Cathedrals of Spain Part 6

There is a fine view of the exterior of the church from across the square facing the southwestern angle. A row of acacia plumes and a meaningless, eighteenth-century iron fence conceal the marble paving round the base, but this foreground sinks to insignificance against the soaring ma.s.ses of stone towers and turrets, b.u.t.tresses and pediments, stretching north and east. Both facades have been considerably restored, the later Renaissance and Baroque atrocities having been swept away in a more refined and sensitive age, when the portions of masonry which fell, owing to the flimsiness of the fabric, were rebuilt. The result has, however, been that great portions, as for instance in the western front and the entire central body above the portals, jar, with the chalky whiteness of their surfaces by the side of the time-worn masonry. They lack the exquisite harmony of tints, where wind and sun and water have swept and splashed the masonry for centuries.

The two towers that flank the western front in so disjointed a manner are of different heights and ages. Both have a heavy, lumbering quality entirely out of keeping with the aerial lightness of the remainder of the church. It is not quite coa.r.s.eness, but rather a stiff-necked, pompous gravity. Their moldings lack vigor and sparkle. The play of fancy and sensitive decorative treatment are wanting. The northern tower is the older and has an upper portion penetrated by a double row of round and early pointed windows. An unbroken octagonal spire crowns it, the angles of the intersection being filled by turrets, as uninteresting as Prussian sentry-boxes. The southern tower, though lighter and more ornamented, has, like its sister, extremely bald lower surfaces, the four angles in both cases being merely broken by projecting b.u.t.tresses.

The lowest story was completed in the fourteenth century. It was added to in successive centuries by Maestro Jusquin and Alfonso Ramos, but its great open-work spire, of decided German form, probably much influenced by Colonia's spires at Burgos, was first raised in the fifteenth century.

It is a complete monotonous lacework of stone, not nearly as spirited as similar, earlier, French work. The spire is separated from the bald base by a two-storied belfry, with two superimposed openings on each surface.

Gothic inscriptions decorate the masonry and the huge black letters spell out "Deus h.o.m.o--Ave Maria, Gratia plena."

At the base, between these huge, grave sentinels, stands the magnificent old portico with the modern facing of the main body of the church above it. This screen of later days, built after the removal of a hideously out-of-keeping Renaissance front, is contained within two b.u.t.tresses which meet the great flying ones. In fact, looking down the stone gorge between these b.u.t.tresses and the towers, one sees a ma.s.s of pushing and propping flying b.u.t.tresses springing in double rows above the roof of the side aisles towards the clerestories of the nave. The screen itself contains, immediately above the portico, an arcade of four subdivided arches, corresponding to the triforium, and above it a gorgeous rose window. It is the best type of late thirteenth or early fourteenth-century wheel of radial system, very similar in design to the western wheel of Notre Dame de Paris and the great western one of Burgos. Springing suddenly into being in all its developed perfection, it can only be regarded as a direct importation from the Isle de France.

The ribs of the outer circle are twice as many as those of the inner, thus dividing the gla.s.s surfaces into approximately equal breadth of fields. This and the rose of the southern transept are similar, and both are copies of the original one still extant in the north transept. A fine cornice and open-work gallery surmount the composition, flanked by crocketed turrets and crowned in the centre by a pediment injurious in effect and of Italian Renaissance inspiration. The gable field is broken by a smaller wheel, and in an ogival niche are statues of the Annunciation.

The portico is the most truly splendid part of the Cathedral. Erected at the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, much of its Gothic sculpture is unsurpa.s.sed in Spain. A perfect museum of art and a history in magnificent carving. The composition as a whole recalls again unquestionably Chartres. It consists of three recessed arches hooding with deep splays the three doorways which lead into nave and side aisles. Between the major arches are two smaller, extremely pointed ones, the most northerly of which encases an ancient columnar shaft decorated with the arms of Leon and bearing the inscription, "locus appellationis." Beneath it court was long held and justice administered by the rulers of Leon during the Middle Ages.

