henrique de Egas, Juan de Alava, Jorge Fernandez Alleman, Juan Gil de Hontanon and the masters who after the earthquake hurried to Seville from their buildings in Toledo, Jaen, Vittoria, and other places. Casanova is the last of her many architects.

Correctly speaking, there is no facade. The Cathedral runs from west to east, the western or main entrance portal being pierced by three ogival doorways, the Puerta Mayor with a modern relief of the a.s.sumption, the Puerta del Nacimento or de San Miguel to the south, and the Puerta del Bautizo or de San Juan to the north. Saint Miguel has a relief of the Nativity of Christ, Saint Juan, one representing Saint John baptizing.

In the moldings surrounding these, are very exquisite little figures of early sixteenth-century work executed in terra-cotta. They are full of the best Gothic feeling, splendidly fitted to their s.p.a.ces, alive with the expression of the imaginative period of their sculptor, Pedro Millan. Above and around the door of San Juan is a Gothic tracery of the most elaborate character.

One cannot refrain from comparing the sculptural work of these three doorways. Riccardo Bellver's modern a.s.sumption over the central doorway is as congealed as the terra-cotta sculptures above and around the side portals are admirable. They are unquestionably among the most interesting bits of relief as well as figure sculpture of their kind produced in Spain during the fifteenth century. Pedro Millan stands out as a great mediaeval master, not only from the consummate skill with which the drapery is treated but from the living, breathing personality and att.i.tudes of the men and women around him, which we still gaze at in the truth of their curious, nave, fifteenth-century light.

As the whole western facade was not completed in its present form until 1827, much of its work is as poor as it is modern.

There are two entrances to the eastern end, richly decorated with fine terra-cotta statues and reliefs of angels, patriarchs, and Biblical figures, attributed to Lope Marin. In the northern facade there are three,--one cla.s.sical and of very little interest leading to the parish church; the second is the Puerto de los Naranjos.

In the Puerta del Lagarto, where the Giralda abuts the Cathedral, there hangs a poor stuffed crocodile, once sent by a Sultan of Egypt in token of admiration to Saint Ferdinand. The beast, having died on his way from the Nile, could never crawl in the basins of the Alcazar gardens, but found a resting-place under the shelves of the Columbina library.

On the opposite side of the orange-tree court is the Puerta del Perdon.

The Florentine relief above, representing the crouching traders as they were driven from the Temple, naturally spoils the effectiveness of the magnificent Moorish portal below. Its horseshoe curve, with delicate Moorish interlacing, arabesques, frieze and bronze doors, is a curious and striking note of a bygone age, leading as it does to the walled and fragrant courtyard of its builders, and the fountain where they made their ablutions. Later Renaissance statues of the Annunciation and Saint Peter and Saint Paul, as well as Florentine pilasters and ornament, flank the Moorish moldings in an utterly meaningless manner.

On the south is the gate of San Cristobal, or of the Lonja, finished only a few years ago.

In and out of these many entrances the populace stream, to worship, to whisper, to gossip, to rest, to bargain, to beg, and to make love. The whole drama of life in its conglomerate population goes on within the walls of the Cathedral. It is the most frequented thoroughfare, where the people enter as often with a song on their lips as with a prayer.

The great edifice with all the ceremonial of its religious services is woven into their life, as is the sound of the guitars and castanets that echo within its portals and courtyards. The church and her children are not strangers. The Sevillian does not approach her altars with religious awe and fear, but with a childish trust; he kneels down before them as much at home as when rolling his cigarette on the bench of his cafe. The Cathedral, like the houses nestling and crumbling around it, opens wide and hospitable gates that lead to the refreshing shade and comfort within.

