Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain Part 5

Going from the great Plaza de la Const.i.tucion down a narrow street to the north, we soon came out on another large irregular open place, frequented chiefly by second-hand clothesmen, whose wares would be deemed bad even in Houndsditch, and whose wont it seems to be to induce their customers to make complete changes of their apparel behind scanty screenworks of cloths. At the angle of the further side of this Plaza is the grand church and convent of San Benito. The monks are, of course, all gone, as they are everywhere in Catholic Spain, and the convent is turned into a barrack; the church is left open, but unused, and the more valuable portions of its furniture, its stalls and Retablos, have been carried away for exhibition in another religious house, now used as a museum! Valladolid seems to have been a city of religious houses; and when the revolution, following on civil wars, made so clean a sweep of religious orders, that not only does one see no monks, but even Sisters of Mercy are scarcely ever met[84], there was nothing, I suppose, to be done but to convert these buildings to the first miserable purpose that suggested itself; and we ought perhaps to be thankful when we find a church like San Benito simply desolate and unused, and not converted to some purely secular use.

The ground-plan of the church is given on Plate III. At the west end are the remains of a tower, which seems never to have been completed, and which, though of vast size, is so poor, tame, and bald in detail, that it could hardly have produced a successful effect if it had been finished. The whole design of the exterior of the church is extremely uninteresting; but the interior is much more impressive, being fine, lofty, and groined, and lighted chiefly by large clerestory windows, aided by others high up in the aisle-walls. The groining is all very domical in section, and rather rich in ribs; and the grand scale of the whole work, and the simplicity of the piers--cylinders with eight engaged shafts round them--contribute to produce something of the effect of a building of earlier date. The bases of the columns are of enormous height from the floor, and their caps are generally carved with stiff foliage. Several altars, monuments, and chapels have been inserted between the b.u.t.tresses of the north wall; and there is one old tomb on the north side of the high altar, with a sculpture of the Crucifixion.

The b.u.t.tresses on the exterior all rise out of a continuous weathered bas.e.m.e.nt, and there is no variety in their design in any part.

The ritual arrangements deserve a few words of description. There are six steps up from the nave to the altar, and there is an ambon on each side of them entered from the altar side. There is a stalled western gallery, with an organ on its south side, of late mediaeval design, but apparently an insertion, and not erected at the same time as the Coro.

Beside the gallery Coro, there is a second Coro on the floor, with screens round it on the north, south, and west sides, which are evidently not original, being mere brick walls. A metal screen extends all across the nave and aisles at the east of the Coro; and there are gates, not only in these, but also in the screen on the west side of the Coro, which, it will be remembered, is an unusual arrangement at this late date. The large organ is on the north side of the Coro, and of the same date as the woodwork of the stalls. The good people of Valladolid, who seem to feel inordinately proud of all that Berruguete did, have carried off the stalls to the museum. They are much praised by Mr. Ford, but for what reason I endeavoured in vain to discover. Their sculpture appeared to me to be contemptible, and mainly noticeable for woolly dumplings in place of draperies, and for the way in which the figures are sculptured, standing insecurely on their feet, dwarfed in stature, altogether inexpressive in their faces, out of drawing, and wholly deficient in energy or life. There were also three great Retablos to the princ.i.p.al altars at the ends of the aisles. The Renaissance frames of these are mostly _in situ_, but the sculptures have all been taken, with the stalls, to the museum, where they c.u.mber the little chapel in the most uncouth fas.h.i.+on. I never saw such contemptible work; yet Mr. Ford calls this work[85] "the _chef-d'uvre_ of Berruguete, circa 1526-1532." I can only say that the architecture is bad, the sculpture is bad, and the detail is bad; that all three are bad of their kind, and that their kind is the worst possible.[86] It is in truth the ugliest specimen of the imbecility and conceit which usually characterize inferior Renaissance work that I ever saw. The whole of the figures are strained and distorted in the most violent way, and fenced in by columns which look like bedposts, with entablatures planned in all sorts of new and original ways and angles. I have no patience with such work, and it is inconceivable how a man who has once done anything which, from almost every point of view, is so demonstrably bad, can have preserved any reputation whatever, even among his own people. It is a curious ill.u.s.tration, however, of the singular extent to which both Gothic and Renaissance were being wrought at the same time in Spain; for at the time he did this work, in which not a trace of Gothic feeling or skill remained, other men at Salamanca, Zaragoza, and elsewhere, were still building in late Gothic, and some buildings were still more than half Gothic which were not erected for at least fifty years later.

