Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain Part 14

The church to which this steeple belongs is remarkable for the remains of an external cloister against the walls of the nave. There are several churches here which have the same feature, and in other parts of this book I have mentioned similar cases at Las Huelgas, Burgos, and at La Antigua, Valladolid. It looks like an arrangement for keeping the building cool, and is as good in its effect, as in so hot a climate it must be convenient.

Of the early churches here none is altogether so fine as that of San Millan. It stands in the southern valley, not far from the aqueduct, and exactly on the opposite side of the town to the Templars' Church. Like that, too, it is outside the walls, and in a scantily-peopled suburb.

It consists of a nave and aisles,[192] all finished at the east end with apses, and protected on both sides by cloisters similar to those of San Esteban, save that they are confined to the sides, and do not return across the west front. There is a low square lantern at the Crossing, and transepts which do not project beyond the aisles, and hardly show themselves, therefore, on the ground-plan. The central lantern is finished with a corbel-table, roofed with a low tiled roof, and lighted by a small window in each face. The apses are similar in style and detail to most of the early Spanish apses, having engaged shafts at intervals, richly wrought corbel-tables, and round-arched shafted windows. Both the transepts probably had flat gables, with single windows, like those in the apse, but the north transept has been destroyed for the erection of a steeple, which seems to have formed no part of the original plan. The most striking view of the church is from the north-west. The west front is quite unaltered, save by the addition of three little windows over the west door, and is a capital example of simple Romanesque. The gables are all of the same pitch, and the aisle walls are arcaded and pierced with windows above the cloister roofs. The cloister is a very rich composition, the shafts being coupled, with finely sculptured capitals, and the arches enriched with billet mouldings. The corbel-tables and cornices to these cloisters have evidently been carved at a date long after the original foundation of the church, the edge of the eaves-cornice being cut in a rich interlacing pattern of ivy-leaves, which cannot, I think, be earlier than from A.D. 1250 to 1270, and the heads, figures, and foliage on the corbels under it are all of the same character. There are fine north and south doors here, and there is a local peculiarity in their design which deserves notice. Their jambs consist of shafts set within very bold square recesses; and the number of orders in the arch is double that of those in the jamb, they being alternately carried on the capitals of the shafts, and upon the square order of the jambs. The effect is good, the bold s.p.a.cing of the shafts, and the ma.s.siveness of the intermediate square jambs, tending to give that effect of solidity which these early Spanish architects never tired in their attempts to attain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 26.

SAN MILLAN, SEGOVIA. p. 188.

NORTH-WEST VIEW.]

The interior of the church has been much modernized, but still enough remains to render the whole scheme intelligible. The arcades between the nave and aisles are all perfect; they are very plain, but spring from carved capitals of large size. The capitals of the nave arcades have their abaci planned with re-entering angles, so as exactly to fit the plan of the two square orders of the archivolt. Some of the caps are of foliage only, others are _histories_; one I remember having all round it the Adoration of the Magi, who are represented as large figures on horseback, and produce a most strange effect in such a place. The cross arches under the lantern are old, as also are those across the aisles, but the roof of the nave is now all under-drawn with plaster, and there are no means of telling precisely how it was originally covered; but, on the whole, I incline to the belief that it must have had a cylindrical vault, with quadrant vaults in the aisles, though it is possible, of course, that it had a flat wooden ceiling. The square piers in the nave favour this alternative, inasmuch as they seem to rise higher than they would have done had the roof been a stone vault. The pilasters against the aisle walls also run up to the level of the plate inside, and this (though it is modern) is higher than the springing of the nave arcades, and seems to prove that there have never been cross arches in the aisles. The external walls of the aisles above the cloister roofs are arcaded with plain arches between the pilasters, by which it is divided into bays, and the aisle windows are set within these arches. The lantern is modernized, but there still remain coupled cross ribs on its under side, and these, though they are plastered, being similar to those under the central vault of the Templars' Church, are probably original.

