Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain Part 20

Much of the flooring of the cloister appears to be coeval with it;[272]

and though composed of the very simplest materials, it is most effective. Most of the patterns are formed with red tiles of different sizes, fitted together so as to make very simple diapers, and with the addition here and there of small squares of white marble, which are used with the tiles. Some of these have an incised pattern on their face, sunk about a quarter of an inch; and in one case I found that this pattern had been filled in with red marble. The pattern is arranged with a broad stripe down the centre of the cloister, and on either side of this a succession of varying arrangements of tiles is contrived, each pattern being continued for but a short distance. Here, with the simplest materials, very great variety of effect is obtained, whilst, with the much smarter and very elaborate materials of the present day, we seem to run every day more risk than before of sinking into the tamest monotony.

In the west wall of this cloister there is a monumental recess of completely Moorish character, very delicately adorned; and on one of the doors I noticed that the wood had been covered with thin iron plates, stamped with a pattern, gilded, and fastened down with copper nails. The Chapter-house, of whose entrance archways I have spoken, is a square room, roofed with a stone waggon-vault of pointed section; and at the south end of this is a seven-sided apse, which seems to have been added to the original fabric circa A.D. 1350. On the eastern side of it are some large sacristies, but they did not appear to be old.

So far the work I have had to describe has been all, with the exception of part of the steeple and Cimborio, not later than the end of the thirteenth century. It is evident, however, that considerable works were undertaken in various parts of the fabric at a later date. Most of the nave windows were taken out, in order to insert others with very fair geometrical traceries; the upper part of the steeple was, as we have seen, erected; and finally the west front was, in great part, reconstructed. The original west front of the aisles still remains, with a simple doorway, and richly moulded and carved circular windows, without tracery. Pilaster b.u.t.tresses are placed at their north-west and south-west angles, and these have shafts at their angles, but have lost their old finish at the top. Probably another door and circular window of large size occupied the end of the nave in the original design; but these have been entirely removed, to make way for a work which, though it seems to have been commenced in A.D. 1278,[273] has all the air of complete middle-pointed work, and was evidently not completed until late in the fourteenth century. The existing central doorway is of grand dimensions, with figures under canopies on either side, and round the b.u.t.tresses which flank it. In the centre is a statue of the Blessed Virgin with our Lord, and above, on the lintel, the Resurrection; and the tympanum is pierced with rich geometrical tracery. The pedestal under the statue of the Blessed Virgin has sculptured on its several sides--(1) the Creation of Adam; (2) of Eve; (3) the Fall; (4) Adam and Eve hiding themselves; and (5) the Expulsion from Paradise. These subjects are very fitly placed here, the Fall in the centre coming just under the feet of her who bears our Lord in her arms, and thus restores the balance to the world. The arch is lofty, but only moulded; and above it is a pediment of extremely flat pitch. Above this, again, is a large and finely-traceried circular window. The lower part only of the gable remains, and this is of very steep pitch, and must always have been intended to be a mere sham. Whenever this sort of thing is done, there is always some ground for suspicion that the architect may have been a foreigner, unused to the requirements of a southern climate; and, at any rate, most of the work in this facade might very well have been executed by a German architect, for its character is all that of German, rather than of Spanish art. It recalls, to some extent, the facade of the north transept of Valencia Cathedral, though scarcely so much as to appear to be the work of the same hands. It is to be regretted that the great western gable is incomplete, for, unreal as it is, its outline must have been fine; and even now, seen as it is in its small Plaza from the steep, narrow, dark and shady street, surmounting the flights of steps which lead up to it, the effect is very striking. The traceries, both of the tympanum of the doorway, and of the circular window above, are sharp geometrical works, very delicately executed. The upper part of the western gable above the circular window seems to have had three windows, but these are now partially destroyed. The hinges and knockers of the western doorway are elaborately designed, covered with pierced traceries, made with several thicknesses of metal. The doors are diapered all over with iron plates, nailed on with copper nails, and with copper ornaments in the centre of each plate. The b.u.t.tresses are bold, but rather clumsily designed. The statues of the door-jamb are carried round their lower parts, and the stage above is occupied with traceried panels. A great crocketed pinnacle conceals the set-off, and forms, with the flat pediment of the doorway, a group in advance of the real face of the western wall. Other crocketed pinnacles probably finished the angle b.u.t.tresses on each side of the main gable, but they are now destroyed.

