Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain Part 9

The style of the two buildings leads to the same conclusion, for in Sta.

Catalina Ave have a small, low, vaulted church, two bays only in length and three in width. The two detached columns which carry the vaults are cylindrical, with capitals of somewhat the same kind as those in the church, but simpler and ruder. Recessed arches in the side walls contain various tombs of the Royal Family, who for ages, from the time of Fernando I. and Dona Sancha his queen, have been buried here; and the very circ.u.mstance that this little chapel was selected for the burial of so many royal persons, seems to make it extremely probable that it was the very chapel in which the body of San Isidoro had first been laid.

The door of communication from the chapel to the church has an arch of the same kind as the transept arches, semi-circular and fringed with several cusps; and the chapel is now lighted by two open arches on the north side, which communicate with the cloister. The groining is all quadripart.i.te, without ribs, but with plain bold transverse arches between the bays.

The exterior of the church has some features which have all the air of being very early and original in their character. Such is the grand south doorway of the nave. Its arch is semicircular, and above it the spandrels are filled with sculpture. Above this is a line of panels containing the signs of the Zodiac; below are figures with musical instruments; and below these again, on the west, is a figure of San Isidoro, and on the right a figure of a woman, I think, book in hand, both of them supported on corbels formed of the heads of oxen. The tympanum itself is divided into two parts, the lower half being surmounted by a flat pediment, and the upper filling up the s.p.a.ce from this to the _intrados_ of the arch. The upper half has an Agnus Dei in a circle in the centre, and the lower half has Abraham's sacrifice, with figures on horseback on either side. The head of the opening of the doorway is finished with a square trefoil, under which rams' heads are carved. The whole detail of this sculpture is very unlike that of most of the early work I have seen in Spain; the figures are round and flabby, and badly arranged, and very free from any of the usual conventionality. All this made me feel much inclined to think that the execution of this work was at an early date, and soon after the first consecration of the church.

The elevation of the south transept is rather fine. It has a doorway, now blocked, with a figure against the wall on either side, standing between the label and a second label built into the wall from b.u.t.tress to b.u.t.tress. Above this is a rich corbel-table, and then an arcade of three divisions, of which the centre is pierced as a window; in the gable is another statue standing against the wall. The doorway has its opening finished with a square trefoil, and the tympanum is plain. The design of the apsidal chapel east of the apse is so precisely like the eastern apsidal chapels of many of the Spanish Romanesque churches,[130]

that its date must, to some extent, be decided by theirs: and it may well be doubted whether it can be much earlier than circa A.D. 1150, though the lower part of the south transept appeared to me to be as early as the south door, or at any rate not later than A.D. 1100.

The walls are all carried up high above the clerestory windows, and finished with corbel-tables, carved with a billet-mould on edge, and carried on corbels moulded, not carved. Simple b.u.t.tresses divide the bays of the clerestory.

The choir, as has been said, was a late addition in place of the original Romanesque apse. It was built in A.D. 1513, or a little after, by Juan de Badajoz, master of the works at the cathedral.[131] It is of debased Gothic design and coa.r.s.e detail, but large and lofty. The groining at the east end is planned as if for an apse, and portions of diagonal b.u.t.tresses, to resist the thrust of the groining ribs, are built against the east wall, in the way often to be noticed in the later Spanish buildings. The east window was of two lights only, and is now blocked up by the Retablo. In this church there is a perpetual exposition of the Host, and the choir is therefore screened off with more than usual care, none but the clergy being allowed to enter it. At Lugo, where there is also a similar exposition, the choir is left open, but two priests are always sitting or kneeling before faldstools in front of the altar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 14.

SAN ISIDORO, LEON p. 126.

SOUTH TRANSEPT.]

I could not gain admission to the cloister on the north side of the church; it is large and all modernized, and surrounded by the buildings of the monastery, which is now suppressed. A chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity was founded here in A.D. 1191, and a list of the relics preserved at its altar is given on a stone preserved in the convent.