A short walk from San Benito leads to another Plaza, on one of which is the west front of San Pablo, whilst the great convent of San Gregorio is on its south side.

I could not find any means of getting into San Pablo, and am uncertain whether it is in use or desecrated. Its facade is a repet.i.tion, on a large scale, of work like that of Juan and Simon de Colonia--who are said to have been the architects employed--in the chapel monuments at Miraflores. Armorial bearings have much more than their due prominence, mouldings are attenuated, every bit of wall is covered with carving or tracery, and such tricks are played with arches of all shapes, that, though they are ingenious, they are hardly worth describing. The western doorway is fringed with kneeling angels for crockets, and there are large and small statues of saints against the wall on either side of it.

Above is the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, with St. John the Baptist on one side, and the kneeling founder on the other, flanked by angels carrying armorial achievements. Above, in the centre, is our Lord seated, St. Peter and St. Paul on either side, and the four Evangelists seated at desks, and instructed by angels. Every vacant s.p.a.ce seems to have a couple of angels holding coats-of-arms, so that it is impossible not to feel that the sculptor and the founder must have had some idea of heaven as peopled by none with less than a proper number of quarterings on their s.h.i.+elds, or without claim to the possession of _Sangre Azul_. I must not forget to say of this work that, though its scheme is displeasing and Retablo-like, its execution is wonderful, and the merit of the detail of many parts of it very great.

The facade of San Gregorio is a long lofty wall, pierced with small ogee-headed windows, and finished with a quaint, carved, and pinnacled parapet; in the centre is the entrance gateway, corresponding pretty much in its detail with the front of San Pablo, but even more extremely heraldic in its decorations. The doorway is a square opening under a segmental arch, with an ogee-trefoiled canopy above. Full-length statues of hairy unclad savages on either side may have a meaning which I failed to discover; to me they looked simply uncouth and rude. The canopy over the doorway runs up and forms a great heraldic tree, with an enormous coat-of-arms and supporters in the centre. The finish at the top is one of those open-work conceits of interlacing pierced cusping, which looks like nothing better than a collection of twigs.

The sculpture on this doorway is altogether inferior in its character to that of the doorway of San Pablo. The convent is now, I believe, a barrack, and the sentry refused me admission; but I saw a picturesque court open in the centre, with the usual galleries round it, supported on columns, the wooden ceiling of the pa.s.sage being painted.

The church of la Magdalena does not look so late in date as the doc.u.mentary evidence seems to prove that it is; but it is late enough to be most uninteresting. The west front is the _ne plus ultra_ of heraldic absurdity, being entirely occupied with an enormous coat-of-arms and its adjuncts.

Close to the east end of this church is a Moorish archway of brick, a picturesque and rather graceful work. It owes not a little of its effect to the shape of the bricks, which are 7 in. wide by 11 in. long by 1 in. thick, and to the enormous quant.i.ty of mortar used, the joints being not less than an inch wide.[87] The ruggedness and picturesque effect of work done in this way is much greater than that of the smooth, neat walls--badly built of necessity where there is not much mortar used--of our modern buildings.

The Museum is housed in the old college of Sta. Cruz, close to the University, and near to the Cathedral. It is a building of a cla.s.s whose name is legion in these parts. It encloses a central court surrounded by cloisters, above which there are open arcades all round on each of the three floors, traceried bal.u.s.trades occupying the s.p.a.ces between their columns, and the rooms being all entered from these cloister-like open pa.s.sages. With good detail such an arrangement might easily be made very attractive; but I saw no example in any but the very latest style of Gothic. The contents of the Museum are most uninteresting. There are three paintings said to be by Rubens, but they seemed to me to have been much damaged; and the rest of the pictures are unmixed rubbish. There is a large collection of figures and subjects from sculptured Retablos, all of which are extravagant and strained in their att.i.tudes to the most painful degree. I have already referred to some of Berruguete's work preserved here, and the rest is mostly of about the same low degree of merit.