The north side of the nave is not easily seen, being enclosed within walls and behind houses; but the south side is fairly open to view.

Here, however, much of the original design is now completely concealed by modern additions. The two western bays have chapels, added in the fifteenth century; the third bay a domed chapel of the seventeenth century; and there are two other late Gothic chapels in the two bays nearest the south transept. On the north, side chapels have been added in the same fashion, those in the two western bays alone being mediaeval.

From the west side of the south transept a fair view is obtained of the best portion of the old exterior. The transept gable is extremely flat in pitch; the b.u.t.tresses are all carried up straight to the eaves, and the trefoiled eaves-arcading, which recalls the favourite brick eaves-cornices of the Italian churches, is returned round them at the top, and a deep moulding, covered with billets, is carried along over the eaves-arcading. The original semi-Romanesque window, with its very broad external splay, still remains in the bay of the transept next to the Crossing; but the other windows have been altered; and there is a rich traceried rose window in the southern facade. The exterior of the lantern is certainly not very attractive. The entire absence from view of its roof is a fault of the most grievous kind; though, otherwise, its windows, recalling as they do the traceries of our own first-pointed, are not at all to be condemned. I doubt very much whether this lantern was ever a fine work on the exterior; but we may well be content to have anything so fine as the interior, and may fairly pardon its architect for his failure to achieve a more complete success.

The internal arrangements here do not present much subject for notice.

The Coro is in the nave, and in the screen on its western side the entrance-doorway still remains. It is of marble, of two well-moulded orders, and the outer order of the arch has voussoirs of grey and white marble counterchanged. The steps are of dark marble, with three shields in low relief on the riser of each, and the bearings which occur here are seen also in the keystone of the tower vaulting--both being works of the fourteenth century. The choir stalls and the panelling behind them are of the very richest and most delicate fifteenth-century work; and the great desk for books, in the centre of the Coro, is of the same age.[274] The stall-ends are covered with delicate tracery, put on in a separate piece against the end, and not carved out of the solid. The divisions between the panelling at the back of the stalls are wrought with foliage and animals of really marvellous execution, and a band of inlaid work with coats-of-arms goes all round just above the stalls.

There is a throne on the right hand of the entrance to the choir, and another at the east end of the south side; but both of these are of Renaissance character.

Many of the choir books are mediaeval, with large knops at their angles, and a piece of fringed leather under each knop. At the east end of the Coro, and in a line with the west wall of the transepts, is the iron Reja, and on each side of it a pulpit facing east. These have all the appearance of having been rebuilt. They have the same armorial bearings as the doorway to the Coro; and as the screen in which the latter is now built is not old, it is probable that they all form part of the same old choir screen, and that the two pulpits were the ambons. I saw nothing to prove decidedly whether the Coro was in its original place, or whether it has been moved down into the nave as at Burgos.

The great organ is on the north side of the Coro; it is not very old, but its pipes are picturesquely arranged, and it has enormous painted wings or shutters.

Much of the pavement is old; that in the choir proper--the Capilla mayor--is of marble in various stripes of patterns extending across the church.[275] The nave is also paved with marble, arranged in lines and patterns divided to suit the position of the columns. The Coro alone is paved with tiles, and this seems to some extent to prove that this part of the floor has been altered, which would be the case if the stalls were moved down from their original position. The high altar has a very rich reredos executed for the most part in marble, and rich in sculptured subjects. There is a doorway on each side of the altar, opening into the part of the apse shut off by this Retablo. Here the pavement has a large oblong compartment, which seemed to me to suggest the original position of the altar to have been much nearer the east wall than it now is. This s.p.a.ce is indicated in my ground-plan, and though it is more than usually set back towards the wall, it was no doubt a more convenient position in so short a choir than that which the present altar occupies.

There is a richly-sculptured monument of a bishop on the southern side of the sacrarium.

It will be seen that here, as is the case with so many other Spanish cathedrals, though the scale is not very great, the dignity and grandeur of the whole conception is extreme. The cloister, indeed, yields the palm to few that I have seen, and it is in scale only, and not in real dignity and n.o.bility, that the interior of the church does so.

I did not discover any other old church in Tarragona, yet I should suppose there must be some in so large a city. There is a four-light _ajimez_ window, of the type so common on this coast, in the Plaza in front of the cathedral; and in the Plaza della Pallot is an early round-arched gateway, with a coeval two-light opening above.