The arches of the porches are supported by piers, completely broken and surrounded by columnar shafts and niches carrying statues on their corbels. These piers stand out free from the jambs of the doors and wall surfaces behind, and thus form an open gallery between the two.

Around and over all is an astounding and lavish profusion of sculpture,--no less than forty statues. The jambs and splays, the shafts, the archivolts, the moldings and tympanums are covered with carving, varied and singularly interesting in the diversity of its period and character. Part of it is late Byzantine with the traditions of the twelfth century, while much is from the very best vigorous Gothic chisels, and yet some, later Gothic. Certain borders, leaf.a.ge, and vine branches are Byzantine, and so also are some of the statues, "retaining the shapeless proportions and the immobility and parched frown of the Byzantine School, so perfectly dead in its expression, offering, however, by its garb and by its contours not a little to the study of this art, and so const.i.tuting a precious museum." Again, other statues have the mild and venerable aspect of the second period of Gothic work.

The oldest are round the most northerly of the three doorways. Every walk of life is represented. There is a gallery of costumes; and most varying emotions are depicted in the countenances of the kings and queens, monks and virgins, prelates, saints, angels, and bishops.

Separating the two leaves of the main doorway, stands Our White Lady.

But if the statues are interesting, the sculpture of the archivolts and the personages and scenes carved on the fields of the tympanums far surpa.s.s them.

Mrs. Wharton says somewhere, "All northern art is anecdotic,--it is an ancient ethnological fact that the Goth has always told his story that way." Nothing could be more "anecdotic" than this sculpture. The northern tympanum gives scenes from the Life of Christ, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Flight into Egypt. In the southern, are events from the life of the Virgin Mary; but the central one, and the archivolts surrounding it, contain the most spirited bits. The scene is the Last Judgment, with Christ as the central figure. Servants of the Church of various degrees are standing on one side with expressions of beat.i.tude nowise clouded by the fate of the miserable reprobates on the other. In the archivolts angels ascend with instruments and spreading wings, embracing monks or gathering orphans into their bosoms, while the lost with horrid grimaces are descending to their inevitable doom. Not even the great Florentine could depict more realistically the feelings of such as had sinned grievously in this world.

The long southern side of the church has for its governing feature the wide transept termination, which in its triple portal, triforium arcade, and rose is practically a repet.i.tion of the west. The central body is all restored. The original, magnificent old statues and carving have, however, been set back in the new casings around and above the main entrance. An old Leonese bishop, San Triolan, occupies in the central door the same position as "Our White Lady" to the west, while the Saviour between the Four Evangelists is enthroned in the tympanum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATHEDRAL OF LEON

Rear of apse]

One obtains a most interesting study in construction by standing behind the great polygonal apse, whence one may see the double rows of flying b.u.t.tresses pushing with the whole might of the solid piers behind them against the narrow strips of masonry at the angles of the choir. From every b.u.t.tress rise elegantly carved and crocketed finials. Marshalled against the cobalt of the skies, they body forth an array of shining lances borne by a heavenly host. The balconies, forming the cresting to the excessively high clerestory, are entirely Renaissance in feeling, and lack in their horizontal lines the upward spring of the church below. Almost all of this eastern end, breaking through the city walls, is, with the possible exception of the roof, part of the fine old structure, in contrast to the adjoining Plateresque sacristy.

It is generally from the outside of French cathedrals that one receives the most vivid impressions. Though the mind may be overcome by a feeling of superhuman effort on entering the portals of Notre Dame de Paris, yet the emotion produced by the first sight of the queenly, celestial edifice from the opposite side of the broad square is the more powerful and eloquent. Not so in Spain,--and this in spite of the location of the choirs. It is not until you enter a Spanish church that its power and beauty are felt.