I wish much that I could put my hands on some doc.u.mentary evidence which would fix the exact date of this very fine and interesting church, for, from its importance, it may be considered to be a leading example; and there is no doubt that it very largely influenced the other churches of this important city. It is possible, however, from the character of some of the detail, that part of it is older than the Templars' Church, consecrated, as we have seen, in A.D. 1208; though other parts of the detail--as, for instance, that of the external cornices--cannot be earlier than A.D. 1250-1270. Before the last of these dates, therefore, I have no doubt the church was erected, though, as the arches are all, or nearly all, semi-circular, the greater part of the work was probably finished early in the century, if not in the twelfth century, and the decorations may have been completed afterwards.[193]

The non-introduction of pointed arches is certainly in favour of the earlier date, seeing that in the Templars' Church most of the main arches, rude as they are, are pointed; and were it not for the late character of some parts of San Millan, and looking only to the character of the plan and general design, I might have a.s.sumed its date to be about A.D. 1150. It is possible that the cloisters were added after the erection of the church.

The object of these external cloisters has been, I believe, matter of considerable discussion, yet I confess that they always seemed to me to be adopted mainly, if not solely, on account of the excessive heat in Spain in summer, and to be well worth our imitation when we have to erect churches in tropical climates. That they were confined very much to certain localities is perfectly true, but this is constantly the case, with local developments, in all parts of Europe; and here, no doubt, the idea once suggested by some early architect was frequently repeated by him, without taking the fancy of his brethren generally enough to make them repeat it elsewhere.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Capital in Cloister, San Martin, Segovia.]

Another example of the same cla.s.s, which in its original state must have been finer than San Millan, is to be seen in the church of San Martin.

Here the cloister was carried not only along the sides, but across the west front also, with a bold projecting west porch, breaking its lines, and giving great character and dignity to the whole scheme. The west doorway of the porch has statues in its jambs, and the detail seems to me to be all genuine thirteenth century work. The ill.u.s.tration of one of the cloister capitals will, I think, prove this; for though the old favourite device of couples of birds is repeated here, the lines are all extremely fine and graceful, and the carving of the abacus of an advanced kind. This church is, unfortunately, very much modernized throughout. It seems to have had three parallel apses at the east end, and transepts, against which the side cloisters of the nave were stopped. There is a modern lantern over the old crossing, and a tower to the west of it rising from out of the centre of the nave, which seems to be in part old. There were northern and southern as well as western doors, and openings in the cloister opposite each of them.

San Roman, a desecrated church near the palace of the civil governor, has a short nave, chancel, and apse, with a tower on the south side of the chancel. The walls are very lofty, and are all finished with corbel-tables at the eaves. The apse has three round-headed windows, and there is a n.o.ble north door, similar in design to those of San Millan, and with the abaci and labels richly carved. The west end has a small doorway, and a circular window over it, the former certainly, and the latter probably, not original. The lower stage only of the tower remains. This church must be of about the same age as San Millan.

San Facundo is similar in plan to San Roman, and of the same date. The detail of the apse is precisely the same as that of San Millan. There is a large west door, modernized, and an open cloister seems to have been added at a later date to the side of the church, and is now walled up.

This church is desecrated, and converted into a Museum of Paintings.

Santa Trinidad has a fine apse, and this is again of the San Millan pattern. It has carved stringcourses at the springing of the windows, and again just over their arches, and there are three-quarter engaged wall-shafts between the windows, and a richly sculptured eaves-cornice and corbel-table.

San Nicolas, close to Santa Trinidad, has two apses, each lighted with a single window, engaged wall-shafts, and the usual carved labels, abaci, and corbel-tables. The tower is on the north side, rises one stage above the roof, and is lighted with two round-arched belfry windows. A small apse was added rather later than the original fabric to the east of this tower, and before its erection the plan must have been almost the same as that of San Roman, but reversed. About a hundred yards from San Nicolas is another church which is almost an exact repet.i.tion of San Roman.