In the wall of a chapel to the east of the cathedral I found a fairly good example of an early headstone, perfectly plain in outline, and finished with a flat gable, in which is incised a cross under an arch, the inscription being carried across the stone in the common mode, just below the pediment.

I had not time to make excursions to any of the other churches in this district, but there are some which appear, from what I have learnt, to be so fine, that it is to be hoped others will contrive to inspect them.

The monasteries of Vallbona and Poblet, and the church of Sta.

Creus,[276] not far from Poblet, seem to be all of great interest.

Poblet and Sta. Creus seem both to have cloisters with projecting chapels somewhat similar to that shown on my ground-plan of the monastery at Veruela.

The church at Reus, too, is interesting, from the fact that the contract for its erection is preserved, and has been published by Cean Bermudez.

It dates from A.D. 1510. This town is a few miles only from Tarragona, and after seeing Poblet and Vallbona, the ecclesiologist would do well, I think, to make his way across to Lerida, instead of returning to Barcelona, as I did. But I wished much to examine the Collegiata at Manresa on my way to Lerida, and for this purpose the line I took was on the whole the best.

I bade farewell to Tarragona with a heavy heart, and with a determination to avail myself of the first chance I may have of returning to look once more at its n.o.ble and too little known cathedral.[277]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TARRAGONA:--Ground: Plan: of: Cathedral: Plate XV.

Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865]

CHAPTER XIV.

BARCELONA

The architectural history of Barcelona is much more complete, whilst its buildings are more numerous, than those of any of our own old cities, of which it is in some sort the rival. The power which the Barcelonese wielded in the middle ages was very great. They carried on the greater part of the trade of Spain with Italy, France, and the East; they were singularly free, powerful, and warlike; and, finally, they seem to have devoted no small portion of the wealth they earned in trade to the erection of buildings, which even now testify alike to the prosperity of their city, and to the n.o.ble acknowledgment they made for it.

The architecture of Cataluna had many peculiarities, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when most of the great buildings of Barcelona were being erected, they were so marked as to justify me, I think, in calling the style as completely and exclusively national or provincial, as, to take a contemporary English example, was our own Norfolk middle-pointed. The examination of them will, therefore, have much more value and interest than that of even grander buildings erected in a style transplanted from another country, such as we see at Burgos and Toledo; and beside this, there was one great problem which I may venture to say that the Catalan architects satisfactorily solved--the erection of churches of enormous and almost unequalled internal width--which is just that which seems to be looming before us as the work which we English architects must ere long grapple with, if we wish to serve the cause of the Church thoroughly in our great towns.

For a manufacturing town, this, the Manchester of Spain, is singularly agreeable and unlike its prototype. The mills are for the most part scattered all over the surrounding country, which rises in pleasant undulations to the foot of the hills some four or five miles inland from the sea, and beyond which the country is always beautiful and wild, and sometimes--as in the savage and world-renowned rocks of Montserrat--quite sublime in its character. On my first journey I arrived at Barcelona by a steamer from Valencia. The views of the coast were generally extremely beautiful, until shortly before our arrival, as we pa.s.sed the low level land through which the Llobregat finds its way to the sea; beyond this the great rock and fortress of Monjuic rise boldly in front, and rounding its base into the harbour, the tall octagonal towers and turrets of the cathedral and other churches came in sight. Little, however, is seen of the sea from the city, the fortifications of Monjuic on the one side, and the harbour and new colony of Barcelonette which occupies a point jutting out beyond it seaward on the other, completely shutting it out. One result of this is that, whilst nothing is seen of the sea, so, too, the seafaring people seem to confine themselves to Barcelonette, and not to show themselves in the thronged streets of the city. Another fortress, a little inland on the east, places Barcelona under a cross fire, and prevents its growth in that direction; but wherever possible it seems to be spreading rapidly, and every external sign of extreme prosperity is to be seen.

The streets are generally narrow, tortuous, and picturesque, with the one n.o.ble exception of the Rambla, a very broad promenade running from the sea quite across the city, which has a road on either side, and a broad promenade planted with trees down the centre. Here in the early morning one goes to buy smart nosegays of the Catalan flower-girls from the country, and in the evening to stroll in a dense mob of loungers enjoying the cold air which sweeps down from the hills, and atones for all the sufferings inflicted by the torrid midday sun.

[Ill.u.s.tration: West front of San Pablo.]