The Library, which appeared to have many valuable books, is a large room, well kept and well filled, with a librarian very ready to show it to strangers.

The University is a cold work of Herrera--the coldest of Spanish architects. Mr. Ford mentions an old gateway in it; but I could not find it.

I spent one day only in Valladolid; but this is ample for seeing all its architectural features. It is one of those cities which was too rich and prosperous during an age of much work and little taste, and where, though Berruguete and Herrera may be studied by those who think such labour desirable, very little mediaeval architecture of any real value is to be seen. Yet as a modern city it is in parts gay and attractive, being after Madrid the most important city of the North of Spain. Its suburbs are less cheerful, for here one lights constantly on some desecrated church or ruined building, which recalls to mind the vast difference between the Valladolid of to-day--a mere provincial town--and the Valladolid of two centuries ago, for a short time the capital of Spain.

CHAPTER IV.

SALAMANCA--ZAMORA--BENAVENTE.

The long dreary road which leads over the corn-growing plain from Medina del Campo is at last relieved some two or three miles before Salamanca is reached by the view of its imposing group of steeples and domes, which rise gradually over the low hills on the northern side. The long line of walls round the city still in part remains, but seems daily to be falling more and more to decay, and indeed generally all its grand buildings speak rather of death than of life. Few even of Spanish towns seem to have suffered more at the hands of the French during the Peninsular war than did Salamanca, and we ought not perhaps to be surprised if its old prosperity comes but slowly back again to it.

The public buildings here are generally grandiose and imposing; but almost all of them are of the period of the Renaissance, and there are no very remarkable examples of this bad age. Still when they were perfect there must have been a certain stateliness about them, befitting the importance of a great university.

The main objects of attraction to me were the two cathedrals, the one grand and new, of the sixteenth century, by whose side and as it were under whose wing nestles the smaller but most precious old cathedral of the twelfth century, fortunately preserved almost intact when the new one was erected, and still carefully maintained, though, I believe, very seldom used for service. The remarkable relative positions of these two cathedrals will be readily understood by the accompanying ground-plan,[88] in which, as will be seen, the vast bulk of the later church quite overwhelms the modest dimensions of the earlier. I know indeed few spots, if any, in which the importance, or the contrary, of mere size in architecture can be better tested than here. Most educated artists would, I dare say, agree with me in rating size as the lowest of all really artistic qualities in architecture; and here we find that the small and insignificant old church produces as good an effect as the large and boastfully ambitious new one, though its dimensions are altogether inferior. This is owing to the subdivision of parts, and to the valuable simplicity which so markedly characterizes them. On the other hand, it would be wrong to forget that from another point of view mere size is of the primest importance, for we may well feel, when we compare, for instance, an extremely lofty church with one of very modest height, that in the former there is on the part of the founders an evident act of sacrifice, whilst in the latter their thoughts have possibly never risen above the merest utilitarianism; and it would be a spirit entirely dead to all religious impressions that could regard such an act of sacrifice otherwise than with extreme admiration.

The foundation of the first of these two cathedrals may be fixed, I think, with a fair approach to certainty, as being some time in the twelfth century. It was at this time, soon after the city had been regained from the Moors, in A.D. 1095, that Bernard, Archbishop of Toledo, himself a Frenchman, brought many other Frenchmen into Spain, and through his great influence procured their appointment to various sees--a fact which I may say, in pa.s.sing, suggests much in regard to the origin of the churches which they built. Among the French ecclesiastics so promoted was Geronimo Visquio,[89] a native of Perigord, who was for a long time the great friend and close companion of the Cid Rodrigo Diaz, and confessor to him and Dona Ximena his wife. On the Cid's death he brought his body from Valencia to the monastery of Cardena, near Burgos, and there dwelt till Count Ramon and Dona Urraca made him Bishop of Salamanca. Gil Gonzalez Davila[90] says that at this time the church was founded, and Cean Bermudez adds some doc.u.mentary evidence as to privileges conceded to its chapter for the works about this time by Count Ramon.[91] In A.D. 1178 a priest--Don Miguel of San Juan, Medina del Campo--made a bequest to the Chapter of his property for the work of the cloister, and we may fairly a.s.sume, therefore, that before this date the church itself was completed. The new cathedral was not commenced until A.D. 1513, and of this I need not now speak; but in an inscription on it, which records its consecration in A.D. 1560, the first ma.s.s is related to have been said in the old cathedral four hundred and sixty years before, _i.e._ in A.D. 1100.[92] This probably was only a tradition; but it may fairly be taken to point to the twelfth century as that in which the cathedral was built.