San Luine (?), in the Plazuela de Capuchinos, is of just the same cla.s.s as the rest, with nave, chancel, and apse, and a second apse east of the tower on the south side. There are no side windows here, and only a single light at the east end.

Another church, in the Plaza de Isabel II., is of the same plan as the last, with a modernized tower. The carving on the string-courses here is of the same kind of natural foliage that I have described at San Millan.

Near the aqueduct are two churches. One of them, S. Antholin (I think), has a tower at the north-east of the nave; its two upper stages have on each face two round-arched shafted windows, and the angles are treated in a precisely similar way to those of San Esteban, having bold splays with engaged shafts in their centres. Another church close to this is modernized, but retains its old tower, with the angles treated in the same way.

The church of San Juan has remains of an external cloister on one side.

The last church of this long, and I fear very dry, catalogue, is that of San Miguel, which stands in the Plaza near the cathedral. It has four bays of nave, shallow transepts, and a very short choir, which is, I think, apsidal, but almost concealed by a pagan Retablo. The whole is of late fifteenth-century date, and must, I think, be the work of the same hand as the cathedral. Some figures at the west end, representing St.

Michael and the Annunciation, have evidently been taken from some older building, and built into the walls here. There is a very beautiful triptych in the north transept, with a Descent from the Cross in the centre, which ought to be looked at. It is a fine work of, I suppose, the latter part of the sixteenth century.[194]

I have already mentioned the great Alcazar, and the old town walls and gateways. They are magnificent in their scale, and very picturesque. The Alcazar was burnt some two or three years ago, and is now roofless, and I was told that its interior had been completely destroyed. I foolishly omitted to verify this statement by personal inspection, and contented myself with the sight of the exterior. The walls of the front towards the city are all diapered in plaster, and here and there about the town several other examples of the same kind of work are to be seen. The patterns are generally tracery patterns of the latest Gothic, repeated over and over again, so as to produce a regular diaper throughout. I presume that it was executed with a frame cut out to the required pattern, so as to allow of the ground being cut back slightly, leaving the pattern lines formed in the original face of the plaster. This kind of decoration seems to be perfectly legitimate, and here, owing to the care with which the plaster has been made and used, it has stood remarkably well, though most of the patterns that I saw had evidently been executed in the fifteenth century.

In the front of the Alcazar these plaster patterns are carried not only all over the plain face of the walls, but also round the towers and turrets at the angles, so that the very smallest possible amount of wrought stone is introduced. The great tower or keep standing back a few feet only from the front is similarly ornamented, but has stone quoins bonded irregularly into the walls; in its upper stage it has windows surmounted by quaint stone canopies, and then a series of great circular turrets, corbelled boldly out from the face of the wall, and carried up a considerable height, give its extremely marked and Spanish air to this grand tower. These turrets are of stone, and between them is a parapet boldly corbelled out on machicoulis from the walls. With that contempt for uniformity which marks mediaeval artists, the keep is more than twice as broad on one side as on the other, and the great ma.s.s of wall and turret, roofs and spirelets, which crowned the whole building before the fire, well sustained its picturesque irregularity of shape.

The front of a private house near the walls, not far from San Esteban, is another capital example of the same kind of plaster-work. Here the facade is a perfectly smooth and unbroken surface, pierced for doors and windows, which are set in square panels of stone, and with a regular and straight line of stone quoining at the angles. At one end a low tower is carried up a few feet above the general line of the building. The windows are generally mere plain square openings; but two set side by side in the princ.i.p.al stage have delicate _ajimez_ windows of two lights, with elaborately traceried heads. The patterns in the plaster are three in number: the first carried from the stone plinth up to the sills of the princ.i.p.al windows, where it is cut by a narrow band of ornament, acting as a stringcourse to divide it from the second pattern, which is carried up to the eaves, the tower being covered with a third diaper, rather less intricate than the others.