It will be best, in describing the buildings here, to begin with those of the earliest date, though they are of comparatively unimportant character, and in part fragments only of old buildings preserved in the midst of great works undertaken at a later date. The Benedictine convent of San Pablo del Campo, said to have been founded in the tenth century by Wilfred II., Count of Barcelona,[278] was restored by Guiberto Guitardo and his wife about 1117, and in 1127 was incorporated with the convent of San Cucufate del Valles.[279] The church is very interesting. It is small and cruciform, with three parallel apses, an octagonal vault on pendentives over the Crossing, and a short nave, which, as well as the transepts, is covered with a waggon-vault. The apses are vaulted with semi-domes. The west end is the only perfect part of the exterior, and deserves ill.u.s.tration. The work is all of a very solid and rude description, though I am almost afraid to give it credit for being so old as is said. The circular window is, however, an interpolation; and if this were removed, and another small window like the others inserted in its place, the whole design would no doubt have an air of extreme antiquity. The ground-plan is a typal one here, and prevails more or less in all the early churches from Cataluna to Galicia. One or two others of the same description seem to have a fair amount of evidence of the date of their consecration, and it is at any rate unlikely that a church built in A.D. 914 would require rebuilding in about a hundred years, which must have been the case here, if we a.s.sume that we have not still before us the original church. On the south side of the nave there was a cloister added, probably in the course of the eleventh century, and there is some difference in the character of its design and workmanship, and that of the church and its west front. This cloister is very small, having on each side four arches, divided by a b.u.t.tress in the centre of each side. The openings are cusped some with three and some with five heavy foliations, plain on the outside, but both moulded and carved on the inside face. The cusping is not at all Gothic in its character, being stilted in a very Eastern fashion, nor is it constructed like Gothic work, the stones being laid over each other, and cut out in the form of cusps, but not constructed anywhere with stones radiating on the principle of an arch. The shafts between the openings are coupled one behind the other, and have well-carved capitals. A fourteenth-century doorway, with a cross for the finial of its label, opens from the north wall of the cloister into the nave; and in the east wall is an extremely good entrance to the Chapter-house of the same date, and showing the usual arrangement of a doorway with a two-light traceried opening on either side. There are also some old monumental arches in the walls.

This church, which forms so important a feature in the early architectural history of Cataluna, is near the western end of the city, and its west front and cloister are enclosed within the walls of a small barrack; but as Spanish officers and soldiers are always glad to lionize a stranger, there is no difficulty in the way of seeing them. A simple early-pointed doorway, under a very flat tympanum, has been added to the north transept, and there is some evidence of the small apse near it having been arcaded on the outside. The pendentive under the dome is similar in its construction to those under the dome of the curious church of Ainay, at Lyons. Above them there is a string-course, and then the vault, which rises to a point in the centre, and is not a complete octagon, the cardinal sides being much wider than the others. The west doorway has in its tympanum our Lord, St. Peter, and St. Paul; over the arch are the angel of St. Matthew and eagle of St. John, and above, a hand with a cruciform nimbus, giving the benediction.

San Pedro de las Puellas, on the other side of the city, was rebuilt in A.D. 980, by Suniario Count of Barcelona, and his wife Richeldi, and was consecrated with great pomp in A.D. 983.[280] This church has been wofully treated, but it is still possible to make out the original scheme. It was a cruciform church of the same general plan as San Pablo, with a circular dome at the Crossing, and a waggon-vault to the south transept, the nave, and the western part of the chancel. The other parts were altered at a later date. Very bold detached columns with rich capitals carry the arches under the dome, and another remaining against the south wall of the nave suggests that there were probably cross arches or ribs below its waggon-vault. The sculpture of the capitals is very peculiar; it is quite unlike the ordinary Romanesque or Byzantine sculpture, and is very much more like the work sometimes seen in Eastern buildings. It is a type of capital first seen here, but reproduced constantly afterwards all along the southern coast, and not, so far as I know, seen at all in the interior of Spain.

There is no mark of a chapel on the east side of the south transept, and, as the apse has been rebuilt, it is impossible to say what the original plan of the head of the church was.

In the Collegiata of Sta. Ana, we have the next stage in the development of Catalan architecture. This is said to have been built in A.D.