The chapel of Sta. Catalina, already described, is specially interesting on account of the remarkable paintings with which the whole of the groining is covered. These all appeared to me to have been certainly executed at the end of the twelfth century, circa A.D. 1180-1200, and they are remarkably rich in their foliage decoration, as well as in painting of figures and subjects. Beginning with the eastern central compartment, over the altar, and going round to the right, the subjects in the six bays of the vault are as follows:--

(1.) In this our Lord is seated in a vesica, at the angles of which are four angels, with the heads of the four Evangelists, with their books and names painted beside them. Our Lord's feet are to the east, and He holds an open book and gives His blessing.

(2.) The angel speaking to the shepherds, with the inscription, "_Angelus a pastores_."

(3.) The Ma.s.sacre of the Innocents.

(4.) The Last Supper, painted without the slightest regard to the angles formed by the groining, and as if the vault were a flat surface.

(5.) _a._ Herod washing his hands.

_b._ St. Peter denying our Lord.

_c._ Our Lord bearing his Cross.

_d._ The Crucifixion (this is almost destroyed).

(6.) Our Lord seated with His feet to the west; the seven churches around Him, seven candles, and an angel giving the book to St. John.

The soffeits of the cross arches between the vaults are painted, some with foliage, others with figures. Of the latter, one has the twelve Apostles, another the Holy Spirit in the centre, with angels worshipping on either side, and a third a Hand blessing (inscribed "Dextra Dei") in centre, and saints on either side. The whole detail of the painted foliage is of thoroughly good conventional character, and just in the transitional style from Romanesque to Pointed.

There is a fine steeple detached from the church to the west. It stands on the very edge of the old town wall, several of the round towers of which still exist to the north of it, and below the great walls of the convent built within them. This steeple is very plain below, but its belfry stage has two fine shafted windows in each face, and nook shafts at its four corners. It is capped with a low square spire with small spire-lights: but as I found the working lines of all this drawn out elaborately on the whitewashed walls of one of the cloisters, and as all the work appears to be new, I cannot say whether or no it is an exact restoration, though I dare say it is.

In the sacristy there are some paintings, of which one or two are of great beauty. One is a charming picture of the Blessed Virgin with our Lord, with angels on either side, and others holding a crown above: the faces are sweet and delicate. One of the attendant angels offers an apple to our Lord; the other plays a guitar: the background is a landscape. The frame, too, is original. It has a gold edge, then a flat of blue covered with delicate gold diaper, and there are two shutters with this inscription on them:--"_Flix e sacra virgo Maria et omni laude dignissima quia in te ortus est sol justicie Chrus Deus noster._" There is also a very little triptych, with a Descent from the Cross, and an inscription on the shutters. Two figures are drawing out the nails, and hold the body of our Lord; two other figures on ladders support His head and feet, and St. Mary and St. Mary Magdalene weep at the foot of the cross. The inscriptions on the shutters are from Zachariah xii., _Plagent eum, &c._, and Second Corinthians, "_Pro omnibus mortuus est Christus_." There are other paintings which the Sacristan exhibits with more pride, but these two are precious works, of extremely good character, and painted probably about the end of the sixteenth century.

Leon is a much smaller city than might be expected for one so famous in Spanish history; its streets wind about in the most tortuous fashion; there are but few buildings of any pretension, and I saw no other old churches. There is indeed a great convent of San Marcos, built from the designs of Juan de Badajoz, in the sixteenth century, and afterwards added to by Berruguete, but I forgot to go to see it, and his work at San Isidoro makes me regard the omission as a very venial one. Round the city, on all sides, are long groves of poplars which look green and pleasant; there is a river--or at least in summer, as I saw it, the broad bed of one--and over the low hills which girt the city is a background of beautiful mountains. Both for its situation, therefore, and for the artistic treasures it enshrines, Leon well deserves a pilgrimage at the hands of all lovers of art.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEON:--Ground Plan of Cathedral &c. Plate V.

Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEON:--Ground: Plan: of: Church: of: San: Ysidoro: Plate VI.

Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]

CHAPTER VI.

ASTORGA, LUGO, LA CORUnA.