Near this house is a tower in the walls even more worthy of notice. It is of very considerable height, quite plain in outline, and pierced with only one or two square-headed windows, but surmounted by a fine parapet supported on machicoulis. The whole tower is built with bold stone quoins and horizontal bands of brickwork, each band two courses in height, at intervals of about three feet. Between these bands the walls are plastered and diapered. Here, as in the other house, only two or three patterns are used, but I think great judgment is shown in the repet.i.tion for the greater part of the height of the same pattern, which is changed at last near the top, where it was desirable to emphasize the work. Most men having three patterns to use would have divided them equally, but the real artist gives all their value to his simple materials by not doing so. The construction of this tower led naturally to its decoration. The wrought stone at the angles, the rough stonework of the walls, and the occasional bonding-courses of brick, were all used simply as the best materials for their respective parts; and the rough stonework being plastered and diapered, gave a richness and polish to the whole work which it would otherwise have wanted, whilst it in no degree destroyed the air of stability of the wall, which is secured by the obviously constructional arrangement of the stone and brick.

The Moors were always distinguished by the beautiful use they made of plaster; and whether or no these Segovian buildings were executed by Moorish architects, it is quite certain that at any rate we owe them to their influence and example. The patterns used are generally such as in stone-work would be unhesitatingly attributed to the end of the fifteenth or first half of the sixteenth century, and to this period no doubt the works I have been describing belong. They deserve a detailed notice because they prove, as do most Moorish works, that plaster may be used truthfully and artistically, and that without any approach to the contemptible effect which the imbecility and dishonesty of the nineteenth-century designers of plaster-work have contrived to impress on almost all their productions.

My last work in Segovia was to go to the Alcazar to get a sketch of the town, with the cathedral rising in a n.o.ble ma.s.s in its very centre, backed by the line of the Guadarrama mountains, looking black and angry with the storm-clouds which swept over the sky and around their summits at sunset; and then strolling quietly back into the town, I went into the cathedral, to be impressed, as one always must be in such a place, by the aweful solemnity which even the latest Gothic architects in Spain knew how to impart to their buildings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEGOVIA:--Ground Plan of the Cathedral: Plate XII.

W. West, Lithr. Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]

CHAPTER X.

MADRID--ALCALa--GUADALAJARA--SIGuENZA.

On my first journey to Madrid I travelled most of the way from Valladolid by diligence, and though the way was long and weary, the pa.s.sage of the Sierra de Guadarrama was very fine, and I remember few pictures more lovely than that which we saw at sunrise, as we climbed the northern side of the mountains amid groups of stone-pines; whilst the steep descent to the village of Guadarrama, on the south, with a slight distant view of Madrid, and a near view of the Escorial, was quite a thing to be remembered with pleasure. Now, however, instead of arriving at Madrid hot, dusty, and sore with a diligence journey, the railway is completed, and the line of country it takes is so beautiful between Avila and Madrid as to leave no room for regrets for the old pa.s.sage of the mountains by road.

The entrance to Madrid is not very striking. For the last three or four miles the road pa.s.ses by a fair amount of planted woods, but the river by its side is dry and dreary, and every one in the hot season at which I arrived seemed to be gasping for breath. A very small suburb only is pa.s.sed before the Queen's palace is reached: this is built on the edge of a steep hill overhanging the river, and commands a grand view of the Sierra de Guadarrama. This is indeed the one and only glory of such a site as that of Madrid, for were it not for this distant view, I know nothing more dreary and unhappy than the country with which it is surrounded. At the same time, partly owing to the great height above the sea, and partly, probably, to the neighbourhood of this mountain range, the climate here is most treacherous, changing rapidly from the most violent heat in the daytime, to what seems by contrast to be icy chilliness at night.