1146,[281] and is also a cruciform church, with a central raised lantern, barrel vaults in the transepts, and two bays of quadripart.i.te vaulting in the nave. The nave probably dates from about the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century, being lighted with simple lancet-windows, and having bold b.u.t.tresses. When I visited this church the chancel was boarded up for repairs, and I am unable to say certainly whether the east end is old, but it appeared to me to have been modernized. The exterior of the lantern is very peculiar; above the roof it is square in plan, but with eight b.u.t.tresses around it, radiating from the centre, and evidently intended to be carried up so as to form the angles of an octagonal central lantern, of which, however, only the lowest stage remains. The present finish of the lantern is a steep tiled roof, which springs from just above the point at which the angles of the square base are cut off; and on the western slope of this roof a steep flight of stone steps leads to the very summit. The object of this arrangement is quite unintelligible. At the west end of the church, and set curiously askew to it, is a cloister of the fourteenth century, with a Chapter-room on its east side, opening to the cloister with a round-arched doorway, on either side of which is a good early middle-pointed two-light window, making the group so invariably found in old Chapter-house entrances. The west doorway of the church is severely simple, with a square opening and plain tympanum, under a pointed arch.

Along the north side of the cloister is a fine ruin of a hall of the thirteenth century, the construction of which is very characteristic and peculiar. It is of two stages in height. Segmental arches across the lower rooms carry the floor beams, which are placed longitudinally, and over them in the upper room bold pointed arches are thrown to carry the roof. The roof was of very flat pitch, and consisted of a series of purlines resting on corbels built into the wall over the stone arches, upon which were laid the common rafters. I shall have to ill.u.s.trate a similar roof which still remains in the church of Sta. Agata, so that I need not say more on the subject now than that this type is an exceedingly effective one, and occurs repeatedly in the Barcelonese buildings. The cloister of Sta. Ana is of two stages in height, and very light, graceful, and Spanish in its character. The columns are quatrefoil in section, and the capitals are later works of the same eastern character as those already described in San Pedro, and have square abaci. There is, perhaps, scarcely sufficient appearance of solidity and permanence in such extremely light shafts, seeing that they have to support a double tier of arcades all round the cloister; but nevertheless the whole effect of the work is very beautiful. The old well with its stone lintel remains, and some fine orange-trees still adorn the cloister court.

The other early works here are doorways and fragments now incorporated in other and later works, so that we need no longer delay our inspection of the cathedral, which is, as it ought to be, the pride of the city.

The ground-plan which I give[282] will best explain the general arrangements of this remarkable church. Its scale is by no means great, yet the arrangement of the various parts is so good, the skill in the admission of light so subtle, and the height and width of the nave so n.o.ble, that an impression is always conveyed to the mind that its size is far greater than it really is. Of course such praise is not intelligible to those who believe with some enthusiasts that the greatest triumph of architectural skill is to make a building look smaller than it really is--a triumph which the admirers of St. Peter's, at Rome, always claim loudly for it--but most unsophisticated men will probably prefer with me the opposite achievement, often, indeed, met with in Gothic buildings, but seldom more successfully than here.

The history of this church is in part given in two inscriptions on the wall on either side of the north transept doorway,[283] from which it appears that the cathedral was commenced in A.D. 1298, and was still in progress in A.D. 1329. The latter date no doubt refers to the transept facade. But this was not the first church, for one was consecrated here in A.D. 1058, and the doorway from the cloister into the south transept, and another into the chapel of Sta. Lucia, at the south-west angle of the cloister, are probably not very much later than this date. But the bulk of the work is evidently not earlier than the beginning of the fourteenth century, and its design appears to be owing to one Jayme Fabra or Fabre,[284] an architect of whom we first hear at Palma in Mallorca. In the deed which I give in the Appendix, he describes himself as "lapiscida," citizen of Mallorca, and says that he is about to go to Barcelona, to undertake a certain work there at the request of the King of Aragon and the bishop. This was in A.D. 1318, and it is clear, I think, from the terms of his contract,[285] that Fabre was something more than architect, and really also the builder of this church in Palma. The term used might indeed lead us to suppose that he was a mere mason, but the request of the king and the bishop proves that he was much more than this, and is useful as showing that these t.i.tles literally translated are very apt to mislead.[286] The crypt of Sta.

Eulalia under the choir was completed in A.D. 1339. Jayme Fabre is said to have been master of the works until A.D. 1388, in which year he was succeeded by el Maestro Roque, who had an a.s.sistant, Pedro Viader. He received three "sueldos" and four "dineros" a day, and a hundred sueldos each year for clothing, and in course of time his salary was raised to "two florins or twenty-two sueldos" a week. His a.s.sistant received fifty sueldos a year for clothes and three sueldos and six dineros a day for his double office of subst.i.tute for the princ.i.p.al architect and workman.