The road from Leon to Astorga is bad, and traverses a very uninteresting country. A good part of the old walls of Astorga still remains, with the usual array of lofty round towers at short intervals: they were in process of partial demolition when I saw them, and I noticed that they were in part constructed with what appeared to be fragments of Roman buildings. There is a rather picturesque Plaza de la Const.i.tucion here, one end of it being occupied by a quaint town-hall of the seventeenth century, through an archway in the centre of which one of the streets opens into the Plaza. A number of bells are hung in picturesque slated turrets on the roof, and some of them are struck by figures.

The only old church I saw was the cathedral. A stone here is inscribed with the following words in Spanish: "In 1471, on the 16th of August, the first stone of the new work of this holy church was laid;" and there is no doubt that the church is all of about this date, with some additions,--chiefly, however, of Retablos and other furniture,--in the two following centuries. The character of the whole design is necessarily in the very latest kind of Gothic; and much of the detail, especially on the exterior, is quite Renaissance in its character. The east end is finished with three parallel apses, and the nave is some seven or eight bays in length, with towers projecting beyond the aisles at the west end, and chapels opening into the aisles between the b.u.t.tresses. The light is admitted by windows in the aisles over the chapel arches, and by a large clerestory. These windows are fortunately filled with a good deal of fine early Renaissance gla.s.s, which, though not all that might be wished in drawing and general treatment, is still remarkable for its very fine colour. Arches of the same height as the groining of the aisles open into the towers, the interior view across which produces the effect of a sort of western transept, corresponding with a similar transept between the nave and the apsidal choir. The detail is throughout very similar to that of the better known cathedrals at Segovia and Salamanca, the section of the columns being like a bundle of reeds, with ingeniously planned interpenetrating base mouldings, multiplied to such an extent that they finish at a height of no less that ten feet from the floor. Another evidence of the late character of the work is given by the arch mouldings, which die against and interpenetrate those of the columns, there being no capitals. Beyond a certain stateliness of height and colour which this small cathedral has in common with most other Spanish works of the same age, there is but little to detain or interest an architect. But stateliness and good effects of light and shade are so very rare in modern works, that we can ill afford to regard a building which shows them as being devoid of merit or interest.

From Astorga the road soon begins to rise, and the scenery thenceforward for the remainder of the journey to la Coruna becomes always interesting, and sometimes extremely beautiful. The country can hardly be said to be mountainous, yet the hills are on a scale far beyond what we are accustomed to; and the grand sweep of the hill sides, covered occasionally with wood, and intersected by deep valleys, makes the whole journey most pleasant. One of the prettiest spots on the road, before reaching Villafranca, is the little village of Torre, where a quaint bridge spans the brawling trout-stream; and where the thick cl.u.s.ter of squalid cottages atones to the traveller, in some degree, by its picturesqueness, for the misery in which the people live. They seem to be terribly ill off, and their chimneyless hovels--pierced only with a door and one very small window or hole in the wall, into which all the light, and out of both of which all the smoke have to find their way--are of the worst description. The village churches appear to be, almost without exception, very mean; and all have the broad western bell-turret, so popular in this part of Spain.

In ten hours from Astorga, pa.s.sing Ponferrada on the way, from the hill above which the view is very fine, Villafranca del Vierzo is reached; and this is the only place of any importance on the road. Its situation is charming, on a fine trout-stream, along whose beautiful banks the road runs for a considerable distance; and it is the proper centre for excursions to the convents of the Vierzo, of which Mr. Ford gives an account which made me anxious to examine them, though unfortunately the time at my disposal put it completely out of the question. These old towns, of the second or third rank, have a certain amount of picturesque character, though far less than might be expected of external evidence of their antiquity. Here, indeed, the picturesqueness is mainly the result of the long tortuous streets, and the narrow bridges over the beautiful river, which make the pa.s.sage of a diligence so much of an adventure, as to leave the pa.s.sengers grateful when they have gained with safety the other side of the town. The Alameda here is pleasantly planted; and the town boasts of an inn which is just good enough to make it quite possible for an ecclesiologist to use it as headquarters in a visit to the convents of the Vierzo, whilst any one who is so fortunate as to be both fisherman and ecclesiologist could scarcely be better placed.