A garden with statues is laid out in front of the palace, and beyond this, pa.s.sing some narrow streets, one soon reaches the Puerta del Sol, a fine irregular s.p.a.ce in the centre of the city, with a fountain in the centre which is always playing pleasantly, and on great occasions sends up a jet to an unusual height. The Puerta del Sol is very irregular, and on sloping ground, and hence it has a certain pleasing picturesqueness, which probably accounts for the reputation it has achieved.

There is one great attraction to me in Madrid, and only one--the Picture Gallery. And it is as well for travellers to take up their quarters in one of the hotels near the Puerta del Sol, where they are within a walk of it, rather than in the respectable Fonda de Ynglaterra, where I found myself quite too far from everything that I wanted to see.

I discovered no old churches here. Madrid is, in fact, a thoroughly modern city, and is remarkable as not being the see of a bishop, the Archbishops of Toledo having succeeded in retaining it in their diocese.

I found, therefore, nothing whatever to do in the way of ecclesiologizing; and yet, on the whole, having formed a very low estimate of the place beforehand, I was rather agreeably disappointed.

The situation is unquestionably fine, the views of the mountains beautiful, the streets busy and smart, and the fountains, which seem to be innumerable, are on a scale which would astonish our London authorities. The evenings are always deliciously cool, and then all Madrid is on the move; the very well laid out and planted Prado is thronged with smart people on foot, and smarter people in carriages; and until one has suffered as one does from the extreme heat of the day, it is hardly possible to imagine the luxurious freshness of the cool night.

It is said, however, to be a dangerous pleasure, pulmonary complaints being very common.

The two great sights are the Museo and the Armeria; the latter is said to be the best collection of arms in Europe, but somehow I always managed to want to go there too early or too late, and, after divers mistakes, in the end did not see it at all. Of the Museo it is difficult to speak with too much enthusiasm: the number of pictures is enormous, and it seemed to me that there was a larger proportion than is usual of very first-rate works. Its deficiency is mainly in early pictures--Italian, German, and Spanish. The early Italian schools are represented by one Angelico da Fiesole only: this is a beautiful example; an Annunciation, with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden on the left of the picture, and five subjects from the life of the Blessed Virgin in the predella. Among these, the Marriage of the Blessed Virgin has a close resemblance to Perugino's and Raffaelle's celebrated pictures. I could see no examples of Francia or Perugino, not to speak of earlier men; whilst the few early German works were none of them of any great interest.

On the other hand, the pictures by t.i.tian, Velasquez, Raffaelle, Veronese, Tintoret, Murillo, and others of the great masters of their age, are numerous and magnificent beyond description.

Velasquez and t.i.tian are both so grand that I hardly knew which to admire the most; of the former, perhaps on the whole the most charming work is the portrait of Prince Balthazar, a n.o.ble boy, galloping forward gallantly on his pony; whilst of the t.i.tians, I think the most striking was a weird-looking portrait of Charles V. in armour on horseback.

Murillo of course is in great force; he has frequent representations of the a.s.sumption, always treated in the same way: his work has a religious spirit wanting in the manlier work of t.i.tian and Veronese, but yet not the true religious spirit so much as a sentimental affectation of it. Of Ribera--better known in England as Spagnoletto--there are a great many examples, generally disagreeable portraits of emaciated saints in distorted att.i.tudes, and a horrible elaboration of ghastliness. Juan Juanes, an earlier Spanish painter, is much more agreeable, and he seems to have been largely inspired by Perugino and his school; a series of five subjects from the life of St. Stephen are perhaps the most interesting of his works here.

The room in which the greatest treasures of the Gallery are collected is called the Salon de la Reyna Isabel. Unfortunately a large opening in the floor, to give light to a gallery of sculpture below, makes it a little difficult to see some of the pictures at all well. At its upper end is the famous Spasimo de Sicilia, a n.o.ble work, but spoilt by the awkward and distorted drawing of the soldiers on the left. Near it is a very fine Giovanni Bellini, the Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter; and by its side a Giorgione, with a man in armour, as fine as anything I know,--the subject, the Virgin and Saints. By Bronzino there is a violin-player, a lad with a face beyond measure loveable. But it were endless to go on through a list even of the _chefs-d'uvre_ in such a collection; and it is the less necessary to say much more than generally to praise the whole Gallery as one of the first, if not the first, in Europe, because, now that railways make the journey thither so much more easy, some, no doubt, of our thousands of annual travellers will make their way to Madrid, to make lists for themselves of the best of its pictures.

