Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain Part 7

From Zamora, cheered by the recollection of perhaps the most gorgeous sunset and the clearest moonlight that I ever saw, I made my way across country to Benavente. It is a ten hours' drive over fields, through streams and ditches, and nowhere on a road upon which any pains have ever been bestowed; and when I say that the country is flat and uninteresting, the paternal benevolence of the government which leaves such a district practically roadless will be appreciated. Beyond Benavente the case is still worse, for the broad valley of the Esla, leading straight to Leon, is without a road along which a tartana can drive, though there is scarcely a hillock to surmount or a stream to cross in the forty miles between a considerable town and the capital of the province!

Soon after leaving Zamora some villages were seen to the right, and one of them seemed to me to have a church with a dome; but my view of it was very distant, and I cannot speak with any certainty. From thence to Benavente no old building was pa.s.sed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 12.

BENAVENTE.

EAST END OF STA. MARIA. p. 102.]

Benavente is the most tumble-down forlorn-looking town I have seen. Most of the houses are built of mud, rain-worn for want of proper thatching, of only one story in height, and relieved in front by a doorway and usually one very small hole for a window. There is, however, a church--Sta. Maria del Azogue--which made the journey quite worth undertaking. It is cruciform, with five apses projecting from the eastern wall, that in the centre larger than the others.[110] The apses have semi-domes, the square compartments to the west of them quadripart.i.te vaulting in the three centre, and waggon-vaults in the two outer bays. The transepts and crossing are vaulted with pointed barrel-vaults at the two ends, and three bays of quadripart.i.te vaulting in the s.p.a.ce between these two compartments; and the internal effect is particularly fine, owing to the long line of arches into the eastern chapels and the rich character of most of the details. The nave and aisles no doubt retain to some extent their old form and arrangement, but most of the work here is of the fifteenth century, whilst that of the eastern part of the church is no doubt of circa A.D. 1170-1220. The west front is quite modernized. The transept walls are lofty, and there is a simple pointed clerestory above the roofs of the eastern chapels, and a rose window over the arch into the Capilla mayor. The smaller chapels have each one window, the centre chapel three windows with the usual three-quarter engaged shaft between them, finis.h.i.+ng in the eaves-cornice. The south transept has a fine round-headed doorway, but all its detail is that of early-pointed work. It has an Agnus Dei surrounded by angels in the tympanum, the four Evangelists with their emblems in one order of the arch, bold foliage in the next, a deep scallop ornament in the third, and delicate foliage in the label. The capitals are well carved, and the jambs of the door and one of the members of the archivolt have simple rose ornaments at intervals. The abaci of the capitals are square, but notwithstanding this and the other apparently early feature of the round arch I am still not disposed to date this work earlier than circa A.D. 1210-20.[111] Of the same age and character probably are all the eaves-cornices of the earlier part of the church, and, I have little doubt, the whole lower portion of the church itself.

There is a fine doorway to the north transept, and a lofty tower of very singular design rises over its northern bay. This is three stages in height above the roof, and is finished with a corbel-table and a modern spire of ogee outline. The masons' marks on the exterior of the walls are here, as is usual in these early churches, very plentiful.

The church of San Juan del Mercado seems to be in some respects even more interesting than the other. It has a south doorway of singularly rich character, the two inner orders of the arch being round and the others pointed. The shafts are unusually rich and delicate; they are carved with acanthus-leaves diapered all over their surface, with chevrons and spiral mouldings, and above their bands at mid-height have in front of them figures of saints, three on either side. The tympanum has the Adoration of the Magi, and the order of the arch round it is sculptured with angels. Altogether this is a very refined and n.o.ble work, and the combination of the pointed and round arches one over the other is very happy. The west front has also a fine doorway and engaged shafts at intervals in the wall, and the east end is parallel triapsidal of the same character as that of San Juan.