This early church is, it will be seen,[93] cruciform, with three eastern apses, a nave and aisles of five bays, and a dome or lantern over the crossing. There is a deep western porch, and I think it probable that there were originally towers on either side of this. The church has been wonderfully little altered, save that its north wall has been taken down in order to allow of the erection of the new cathedral, and at the same time the arch under the northern part of the central lantern or dome was also underbuilt. In other respects the church is almost untouched, and bears every mark of having been in progress during the greater part of the twelfth century.

There is no provision in the plan of the main piers for carrying the diagonal groining ribs, and it may be, therefore, that when they were first planned it was not intended to groin the nave. The groining-ribs are now carried on corbels, in front of which were statues, only two or three of which, however, now remain in their places.[94] The vaulting throughout is quadripart.i.te in the arrangement of the ribs; but the vaults of the three western bays of the nave, of the south transept, and of the aisles are constructed as domes, with the stones all arranged in concentric lines, but with ribs crossing their undersides; the two eastern bays of the nave have quadripart.i.te groining, planned in the common way. The apses have semi-domes. The main arches everywhere are pointed, those of the windows semi-circular, and the capitals throughout are elaborately carved, either with foliage or groups of coupled monsters or birds, a very favourite device of the early Spanish sculptors.

The most interesting feature in this old cathedral still remains to be mentioned: this is the dome over the crossing. The remainder of the original fabric is bold, vigorous, and ma.s.sive, well justifying the line in an old saying about the Spanish cathedrals, "Fortis Salmantina;" but still it is merely a good example of a cla.s.s of work, of which other examples on a grander scale are to be met with elsewhere. Not so, however, the dome; for here we have a rare feature treated with rare success, and, so far as I know, with complete originality. The French domed churches, such as S. Front, Perigueux, and others of the same cla.s.s, Notre Dame du Port, Clermont, and Notre Dame, le Puy, have, it is true, domes, but these are all commenced immediately above the pendentives or arches which carry them. The lack of light in their interiors is consequently a great defect, and those which I have seen have always seemed to me to have something dark, savage, and repulsive in their character. And it was here that the architect of Salamanca Cathedral showed his extreme skill, for, instead of the common low form of dome, he raised his upon a stage arcaded all round inside and out, pierced it with windows, and then, to resist the pressure of his vault, built against the external angles four great circular pinnacles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No 7

SALAMANCA OLD CATHEDRAL p. 80.

INTERIOR OF LANTERN, LOOKING EAST]

The effect of his work both inside and out is admirable. It is divided into sixteen compartments by bold shafts, which carry the groining ribs; and three of these divisions over each of the cardinal sides are pierced as windows. The other four occur where the turrets on the exterior make it impossible to obtain light. These arcades form two stages in height between the pendentives and the vault. The vault is hardly to be called a real dome, having a series of ribs on its under side, nor does the external covering follow the same curve as the internal, but with admirable judgment it is raised so much as to have rather the effect of a very low spire, with a considerable entasis, than of a regular dome.

The exterior angles have lines of simple and boldly contrived crockets, and the stones with which it is covered seem all to have been cut with scallops on their lower edge. The stonework of the exterior is much decayed, but otherwise the whole work stands well and firmly.