The western front is practically the only one which presents the Cathedral un.o.bscured by adjacent buildings climbing up its sides or struggling between the b.u.t.tresses,--or which is not concealed by enclosing screenwork. To the north the walls of the Orange Court block the view; to the east, the high screen; and to the south, the chapter house and the Dependencias de la Hermanidad and the sacristy. The ma.s.s of domes with supporting flying b.u.t.tresses, ramps and finials above it,all remind one curiously of a transplanted and ecclesiasticized Chambord.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid

CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE

Gateway of Perdon in the Orange Tree Court]

As the plan conforms to the conditions of the old rectangular mosque and has neither projecting transepts nor semicircular chevet, it can scarcely be called Gothic. It consists of nave and double side aisles,--the nave 56 feet wide from centre to centre of the columns and 145 feet high, and the inner side aisles 40 wide and about 100 high.

Outside these is another aisle filled with various chapels.

At the crossing of the nave and transept, we have the typical, small Spanish octagonal dome,--in this instance covering possibly what was in the original mosque a central octagonal court. It is a construction rising some hundred and seventy feet above the level of the eye, admitting light below its spring into what in the French Gothic edifices would usually be the gloomiest portions of the building.

The side aisles differ slightly in width, the two lateral ones being filled with various chapels. There are nine bays, separated by thirty-six cl.u.s.tered pillars, some of them perfect towers in their huge and ma.s.sive strength. Their detail and outline are excellent, all of the greatest simplicity and restraint. The delicate engaged shafts which surround the huge supports of fifteen feet diameter terminate below the vaulting ribs in delicately interlaced palm-leaf caps. Nothing is confused or intricate. Sixty-eight compartments spring from the various piers with a loftiness reminding one of Cologne. The groining differs very much. The greater portion is admirably plain, of simple quadripart.i.te design; other parts are fanciful and elaborate, recalling florid German prototypes. The five central vaults forming the cross under the dome alone have elaborate fan-vaulting; the geometrical design is as excellent as its detail. The richness given this central and most correct portion of the great roofing is all the more effective by contrast with the plain, unelaborated groins of the surrounding vaults.

The petals of the flower, the very holy of holies, between the choir and the Capilla Mayor, before the high altar, are what is most beautiful and enriched.

The lighting is very unusual, and better than either Leon or Toledo.

Ninety-three windows are filled with the most glorious gla.s.s. There are two clerestories to light the body of the church, one in the walls of the second side aisle, admitting light above the roofs of the chapels, the second in the nave. Added to this come the huge lights of the five rose windows.

In Seville, as in Toledo and many of the other great Spanish cathedrals, the general view of the interior is blocked, and the majesticeffectiveness of the columnar rows marred, by the placing of the great choir in the centre of the edifice.

But the interior effect is nevertheless one of the most inspiring produced by the imagination and hands of man. All truly majestic conceptions are simple and, though we may at times wonder at the secret of their power, we always find their enduring grandeur due to a hidden simplicity. This is true of the Parthenon, of the Venus of Milo, and the Sistine Madonna. Whoever enters the Cathedral of Seville is struck first of all by its simplicity. The tremendous scale of the interior is unperceived, owing to the just proportion between all the parts. There is height as well as width, ma.s.siveness and strength, boldness and light. None of the detail is petty or too elaborate, but simple and effective, making a harmony in all its parts. Even the furniture carries out the tremendous boldness and grandeur of the edifice. Bells, choir books, candles, altar chests, are all on the same grandiose scale. It has true majesty in its simplicity of direct, honest appeal, and a proud unconsciousness, because it is free from the artificiality which is invariably vulgar. The truly beautiful woman needs none of the devices of art. The shafts and vaults and string courses in Seville's Cathedral need little ornamentation to bring out their beauty; they are in fact as effective as the elaborate carving of Salamanca and Segovia.

Seville preaches a great lesson to our twentieth century, of peace, rest and completeness. It has room for all its children; they may kneel at eighty-two different shrines and find romance or encouragement or the consolation they are seeking. Some churches are strangely secular in their restlessness of feeling, while others breathe an atmosphere full of poetry, exaltation and the infinite peace of the Gospels. Seville's religion is for the humble and simple as much as for the grandee. It is not only the great cathedral church of the archbishop and bishop, the eleven dignitaries, forty canons, twenty prebendaries, twenty minor canons, twenty veinteneros, twenty chaplains and the host of a choir, but the beloved home of the poor, miserable, starving sons and daughters of Santa Maria de la Sede.