There are some other churches, but those which I saw seemed to be all late and uninteresting. There are, too, the rapidly wasting ruins of an imposing castle. It is of very late sixteenth century work, and apparently has no detail of any interest; but the approach to it through a gateway, and up a winding hilly road under the steep castle walls, is very picturesque. By its side an Alameda has been planted, and here is the one agreeable walk in Benavente. Below is the river Esla, winding through a broad plain well wooded hereabouts with poplars and aspens; in the background are lines of hills, and beyond them bold mountain outlines; and such a view, aided by the transparent loveliness of the atmosphere, was enough to make me half-inclined to forget the squalid misery of everything that met the eye when I pa.s.sed back again to my lodging.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALAMANCA:--Ground Plans of old and new Cathedrals:--and of San Marcos:--Plate IV.

Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.]

CHAPTER V.

LEON.

It is a ride of some six-and-thirty or forty miles from Benavente to Leon. The road follows the course of the valley of the Esla all the way, and, though it is as nearly as possible level throughout, it is impa.s.sable for carriages. This is characteristic of the country; the Spaniards are content to go on as their fathers have done before them, and until some external friend comes to make a railway for them, the people of Benavente and Leon will probably still remain as practically isolated from each other as they are at present.

The valley is full of villages, as many as ten or twelve being in sight at one time on some parts of the road. None of their churches, however, seem to be of the slightest value. They are mostly modern and built of brick, though some have nothing better than badly built cob-walls to boast of; and their only unusual feature seems to be the great western bell-gable, which is generally an elevation above the roof of the whole width of the western wall, in which several bells are usually hung in a series of openings. The villages, too, are all built of cob; and as the walls are either only half-thatched or not thatched at all, they are gradually being worn away by the rains, and look as forlorn and sad as possible. One almost wonders that the people do not quit their hovels for the wine-caves with which every little hill near the villages is honeycombed, and upon which more care seems to be bestowed than upon the houses. In these parts the peasants adorn the outside of their houses with plenty of whitewash, and then relieve its bareness with rude red and black paintings of sprigs of trees, arranged round the windows and doors.

The cathedral of Leon is first seen some three or four hours before the city is reached. It stands up boldly above the well-wooded valley, and is backed by a n.o.ble range of mountain-peaks to the north; so that, though the road was somewhat monotonous and wearying, I rode on picturing to myself the great things I was soon to see. Unfortunately I visited Leon a year too late, for I came just in time to see the cathedral bereft of its southern transept, which had been pulled down to save it from falling, and was being reconstructed under the care of a Madrilenian architect--Senor Lavinia. I saw his plans and some of the work which was being put in its place, and the sight made me wish with double earnestness that I had been there before he had commenced his work! In England or in France such a work would be full of risk, and might well fill all lovers of our old buildings with alarm; but in Spain there is absolutely no school for the education of architects, the old national art is little understood and apparently very little studied, and there are no new churches and no minor restorations on which the native architects may try their prentice hands. In England for some years we have lived in the centre of a church-building movement as active and hearty perhaps as any ever yet known; our advantages, therefore, as compared with those possessed by foreigners generally, are enormous; whilst perhaps, on the other hand, in no country has so little been done as in Spain during the present century. Yet in England few of us would like to think of pulling down and reconstructing one side of a cathedral, and few would doubt that art and history would lose much in the process, even in the hands of the most able and conservative architect.

The two great architectural features of Leon are the cathedral and the church of San Isidoro; and to the former, though it is by much the most modern of the two, I must first of all ask my readers to turn their attention.

Spaniards are rightly proud of this n.o.ble church, and the proverbs which a.s.sert its pre-eminence seem to be numerous. One, giving the characteristics of several cathedrals, is worth quoting:--

"Dives Toletana, Sancta Ovetensis Pulchra Leonina, fortis Salamantina."

And again there is another Leonese couplet:--

"Sevilla en grandeza, Toledo en riqueza, Compostella en fortaleza, esta en sutileza."

So again, just as our own people wrote that jubilant verse on the door-jamb of the Chapter-house at York, here on a column in front of the princ.i.p.al door was inscribed--

"Sint licet Hispaniis ditissima, pulchraque templa, Hoc tamen egregiis omnibus arte prius."