My drawings explain better than any written description can, the various details of the design; but I may well call attention to the admirable treatment of the gables over the windows on the cardinal sides of the dome. No doubt they answer the same purpose as the circular turrets at the angles in providing a counterpoise to the thrust of the vault, and the change from the circular lines of the angle turrets to the sharp straight lines of these gables is among the happiest efforts of art. So again I ought to notice the contrast between the shafted windows, with their springing lines definitely and accurately marked by sculptured capitals, and the openings in the turrets, with their continuous mouldings. The value of contrast--a treasure in the hands of the real artist--is here consciously and most artistically exhibited; and it was no mean artist who could venture to make so unsparing a use of architectural ornamentation without producing any sense of surfeit on those who look at his work even with the most critical eyes.

I have seldom seen any central lantern more thoroughly good and effective from every point of view than this is: it seems indeed to solve, better than the lantern of any church I have yet seen elsewhere, the question of the introduction of the dome to Gothic churches. The lofty pierced tambour, and the exquisite effect of light admitted at so great a height from the floor, are features which it is not, I believe, vain to hope we may see emulated ere long in some modern work. But in any such attempt it must be borne well in mind that, though the scale of this work is very moderate, its solidity and firmness are excessive, and that thus only is it that it maintains that dignified manliness of architectural character which so very few of our modern architects ever seem even to strive for.

From all points, too, this lantern groups admirably with the rest of the church. My sketch was taken from the west end of the nave roof, in order to show the detail of the work to a fair scale; but the best view on the whole is that from the south-east, where it groups with the fine exterior of the eastern apses, with their engaged columns and rich corbel-tables, and with a turret to the east of the transept, which has been carried up and finished rather prettily in the fourteenth century with a short spire, with spire-lights on each side of its hexagonal base.

The old corbel-tables under the eaves remain throughout the east end; but the wall has been raised above them with a line of pierced quatrefoils, over which the rough timbers of the roof project. No doubt here, as we shall find in some other examples, the original intention was to have a stone roof of rather flat pitch. The s.p.a.ce between the eaves of the chancel and the lower windows of the lantern would admit of no more than this; and though there is a good deal of piquant effect in the line of dark pierced traceries under the eaves and the rough tiled roof above them, one cannot but regret very much the change from the original design in so important a part of the work. The eaves-cornices are carved with a very rich variety of billet moulding, and carried upon corbels, some of which are carved and some moulded. The walls generally have flat pilasters at short intervals, finis.h.i.+ng under the eaves-cornices, and the princ.i.p.al apse has the common arrangement of three-quarter engaged shafts dividing it into three bays. The window-arches are boldly moulded and carved, but the lights are narrow, and those in the main apse are remarkable for the delicate intricacy of the contemporary iron _grilles_ with which they are guarded--genuine laborious smith's work, utterly unlike the poor modern efforts with which in these days men earn fame without using their hammers! The effect here of the intricate curved lines, relieved by the dark shadow of the window opening, is charming. It may fairly be doubted, I think, whether these windows were ever meant to be glazed. In the transept pointed relieving arches are built over the windows, and one of them is a good example of the joggling of the joints of stonework, not uncommonly seen in early flat arches, but the use of which is not very obvious in a high pointed arch. The smaller apses have only one window, and are lower in proportion to the princ.i.p.al apse than is usually the case.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 8.

SALAMANCA OLD CATHEDRAL p. 82.

EXTERIOR OF LANTERN]

There are some fine monuments in the south transept, all of them adorned with elaborate bas-reliefs of scriptural subjects. One, of the thirteenth century, has a tomb supported on lions, and a death-bed represented on its side; a little apsidal recess above is groined with a semi-dome, with ribs. Another has sculptures of the Crucifixion, the Entombment, the Maries going to the Sepulchre, and the "Noli me tangere;" and a third has another representation of a death-bed. The effigies are all slightly tilted outwards, and those in the east wall have their feet to the north. The most remarkable features in the decoration of the church are, however, the Retablo and the painting on the semi-dome above it. On the vault the Last Judgment is painted, our Lord being drawn much in the famous att.i.tude of St. Michael in Orcagna's fresco at Pisa, and without drapery. The Retablo is a work of the fourteenth century, of wood, and planned so as exactly to fit the curve of the apse wall. It is divided into five panels in height and eleven in width, so that there are fifty-five subjects, each surrounded by an architectural framework of delicate character. The subjects are all richly painted on a gold ground, and seemed to me to be well drawn. The coloured decoration of the whole is very effective, and owes much to the white ground of its traceries. Generally speaking, a Retablo is placed across the apse and cuts off its eastern portion, which thenceforward becomes a receptacle for all the untidiness of the church; and when so arranged, if it reaches the height common in Spain, it almost, and in some cases altogether, destroys the internal effect of the apse. Here, however, the exact fitting of the Retablo to the curve of the wall is free from this objection, and its effect is unusually good.