Villafranca has one large, uninteresting, and very late Gothic church, into which I could not get admission; the other churches seemed to be all Renaissance in style.

I arrived at Lugo after a journey of more than thirty hours from Leon.

Like Astorga it is surrounded with a many-towered wall, which still seems to be perfect throughout its whole extent. The road pa.s.ses along under it, half round the town, until at last it turns in through an archway, and reaches the large Plaza of San Domingo, in which is the diligence Fonda. This was so unusually dirty even to the eyes and nose of a tolerably well-seasoned traveller, that I was obliged to look for a lodging, which, after a short search, I discovered; and if it was not much better, it was still a slight improvement on the inn. In these towns lodgings are generally to be found; and as they are free from the abominable scent of the mules, which pervades every part of all the inns, they are often to be preferred to them. Mine was in a narrow street leading out of the great arcaded Plaza, which, on the day of my arrival, was full of market-people, selling and buying every kind of commodity; and on the western side of this Plaza stands the cathedral.

This is a church of very considerable architectural value and interest.

It was commenced early in the twelfth century, under the direction of a certain Maestro Raymundo, of Monforte de Lemos. His contract with the bishop and canons was dated A.D. 1129; and by this it was agreed that he should be paid an annual salary of two hundred _sueldos_ of the money then current; and if there was any change in its value, then he was to be paid six marks of silver, thirty-six yards of linen, seventeen "cords" of wood, shoes and gaiters as he had need of them; and each month two sueldos for meat, a measure of salt, and a pound of candles.

Master Raymundo accepted these conditions, and bound himself to a.s.sist at the work all the days of his life; and if he died before its completion, his son was to finish it.[132]

The church built by Raymundo is said to have been finished in A.D.

1177,[133] and still in part no doubt remains.[134] It consists of a nave and aisles of ten bays in length, transepts, and a short apsidal choir, with aisle and chapels round it. The large central eastern chapel is an addition made in A.D. 1764; and the west front is a very poor work of about the same period. There is an open porch in front of the north transept, and a steeple on its eastern side.

The design and construction of the nave and aisles is very peculiar, and must be compared with that of the more important, cathedral at Santiago.

This had been finished, so far as the fabric was concerned, in the previous year, and evidently suggested the mode of construction adopted at Lugo.

Here the arches, with few exceptions, are pointed; but otherwise the design of the two churches is just the same. The nave has a pointed barrel-vault; the triforium, however, has quadripart.i.te vaulting throughout, in place of the half barrel-vaults used at Santiago; and the b.u.t.tresses externally are connected by a series of arches below the eaves. The triforium consists in each bay of two pointed arches under a round enclosing arch, carried upon coupled shafts, which have rudely sculptured capitals. The five eastern bays of the nave appear at first sight to have no arches opening into the aisles; but upon closer examination the outline of some low arches will be found behind the stall work of the Coro. These arches are all blocked up; but if they were originally open they are so low that they could not have made the effect very different from what it now is. It looks, in fact, at first sight, as if the present arrangement of the Coro were that for which the church was originally built, and as if the nave proper was always that part only of the church to the west of the present Coro which opens to the aisles with simple pointed arches of the whole height of the aisle.

But on further examination we find that the vaulting of the aisles in the four eastern bays is a round waggon-vault, and this, of course, limited the height to which it was possible to raise the arches between the aisle and the nave; and it is therefore probable that their height is not to be attributed so much to the wish to define a Coro in the nave, as to the fault of the architect, who did not at first perceive the advantage of using a quadripart.i.te vault instead of a waggon-vault. The three bays west of these have the former kind of vaulting without ribs, and with windows both larger and higher from the floor than the simple round-arched openings which light the four eastern bays. The eighth and ninth bays are evidently rather later than the rest; and the western bays, again, are quite subsequent additions. The crossing has a quadripart.i.te vault, and the transepts waggon-vaults like those of the nave.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 15.

LUGO CATHEDRAL. p. 131.

INTERIOR OF TRANSEPT, LOOKING NORTH-WEST.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LUGO:--Ground: Plan: of: the: Cathedral: Plate VII.

W. West, Lithr.