There used to be a controversy as to the age of this cathedral, which must, however, one would think, long since have been settled. It was a.s.serted that it was the very church built at the end of the ninth century during the reign of Ordono II.; and the only proof of this was the inscription upon the fine fourteenth-century monument of the King which still stands in the aisle of the chevet behind the high altar:--

"Omnibus exemplum sit, quod venerabile templum Rex dedit Ordonius, quo jacet ipse pius.

Hunc fecit sedem, quam primo fecerat aedem Virginis hortatu, quae fulget Pontificatu.

Pavit eam donis, per eam nitet urbs Legionis Quesumus ergo Dei gratia parcat ei. Amen."

Fortunately, however, in addition to the indubitable evidence of the building itself, there is sufficient doc.u.mentary evidence to give with tolerable exactness the dates of the commencement and completion of the existing church, and I did not see, and believe there is not, a relic of the church which preceded it still remaining.

One or two facts of interest in regard to the first cathedral may, however, well be mentioned here. The architect is said by Sandoval to have been an Abbat; and in Ordono II.'s absence he is said to have converted the old Roman baths in the palace into a church, the plan being similar to that of churches with three naves.[112] It is interesting to find this plan so popular in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, already described as existing in the ninth.[113]

Don Manrique, Bishop of Leon from A.D. 1181 to A.D. 1205, is said to have been the first founder of the present cathedral. The contemporary chronicler Don Lucas de Tuy speaks most positively on this point, and as he wrote his history in the convent of San Isidoro close by, it is difficult to dispute his testimony.[114] How much he completed nowhere appears, though, judging by the style of the church, I should say it could have been but very little. Later than this, in A.D. 1258, during the episcopate of D. Martin Fernandez, a Junta of all the bishops of the kingdom of Leon was held at Madrid, at which the state of the fabric of the cathedral was discussed, and forty days of indulgence offered to those who made offerings towards the further promotion of the works.[115] Sixteen years later a council was held in Leon, and again the state of the fabric of the church was discussed and indulgence offered to those who gave alms for it.[116] Finally, in A.D. 1303, the Bishop Don Gonzalez gave back to the use of the Chapter a property which had been devoted to the work of the church, "because," he says, "the work is now done, thanks be to G.o.d." Nothing more clear on the face of it than this list of dates can be desired; yet, as frequently happens, when we come to compare them with the building itself, it is utterly impossible to believe in the most important part of it--the foundation, namely, of any part of the present church in the time of Bishop Manrique before the year 1205. I have elsewhere in this volume had occasion to show how much the Spaniards borrowed from the French in their architecture. Certain entire buildings, such as Burgos, Toledo, and Santiago, are distinctly derived from French churches, and in all cases are somewhat later in date than the French examples with which they most nearly correspond. If we apply this test to Leon it will be impossible to admit that any part of the existing church was built much before A.D.

1250. The church from beginning to end is thoroughly French; French in its detail, in its plan, and in its general design. And inasmuch as there is no long and regular sequence of Spanish buildings leading up step by step to the developed style which it exhibits, it is quite out of the question to give it credit for an earlier existence than the corresponding French churches, in the history of which such steps are not wanting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No 13.

LEON CATHEDRAL. p. 108

INTERIOR OF AISLE ROUND THE APSE.]

The churches which are nearest in style to Leon are, I think, the cathedrals at Amiens and Rheims, and perhaps the later part of S. Denis.

Of these, Amiens was in building from A.D. 1220 to A.D. 1269, and Rheims from A.D. 1211 to A.D. 1241. But both are slightly earlier in their character than Leon. In all three the chapels of the apse are planned in the same way; that is to say, they are polygonal and not circular in their outlines, and the sections of the columns, the plans of the bases and capitals, and the detail of the arches and groining ribs are as nearly as may be the same; and in all these points the resemblance between them and Leon Cathedral is close and remarkable.