The cloister on the south side is almost all modernized, though one or two old doorways remain. That into the south transept has spiral shafts, with the spiral lines reversed at regular intervals. It has also some very good carving of foliage, with birds and naked figures, and on its jambs are some memorial inscriptions of A.D. 1190, 1192, and 1194. On the south side of the cloister is a richly decorated little chapel, which retains in one corner a very curious mediaeval organ, with shutters. On the east side and close to the transept, what was no doubt the original Chapter-house still remains, though it is now called the Mozarabic chapel, and was formerly used for the Mozarabic ritual. At present the boy who had the keys said it was not used; but the proper books were all there. It is a very remarkable chamber, square in plan below, and brought to an octagon above by arches thrown across the angles, and finally roofed with a sort of dome, carried upon moulded and carved ribs of very intricate contrivance. The interlacing of these ribs gives the work somewhat the effect of being Moorish, and there can be little doubt, I think, that it owes its peculiarities in some degree to Moorish influence. It will be seen by reference to the plan, that the groining ribs are arranged in parallel pairs. The ribs go from the angles to the centre of the opposite side instead of from angle to angle, and the sixteen ribs form a star-shaped compartment in the centre. This coupling of ribs in parallel lines is a feature of Moorish work, and is seen in the curious mosque, the Cristo de la Luz, at Toledo, and in the somewhat Moorish vault of the Templars' church at Segovia. But whether Moorish or not, it is a remarkable room, and deserves careful study. The diameter is but a little over twenty-six feet, and the light is admitted by small windows in the upper stage. I should be inclined to attribute this room and its vault to the architect of the lantern of the church, and I regret that the only part of the outside which I could see was so modernized as to render it impossible to ascertain the original design. I call this the Chapter-house, because I find that it opened originally into the cloister, with three arches, that in the centre a doorway, the others windows of two lights--the almost invariable arrangement of all Chapter-houses at this time.[95]

A considerable number of masons' marks remain on the exterior of the early part of this church; and if they are the marks of the men who erected so complicated a piece of stonework as the vault of the Chapter-house, they well deserve to be preserved. Throughout this church, indeed, the masonry is unusually good, and, owing to the rich warm colour of the stone, the eastern apses, though they follow the common design of most of the Romanesque apses in this part of Spain, are more than usually good in their effect.

A flight of eighteen steps leads up from the old cathedral through the north transept into one of the southern chapels of the new cathedral, and I know few changes more remarkable than that from the modest simplicity, yet grandeur, of the early church, to the overbearing magnitude and somewhat flaunting character of the late one.

Salamanca seems to have tasted early of that prosperity which in the end ruined art in Spain; and it was possible, therefore, for the Bishop, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, to propose a scheme for replacing his modest old cathedral by one of the most sumptuous and ambitious in Spain, without attempting what was absurd or sure to fail.

The whole discussion as to the planning of the church is told us in a series of doc.u.ments published by Cean Bermudez, which are, I think, of sufficient interest to make them quite worth a place in the Appendix to this volume. I shall discuss in another chapter the light which they throw upon the architectural practice of the day, and here it will only be necessary to refer to such parts of them as affect the architectural history of the building.

In A.D. 1509 a Royal order was issued to Anton Egas, master of the works at Toledo Cathedral, to go to Salamanca to make a plan for the cathedral there. Egas seems to have delayed so long that it was necessary to send another order to him, and then at last, in May, 1510, he went. The same kind of command had been laid at the same time by the king on Alfonso Rodriguez, the master of the works at Seville, and after these two had considered the matter, they presented a joint plan, drawn on parchment, showing the heights and widths of the naves, the thickness of the walls, and so forth; but they were unable, they said, to agree as to the proportion of length to breadth in the Capilla mayor, and so they settled to meet in ten days at Toledo, and then to appoint an umpire.