The audacious construction of Leon, which one wonders at from the square outside, becomes well-nigh incredible when seen from the nave. How is it possible that gla.s.s can support such a weight of stone? If Burgos was bold, this is insane. It looks as unstable as a house of cards, ready for a collapse at the first gentle breeze. Can fields of gla.s.s sustain three hundred feet of thrusts and such weights of stone? It is a culmination of the daring of Spanish Gothic. In France there was this difference,--while the fields of gla.s.s continued to grow larger and larger, the walls to diminish, and the piers to become slenderer, the aid of a more perfectly developed system of counterthrusts to the vaulting was called in. In Spain we reach the maximum of elimination in the masonry of the side walls at the end of the thirteenth century, and in the Cathedral of Leon, whereas later Gothic work, as in portions of Burgos and Toledo, shows a sense of the futile exaggeration towards which they were drifting, as well as the impracticability of so much gla.s.s from a climatic point of view.

Internally, Leon is the lightest and most cheerful church in Spain. The great doorways of the western and southern fronts, as well as that to the north leading into the cloisters, are thrown wide open, as if to add to the joyousness of the temple. Every portion of it is flooded with sweet sunlight and freshness. It is the church of cleanliness, of light and fresh air, and above all, of glorious color. The glaziers might have said with Isaiah, "And I will make thy windows of agates and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones." The entire walls are a continuous series of divine rainbows.

The side walls of the aisles for a height of some fourteen feet to the bottom of their vaulting ribs, the triforium, commencing but a foot above the arches which separate nave from side aisles, and immediately above the triforium, forty feet of clerestory,--all is gla.s.s, emerald, turquoise, and peac.o.c.k, amber, straw, scarlet, and crimson, encased in a most delicate, strangely reckless, and bold-traceried framework of stained ivory. Indeed, the jeweled portals of Heaven are wide open when the sun throws all the colors from above across the otherwise colorless fields of the pavement. "The color of love's blood within them glows."

There is glazing of many centuries and all styles. In some of the triforium windows are bits of gla.s.s, which, after the destruction or falling of the old windows, were carefully collected, put together, and used again in the reglazing. Some of it is of the earliest in Spain, probably set by French, Flemish, or German artisans who had immigrated to practise their art and set up their factories on Spanish soil adjacent to the stone-carvers' and masons' sheds under the rising walls of the great churches. Like all skilled artisans of their age, the secret of their trade, the proper fusing of the silica with the alkalies, was carefully guarded and handed down from father to son or master to apprentice. They were chemists, glaziers, artists, colorists, and gla.s.s manufacturers, all in one. The heritage was pa.s.sed on in those days, when the great key of science which opens all portals had not yet become common property. Some of the oldest gla.s.s is merely a crude mosaic inlay of small bits and must date back to early thirteenth century. Coloring gla.s.s by partial fusion was then first practised and soon followed by the introduction of figures and themes in the gla.s.s, and the acquisition of a lovely, h.o.m.ogeneous opalescence in place of the purely geometrical patterns. Scriptural scenes or figures painted, as the Spanish say, "en caballete," became more and more general. The best of the Leon windows are from the fifteenth century, when the glaziers'

shops in the city worked under the direction of Juan de Arge, Maestro Baldwin, and Rodrigo de Ferraras, and its master colorists were at work glazing the windows of the Capilla Mayor, the Capilla de Santiago, and a portion of those of the north transept. "Ces vitreaux hauts en couleur, qui faisaient hesiter l'il emerveille de nos peres entre la rose du grand portail et les ogives de l'abside." The glazing has gone on through centuries; even to-day the glaziers at Leon are busy in their shops, making the sheets of sunset glow for their own and other Spanish cathedrals.