There is as little interest in modern as in earlier architecture here; the only development that struck me being a fashion the people have of diapering houses all over with a kind of thirteenth-century painting on plaster; but I was not struck with the beauty of the development. The best street is the Calle de Alcala, leading from the Puerta del Sol to the Prado. It is of great width, rising from the Puerta del Sol and falling to the Prado, and not straight, all which points are much in its favour: but the houses on either side are not generally so fine as they should be, and there is consequently a slightly faded look about it, which is not otherwise characteristic of Madrid. To see the Calle de Alcala to advantage, the day of a bull-fight should be selected. Then from half-past three to four all the world streams along it to the arena, excited, running, pushing, buying red and yellow paper fans for the seats in the sun, and as noisy, boisterous, and enthusiastic as all the world at any of our own national gatherings. The _picadors_ in their quaint dresses come galloping along on their sorry steeds, each attended by a man in a blouse riding on the same horse, and whose office it is afterwards to make the poor wretch face the bull by beating him with a long stick. Omnibuses and vehicles of all kinds bring their share of the mob; and when I took my seat, I believe there were not less than twelve thousand people a.s.sembled, every seat in the rather shabby but vast arena being full. Women formed a very small proportion only of the whole number, and I noticed that a lady who sat near me seemed as much shocked as I was at the brutal parts of the exhibition; for all parts of it are by no means brutal, and, indeed, I should be inclined to limit the term to those parts in which horses are introduced. It would be quite as pleasant to indulge oneself by an occasional visit to a knacker's yard, as to sit quietly looking on whilst a furious bull rips up a miserable beast, usually blindfolded, in order that it may not move from the spot at which the _picador_ chooses to receive the attack; but this part of the performance over, there is little that is disgusting, and a great deal that is singularly exciting and skilful. The men seldom seem to be in any real danger of being caught by the bull, and nothing can be cleverer than the way in which one of the _chulos_ will dance before him half across the arena, always avoiding his charge by a hair's-breadth only, or in which one of the _banderilleros_, seated in a chair, will plant his two arrows exactly on each side of the bull just as he stoops to toss him, and the next instant jump out of his seat, whilst the chair is dashed to atoms by the furious beast.

I felt, however, that one bull-fight was enough for me; the treatment of each bull is of necessity the same, and the mules have no sooner galloped out of one door trailing the dead bull and his victims out of the arena, than another dashes in from the opposite side, only to meet the same fate. The way in which the bulls come in is very striking: they rush in madly like wild beasts, and generally charge rapidly at one of the _picadors_ or _chulos_. I asked a Spaniard how this was managed, and he explained that in the den from which they emerge they are goaded with sharp-pointed spears just before the doors are opened, and of course come into the arena mad with rage!

The object of bull-fights seems to be generally charitable--in the sense that charity bazaars are so. At Valencia, where they have recently erected an arena which almost rivals in size the Roman amphitheatres, the work has been done by the trustees of the hospitals, and this seemed to be usually the destination of the receipts whenever I saw them advertized. That it is possible to have a bull-fight of even a worse kind than the Spanish I learnt at Nimes, where the cicerone showing me the amphitheatre explained that they had a bull-fight every Sunday, but never killed their bulls--only goaded them week after week!

Whilst I was at Madrid I made an excursion to Alcala de Henares, the seat of Cardinal Ximenes' famous university, under the impression that I should find a good deal to reward me. In this, however, I was disappointed, as the churches are mostly works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the whole place is decayed, unprosperous, and uncared for, without being picturesque and venerable.