Roque no doubt was able to work elsewhere, whilst his a.s.sistant, or clerk of the works, was confined to one work; in this way the apparent strangeness of the similar pay to the two men is explained.[287] Roque, who is said to have commenced the cloister, was succeeded by Bartolome Gual, who was one of the architects summoned to advise about the cathedral of Gerona in 1416, and then described himself as master of the works at Barcelona cathedral; and, finally, Andres Escuder placed the last stone of the vault on September 26, A.D. 1448.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 36.

BARCELONA.

EAST END OF THE CATHEDRAL. p. 298.]

Having thus shortly stated the history of the building, let me now attempt to describe its architecture and construction. It will be seen that the plan is cruciform. The transepts do not, however, show much on the exterior, as they form the base of the towers which are erected, as at Exeter cathedral, above them. The plan of the chevet is very good; it presents the French arrangement of an aisle and chapels round the apse in place of the common Spanish triapsidal plan; but the detail is all completely Catalan. The arches of the apse are very narrow and stilted, and the columns throughout are composed of a rather confused jumble of thin mouldings awkwardly arranged. Above the main arches is a very small arcaded triforium, and above this a range of circular windows, one in each bay. The groining springs from the capitals of the main columns, so that the triforium and clerestory are both enclosed within its arched wall-rib; they are consequently very disproportioned in height as compared with those of northern churches. But here the architect evidently intended to grapple with the difficulties of the climate, and, designing his whole church with the one great object of minimizing the light and heat, he was compelled to make his windows small. The clerestory windows were traceried, and filled with rich stained gla.s.s, which was well set back from the face of the wall. The result is a perfect success as far as light and shade and the ordinary purposes of a Spanish congregation are concerned, but the difficulty of taking notes, sketches, or measurements, in most parts of the church, even at mid-day, can hardly be imagined. The dark stone of which the whole church is built increases not a little the sombre magnificence of the effect. There is nothing peculiar about the chapels of the chevet; but under the centre of the choir, and approached by a broad flight of steps between two narrower flights which lead to the high altar, is the small crypt or chapel already mentioned as that in which the remains of Sta. Eulalia are enshrined. An inscription[288] records the date of the translation of her remains to this spot in A.D. 1339, but the present state of the chapel is not suggestive of the possession of any architectural treasures, being remarkable only for the ugliness of its altar, and the number of its candlesticks. Behind the altar, however, there still remains the shrine of the saint. This is a steep-roofed ark of alabaster carried upon eight detached columns. The ark is sculptured at the sides and ends with subjects from the life of Sta. Eulalia, whilst the roof has her soul borne aloft by angels. The columns are of marble, spiral, fluted, and chevroned, with capitals of foliage, and one or two of the bases are carved with figures in the mediaeval Italian fashion. A long inscription is carried round the base of the ark, which again records the death of the saint, her burial in Sta. Maria del Mar, and her translation to the cathedral in A.D. 878, and afterwards to the spot where she now rests. The detail of this shrine looks very like that of Italian Gothic of the same age; and as it is particularly described in the contemporary memorial of the translation, it is no doubt part of the work on which Jayme Fabre had been engaged.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 37

BARCELONA CATHEDRAL

INTERIOR OF WEST END OF NAVE p. 301.]

The transepts are groined at the level of the side chapels, and again with an octagonal vault just above the aisle roof, and below where the square base gives place to the octagon on which the upper part of the steeples is planned. It is therefore only on the ground-plan that the transepts show themselves, and here they form porches, that on the south side opening into the cloister. The planning of the nave is very peculiar. It seems as though the main requirement of the founders of this church was a plentiful number of altars; for, as will be seen on reference to the plan, there are no less than twenty-seven distinct chapels inside the church, and twenty-two more round the cloister. The chapels in the south aisle have a row of other chapels, which open into the cloister, placed back to back with them, and the windows which light the former open into the latter, showing when seen from the nave chapels their gla.s.s, and when seen from the cloister chapels the dark piercings of their openings. The arrangement is not only extremely picturesque, but also another evidence of the care with which the sun was kept out of the building. On the north side the chapels are uniform throughout, and their windows are pierced in the long unbroken north wall. The Coro here is in its old position in the two eastern bays of the nave, with the old screens around it and all its old fittings. It is to be observed, however, that here, where the late Spanish arrangement was from the first adopted, the western entrance to the choir was preserved, and so the awkward blank which the wall of the Coro generally presents on entering is not felt. There are no signs of any parclose screens across the transept, and the position of the chapel of Sta. Eulalia makes it improbable that there ever were any. It seems, indeed, that such a church as this must from the very first have been built for precisely the kind of worship still used in it. There was never any proper provision for a crowd of worshippers joining in any one common act of prayer or worship. The capitular body filled the Coro and sang the services of the day unnoticed by the people; whilst, as they separated to the chapels to which each was attached, the people followed them by twos and threes to the altar services in which only they wished to join.