In some of the side aisles, they have, alas, during recent decades placed some horrible "grisaille" and geometrically patterned windows,--in frightful contrast to the delightful thirteenth-century legends of Saint Clement and Saint Ildefonso, or that most absorbing record of civic life depicted in the northern aisle. In studying the windows of Leon, Lamperez y Romea's observations on Spanish glazing are of interest: "In the fourteenth century the rules of glazing in Spain were changed. Legends had fallen into disuse and the masters had learned that, in the windows of the high nave, small medallions could not be properly appreciated. They were then replaced by large figures, isolated or in groups, but always one by one in the s.p.a.ces determined by the tracery. The coloring remained strong and vivid. The study of nature, which had so greatly developed in painting and in sculpture, altered the drawing little by little, the figures became more modeled and lifelike, and were carried out with more detail. At the same time the coloring changed by the use of neutral tints, violet, brown, light blues, rose, etc. Many of the old windows are of this style. And so are the majority of the windows of Avila, Leon, and Toledo, as it lasted in Spain throughout the fifteenth century, and others which preserve the composition of great figures and strong coloring, although there may be noticed in the drawings greater naturalism and modeling."

These rules differed slightly from those followed in France, where, with the exception of certain churches in the east, the windows of the thirteenth century were richer in decoration, more luscious in coloring and more harmonious in their tones than those of the fourteenth. There is little in this later century that can compare with the thirteenth-century series of Chartres figures.

The Leonese windows are perhaps loveliest late in the afternoon, when the saints and churchmen seem to be entering the church through their black-traceried portals, and, clad in heavenly raiment, about to descend to the pavement,--

As softly green, As softly seen, Through purest crystal gleaming,

there to people the aisles and keep vigil at the altars of G.o.d to the coming of another day.

There are, fortunately, scarcely any other colors or decorations,--or altars off side aisles,--that might divert the attention from the richness of gla.s.s. The various vaulting has the jointing of its stonework strongly marked, but, with the exception of the slightly gilded bosses, no color is applied. The glory of the gla.s.s is thus enhanced. Owing to the great portions of masonry which have been rebuilt, this varies in its tints, but the old was, and has remained, of such an exquisitely delicate creamy color that the new interposed stonework merely looks like a lighter, fresher shade of the old. The restoration has been executed with rare skill and artistic feeling.

In studying the inner organism and structure of the edifice, one soon sees how recklessly the original fabric was constructed and in how many places it had to be rebuilt, strengthened and propped,--indeed, immediately after its completion. Here, as was the general custom in the greater early Gothic cathedrals, the building began with the choir and Capilla Mayor, to be followed by the transepts, the portions of the edifice essential to the service. The choir was probably temporarily roofed over and the nave and side aisles followed. The exterior facades, portals, and upper stories of the towers were carried out last of all by the aid of indulgences, contributions, alms and concessions.

In old ma.n.u.scripts and doc.u.ments which record the very first work on the cathedrals we find the one in charge called "Maestro,"--or _magister operis_, _magister ecclesiae_, _magister fabricae_, but not till the sixteenth century does the appellation "arquitecto" appear.

His pay seems to have varied, both in amount and in form of emolument,--sometimes it was good hard cash, often a very poor or dubious remuneration, handed out consequently with a more lavish hand; sometimes grants, and again royal favor. Generally the architect entered into a stipulated agreement with the Cathedral Chapter, both as to his time and services, before he began his work. We find Master Jusquin (1450-69) receiving from the Chapter of Leon not only a daily salary but also annual donations of bushels of wheat, pairs of gloves, lodgings, poultry, other supplies, and the use of certain workmen.

Leon's unquestionable French parentage is, if possible, even more obvious in the interior than in the exterior. The piers between nave and side aisles are cylindrical in plan, having in their lowest section on their front surface three columns grouped together that continue straight up through triforium and clerestory and carry the transverse and diagonal ribs of the nave. They have further one column on each side of the axis east and west and, strange to say, only one toward the side aisles, which thus lack continuous supports for their diagonal ribs. The outer walls of the side aisles are formed by a blind arcade of five arches, surmounted by a projecting balcony or corridor and a clerestory subdivided by its tracery into four arches and three cusped circles. The nave triforium consists of a double arcade with a gallery running between (one of the very rare examples in Spain). Each bay has in the triforium four open and two closed arches, surmounted by two quatrefoils. The clerestory rises above, divided by marvelously slender shafts into six compartments and three cusped circles in the apex of the arch. Here shine, in dazzling raiment and with ecstatic expressions, the saints and martyrs ordered in the fifteenth century from Burgos for the sum of 20,000 maravedis.