Nothing more seems to have been done by them, for in A.D. 1513 the Bishop and Chapter resolved to call together a Junta of architects to make another report; and Rodriguez being dead, they summoned Anton Egas of Toledo, Juan Gil de Hontanon. Juan de Badajoz of Leon, Alonso de Covarrubias of Toledo, Juan Tornero, Juan de Alava, Juan de Orozco, Rodrigo de Saravia, and Juan Campero, who all a.s.sembled in September, A.D. 1512, at Salamanca, and drew up their report. The detailed character of this report is very curious. It decides the dimensions of every part of the church, the thickness of the walls, the projection of the b.u.t.tresses, and the exact position that it ought to occupy. The architects not only agreed in all their opinions, but testified to their truth by taking an oath "by G.o.d and St. Mary," saying, each one, "So I swear, and amen."

The question was, whether the new cathedral should be on the site of the old cathedral, or to the north or to the south of it; and among other reasons for placing it to the north, where it now is, the existence of the steeple at the west end of the old cathedral was mentioned. In fine, the church has been so placed as not to interfere at all with the steeple, but little with the old cathedral, and not at all with the cloister. The opinion of the Junta of Architects has been acted upon, in short, in everything save the shape of the head of the church, which they preferred should be octagonal, and which is, in fact, square in plan.

Three days after the presentation of this report certain of the Chapter were appointed to select an architect, and their choice fell at once on Juan Gil de Hontanon for the architect, and Juan Campero for clerk of the works.[96] Whether Juan Gil really made the plans or not seems very uncertain; and I confess that to me it seems more probable that the plan made in A.D. 1509 by Egas and Rodriguez was laid before the Junta, and that they drew up their resolutions upon the data it afforded, and left to Hontanon no choice as to the proportions of his church, but only the management of its construction and the designing of its details.

If this supposition be correct, I fear I can award but little credit to Hontanon; for in this cathedral the only point one can heartily praise is the magnificence of the general idea, and the n.o.ble scale and proportion of the whole work. But the detail throughout is of the very poorest kind, fairly Gothic in character inside, but almost Renaissance outside, and everywhere wanting in vigour and effect. Nothing can be much worse than the treatment of the doorways and windows, and--to take one portion--the south transept facade is spotted all over with niches, crockets, and pedestals in the most childish way; whilst every spandrel has a head looking out of a circle, reminding one forcibly of the old application of a horse-collar, and, in fact, the men were foolish who repeated, _usque ad nauseam_, so stale and unprofitable an idea!

In one respect, however, the design of this church is very important.

The Spanish architects seldom troubled themselves to suit their buildings in any respect to the climate; and this, no doubt, because in very many cases they were merely imitating the works of another country, in which no precautions against heat were necessary. Here we have a church expressly designed, and with great judgment, for the requirements of the climate. The windows are very high up, and very small for the size of the building, so that no sunlight could ever make its way to any unpleasant extent into it. There are galleries in front of all the windows, both in the nave and aisles, but they are of thoroughly Renaissance character. The section of the church gives a main clerestory to the nave, and a second clerestory on one side of each aisle over the arches opening into the side chapels. The upper clerestory has two windows of two lights, and a circular window above them in each bay, and the lower clerestory traceried windows generally, I think, of three lights. The traceries are very weak and ill proportioned; but I noticed in places what seemed to be a recurrence to earlier traditions in the groupings of small windows, with several circles pierced in the wall above them. It was, however, just like the imitation of old works we so often see from incompetent hands at the present day. You see whence the idea has been taken, though it is so travestied as to be not even tolerable where the original was probably perfect!

The planning of the church is certainly infelicitous. The square east end is bald to a degree externally, and finished as it is inside with chapels corresponding with those of the aisles, wants relief and life.

If the square east end is adopted in a great church, no doubt the prolonged Lady Chapels of our own churches are infinitely to be preferred to such a plan as this, which fails to give the great east windows of which we boast, and loses all the effects of light and shade in which the apsidal chevets of the Continent are so rich.