At present not more than about half the altars are commonly used; yet still each morning ma.s.s was generally being said at three, or four, or five of them at the same time, and each altar every day seemed to have a considerable group of worshippers, among whom I noticed a considerable number of men of the upper cla.s.s. The high altar seems always to have had curtains on either side of it, their rods being supported on columns of jasper in front. These curtains were drawn at the _Sanctus_, and remained so until the consecration was completed. One sung ma.s.s only is celebrated at this altar each day, and an old treatise on the Customs of the Church cites in defence or explanation of this rule the words of a very early council, _una missa et unum altare_.[289]

West of the Coro are two bays of nave, over the western of which rises the lower part of a rich octangular lantern. This is carried on bold piers of square outline, which, from the very simple arrangement of the shafts of which they are composed, have the grandeur of effect so characteristic of Romanesque work. The cross arches under the lantern are lower than the groining, and on the east face the spandrel between the two is filled in with rich tracery and arcading. Arches are thrown across the angles to carry the octagonal lantern, of which the lowest stage only--which is well arcaded--is built. The whole of this work is so good of its kind that it is much to be lamented it was never completed; the design of the octagonal lantern at the west, and the two more slender octagonal steeples at the Crossing, would have been as striking in its effect, doubtless, as it would have been novel in its plan, though it may be doubted whether, in so short a church, it would not have been overpowering. Above the side chapels, on each side of the nave and at the west end, another floor is carried all round. The only difference is that the rooms above the chapels are square-ended, not apsidal, and there seems to be no evidence of their having been intended for altars. I saw no piscinae and no Retablos in them, and was tempted to imagine that the present use may, perhaps, have been the old one--that of a grand receptacle for all the machinery in fetes, functions, and the like, of which a Spanish church generally requires no small store.[290]

There are arches in the wall, affording means of communication all round this upper floor, and the chambers all open to the church with arches, and have traceried windows in their outer walls. The transverse section of the nave is therefore novel, and unlike any other with which I am acquainted, and interested me not a little.

The exterior is, perhaps, less interesting than the interior. The chevet is fine, but with nothing in any way unusual in its design; the upper part of the b.u.t.tresses is destroyed, and the walls finish without parapet or roof, so as to make the church look somewhat like a roofless ruin. The steeples are quite plain below their belfry stage, under which are arcaded string-courses; the belfry stages themselves are richly panelled and pierced, and surmounted by pierced parapets. They are not perfectly octagonal in plan, the cardinal sides being the widest, and their height from the floor of the church is as nearly as I could measure 179 ft. 6 in., whilst their external diameter is about 30 feet.

It is on ascending these towers that one of the greatest peculiarities of the Barcelonese churches is seen; they are all roofless, and you look down on to the top of their vaulting, which is all covered with tiles or stone neatly and evenly laid on the vault, in such a way as effectually to keep out the weather. The water all finds its way out by the pockets of the vaults, and by pipes through the b.u.t.tresses with gurgoyles in front of them. Everything seemed to prove that this was _not_ the old arrangement, for it is pretty clear that the walls had parapets throughout, and that there were timber roofs, though I saw no evidence as to what their pitch had been. The present scheme, ugly and ruinous as it looks--giving the impression that all the church roofs have been destroyed by the fire of the fortresses above and at the side of the city--seems nevertheless to have solved one of those problems which so often puzzle us--the erection of buildings which as far as possible shall be indestructible. There is now absolutely no timber in any part of the work; but it is of course questionable whether a roof which endures the test of a Spanish climate, with its occasional deluge of rain succeeded by a warm drying sun, would endure the constant damp of a climate like ours. But at any rate the makeshift arrangement which is universal here is very suggestive. The flying b.u.t.tresses are insignificant, owing to the small height of the clerestory.