Throughout all the glazed wall surfaces we find evidence of the anxiety that overtook their reckless projectors. All but the upper cusps of the windows of the side aisles have been filled in by masonry, painted with saints and evangelists in place of the translucent ones originally placed here. The lower portions of the triforium lights have been blocked up and also the two outer arches of the clerestory. The light, cl.u.s.tered piers and slender, double flying b.u.t.tresses could not accomplish the gigantic task of supporting the great height above. Nor could the ingenious strengthening of the stone walls (consisting of ashlar inside and out, facing intermediate rubble) by iron clamps supply the requisite firmness.

It seems doubly unfortunate that the choir stalls should occupy the position they do here, when there is such liberal s.p.a.ce in the three bays east of the crossing in front of the altar. The stone of their exterior backing is cold and gray beside the ochre warmth of the surrounding piers. The cla.s.sic Plateresque statues and bas-reliefs, as well as the exquisitely carved, Florentine decoration, seems strangely out of place under the Gothic loveliness above. The trascoro itself is warmer in color, but of the extravagant later period. Its pilasters, spandrels, and band-courses are filled with elaborate and fine Florentine ornamentation, while the niches themselves, with high reliefs representing the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Adoration of the Magi, are not quite free from a certain Gothic feeling. Above, great statues of Church Fathers weigh heavily on the delicate work and smaller scale below.

The carving of the double tier of walnut choir stalls is at once restrained and rich. Beautiful Gothic tracery surmounts in both tiers the figures that fill the panels above the seats. Below are characters from the Old Testament,--Daniel, Jeremiah, Abel, David busily playing his harp, Joshua "Dux Isri," Moses with splendid big horns and tablets, Tobias with his little fish slit up the belly. Above stand firmly full-length figures of the Apostles and saints. With the exception of some of the work near the entrance, which is practically Renaissance in feeling, all this carving is late Gothic from the last part of the fifteenth century and executed by the masters Fadrique, John of Malines, and Rodrigo Aleman. Two of the stalls, more elevated and p.r.o.nounced than the rest, are for the hereditary canons of the Cathedral, the King of Leon and the Marquis of Astorga. Excellent as they are, these stalls are not nearly so rich in design nor beautiful in execution as the Italian Renaissance choir stalls, in the Convent of San Marcos directly outside the city walls, carved some decades later by the Magister Guillielmo Dosel.

The crossing is splendidly broad, the transepts appearing, as one glances north and south, as much the main arms of the cross as do the nave and choir. The southern arm is quite new, having been completely rebuilt by D. Juan Madrazo and D. Demetrio Amador de los Rios. The glazing of its window and the arabesques cannot be compared to those of the original fabric in the northern arm. The four piers of the crossing, though slender and graceful, carry full, logical complements of shafts for the support of the various vaulting ribs, intersecting at their apexes.

The retablo above the high altar is in its simplicity as refreshing as the light and sunniness of the church. In place of the customary gaudy carving, it merely consists of a series of painted fifteenth-century tablets set in Gothic frames. Simple rejas close the western bays and a florid Gothic trasaltar, the eastern termination. Directly back of the altar lies a n.o.ble and dignified figure, the founder of the church, King Ordono II. At his feet is a little dog, looking for all the world like a sucking pig in a butcher's window. And above him is an ancient and most curious Byzantine relief of the Crucifixion. The lions and castles of his kingdom surround the old king. The greater portion of the carving must belong to the oldest in the church.

In looking at the vaulting and considering the difficulty of planning the "girola" or ambulatory, one realizes that such construction could only be the outcome of many years of study, experiment and inspiration.