A similar conclusion will be arrived at if we pursue the inquiry from a different point, and compare this cathedral with other Spanish works of the date at which it is a.s.sumed to have been in progress. I can only suppose that Don Lucas de Tuy, when he spoke of Bishop Manrique's work at the cathedral, did so only from hearsay, or else that the work then commenced was subsequently completely removed to make way for the present building. Certainly in A.D. 1180-1200 all Spanish churches seem to have been built on a different plan, in a very much more solid fas.h.i.+on, and so that it would have been very difficult indeed to convert them into anything like the existing building. I venture to a.s.sume, therefore, that the scheme of Leon Cathedral was first made circa A.D.

1230-1240, and that the work had not progressed very far at the time the Junta of bishops was held in Madrid in A.D. 1258.

In plan[117] the cathedral consists of a nave and aisles of six bays, transepts, a choir of three bays, and chevet of five sides, with a surrounding aisle and pentagonal chapels beyond. There are two western towers, a large cloister on the north side, sacristies on the south-east, and a large chapel on the east side of the cloisters, with other buildings on their northern and western sides, arranged very much in the usual way; the chevet projects beyond the line of the old city wall, one of the towers of which is still left on the east side of the cloister. The city was long and narrow; and whilst the cathedral projects to the east of the wall, the church of San Isidoro has its western tower built out beyond the western face of the wall. There is not, however, here, as there is at Avila, any very distinct attempt to fortify the chevet of the cathedral, otherwise than by forming pa.s.sages, pa.s.sing through the b.u.t.tresses all round it, and by raising the windows high above the ground on the east.

There are doorways in all the three grand fronts, west, north, and south; but these shall be described further on. The columns throughout are cylindrical, with attached shafts on the cardinal sides, the groining-shafts towards the nave and choir being, however, triple, instead of single. In the apse the small shafts are not placed regularly round the main shaft, but their position is altered to suit the angles at which the arches are built. The same alteration of plan occurs in the chevet of Amiens, a work which was in progress about A.D. 1240, and to which, as I have said, the plan of this cathedral bears considerable resemblance.

The feature which most struck me in this cathedral was the wonderful lightness which characterizes its construction in every part. The columns of the nave are of moderate size, and the arches which they carry very thin, whilst the large and lofty clerestory, and the triforium below it, were both pierced to such an extent as to leave a pier to receive the groining smaller than I think I ever saw elsewhere in so large a church. There are double flying b.u.t.tresses, one above the other, and the architect trusted, no doubt, that the weight of the groining would be carried down through them to such an extent as to make it safe to venture on as much as he did. Moreover, he was careful to economize the weight where possible; and with this view he filled in the whole of his vaults with a very light tufa, obtained from the mountains to the north of Leon.[118] In short, when this cathedral was planned, its architect must either have resolved that it should exceed all others in the slender airiness of its construction, or he must have been extremely incautious if not reckless. It is not a little curious that in France, at the same time, the same attempt was being made, and with the like result. The architect of Beauvais, unable to surpa.s.s the majestic combination of stable loftiness with beauty of form, which characterized the rather earlier work at Amiens, tried instead to excel him alike in height, and in lightness of construction. No one can pretend that he was an incompetent man, yet his work was so imprudently daring, that it was impossible to avoid a catastrophe; and we now have it rebuilt, to some extent in the same design after its fall, but with so many additional points of support as very much to spoil its symmetry and beauty. Here, then, we have an exactly parallel case: for at Leon, no sooner was the church completed than it became necessary to build up the outer lights, both of the clerestory and triforium, to save the work from the same misfortune. Nor was the precaution altogether successful, for, owing almost entirely to the over-hazardous nature of the whole construction, the south transept had recently, it is said, become so dangerously rent with cracks and settlements as to render it absolutely necessary to rebuild it; and the groining throughout the church shows signs of failure everywhere, and this of serious, if not of so fatal a character.