Perfection means long previous schooling and experience. The apsidal chapels that radiate from it have gla.s.s differing in excellence. Here and there frescoes of the thirteenth century line these earliest walls.

It is surprising in how many different places old sepulchres are to be found, all more or less similar in their general design and belonging to the period of transition from the Byzantine to the Gothic, yet each denoting the building period of the place where it stands. Some of the subjects of the carving are most curious: a hog playing the bagpipes, the devil in the garb of a father confessor, tempting a penitent; or again, a woman suckling an a.s.s. Saint Froila lies on one side of the altar. Not only his sanct.i.ty but even his authenticity were disputed by various disbelievers in the city, prior to his being brought to this final resting-place. The matter was decided by placing the body in question on an a.s.s's back, whereupon the sagacious animal took his holy burden to the spot where it deserved burial.

In the Capilla de Nuestra Senora del Dado, or "of the die," stands a Virgin with the face of the Christ child ever bleeding, it is said, since the time when an unlucky gambler in a fit of despair threw his dice against the Babe.

Directly opposite Ordono's tomb lies the Countess Sancha, who, in a burst of religious enthusiasm, decided to leave her considerable worldly goods to the Church instead of to her nephew. This was more than he could stand, and he murdered her. Below her figure he is represented, receiving his just reward in being torn to pieces by wild horses.

To the north, a florid Gothic portal leads on a higher level to the Chapel of Santiago. This has been, and is still being, restored. Its three vaults are differently arched, the ribs not being carried down against the side walls to the floor, but met by broad corbels supported by curious figures. The stonework is cold and gray in comparison to the church proper.

Separating the northern entrance from the cloisters is a row of chapels, leading one into the other and crowded with tombs and sculpture. There are few more complete cloisters in Spain. Large and elaborate, they are a curious mixture of the old Gothic and the Renaissance restorations of the sixteenth century. Ancient Gothic tombs, their archivolts crowded with angels, pierce the interior walls, while the vaults themselves are most elaborately groined, the arches and vaulting being later filled with Renaissance bosses and rosettes. In the sunny courtyard are piled up the Renaissance turrets and sculptures that once usurped on the facades the places of the older Gothic ornamentation. The northern portal itself is practically hidden by the chapels and cloisters. It is fine Gothic work. A Virgin and Child form a mullion in its centre, while very worldly-looking women parade in its archivolts. Everywhere are the arms of the United Kingdoms. A great portion of the ancient tapestry blue and Veronese red coloring is still preserved, throwing out the old Gothic figures in their true tints.

This aerial tabernacle, so rich and yet so simple, lies in the heart of a city so fabulously old that the Cathedral itself belongs rather to its later days. The old houses and streets have a dryness and close smell like that in the ancient sepulchres of parched countries. Monuments and walls and turrets of Rome crumble around the houses and vaults of Byzantium. The nave frescoes and carvings of the eighth and ninth centuries seem to look down with childlike wonder and amazement on the pedestrians now crowding the patterned pavements, or pressing against the shady sides of the time-worn arches.

The worshipers who tread the narrow lanes leading to and from the altar have changed, but little else. The square, mediaeval castles with their angular towers still command the approach of the main thoroughfares. The crabbed old watchman with lantern and stick under his cape treads his doddering gait across the courtyards through the night hours, crying after the peal of the bell above, "Las doce han dado y sereno," "Las trece han dado y aleviendo," "Las quince han dado y nublano," just as in the middle ages, so that the good peasant may know time and weather and merely turn in his bed, if neither crops nor creatures need care.

Santa Maria de Regla too stands to-day as she stood in the middle ages, a monument to the care and affection of her children. She has the same spirituality, harmony of proportions, slenderness, and purity of lines, and she looks down and blesses us to-day with the same serenity and queenly grace which she wore in the fourteenth century. She is the finest Gothic cathedral in Spain.

V

TOLEDO

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

CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO]

I withdrew at once with the Morisco into the cloisters of the Cathedral.--_Don Quixote._