At the risk of repet.i.tion, I cannot help saying how strongly this parallel between Beauvais and Leon tells in favour of the a.s.sumption that its origin was rather French than Spanish. For in Spain there were no other churches at the time it was built from which a Spanish architect could have made such a sudden development as this design would have been. The steps by which it would have been attained are altogether wanting, and yet in France we have every step, and, finally, results of precisely the same kind. Both at an earlier and at a later date, when Spaniards made use of their own school of architects, they developed for themselves certain cla.s.ses of churches, unlike, in some respects, to those of any other country. Here, however, we have an exotic, which, like the cathedral at Burgos, is evidently the work of some artist who had at least been educated among the architects of the north of France, if he was not himself a Frenchman. The proof of this is to be found more perhaps at S. Denis than anywhere, for there the section of the mouldings of the clerestory windows, as well as their general design, tallies so closely with the same parts of Leon Cathedral that it is almost impossible to doubt their common origin.

One other feature not yet insisted upon, affords strong evidence in the same direction. This cathedral is a mere lantern, it has scarcely a yard of plain unpierced wall anywhere, and the main thought of its architect was evidently how he might increase to the utmost extent the size of the windows, and the s.p.a.ces for the glorious gla.s.s with which he contrived to fill the church. No greater fault could be committed in such a climate. This lavish indulgence in windows would have been excessive even in England, and must have always been all but insupportable in Spain. It was the design of French and not Spanish artists, for in their own undoubted works these last always wisely reduced their windows to the smallest possible dimensions. The cathedral at Milan is a case of the same kind, for there a German architect, called to build a church in a foreign land, built it with as many windows as he would have put had it been in his own country, and with a similar contempt for the customs of the national architects to that which marks the work of the architect of Leon Cathedral.

Regarding this cathedral, then, as a French, rather than as a Spanish church, and giving up all attempt to make it ill.u.s.trate a chapter of the real national artistic history, we shall best be able to do justice to it as a work of art. It is, indeed, in almost every respect worthy to be ranked among the n.o.blest churches of Europe. Its detail is rich and beautiful throughout, its plan very excellent, the sculpture with which it is adorned quite equal in quant.i.ty and character to that of any church of the age, and the stained gla.s.s with which its windows are everywhere filled, perhaps some of the most brilliant in Europe.

There are many features in its construction and design which must be referred to somewhat in detail, and to this part of my subject I must now turn.

I have already mentioned that the triforium throughout the church was originally glazed. In order to obtain this the aisles were covered with gabled roofs, whose ridges were parallel with the nave; and in order to allow of this being done a stone gutter was formed below the sills of the clerestory windows, and below this again corbels were built into the wall to carry the aisle roofs; cross gutters also of stone were carried through the roof in each bay from the clerestory gutter to the outer wall of the aisles. I cannot say that the effect of this arrangement is good. The eye seems to require some grave s.p.a.ce of wall between the main arches and the glazing of the clerestory; and it is difficult to say on what ground the triforium is to be treated as a separate architectural division of the fabric, when it is in truth, as it is here, nothing more than a prolongation of the clerestory.

The flying b.u.t.tresses are rather steep in pitch, and each consists of two arches ab.u.t.ting against very broad b.u.t.tresses rising from between the side chapels; the lower arch supports the clerestory just at the level of the springing of the groining; the higher a few feet only below the parapet. Two pinnacles rise out of each of the b.u.t.tresses, and others form a finish to them all round the clerestory, and at the angles of the chapels of the apse.

The windows throughout have good traceries. They are all of pure geometrical character; those in the chapels of the choir being of two lights, with large cusped circles in the head, and those in the clerestory of four lights, subdivided into two divisions, similar to the chapel windows, with another cusped circle above. The heads of the lights throughout the windows are uncusped, the cusping being confined to the traceries. The clerestory windows originally had six lights, but the outer lights were rather clumsy additions to the original scheme for four-light windows, and have since been walled up, to give the necessary strength to the groining piers. The general arrangement of the traceries in this part of the church will be best understood by reference to the engraving which I give of one bay of the choir.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bay of Choir, Leon Cathedral.]

The stone-work of all the window traceries was very carefully cramped together with strong toothed iron plugs let into the centre of the stones, and the masons seem, in many cases, to have marked the beds and not the face of the stones. Indeed, the early masons' marks are but few in number, and most of those that I saw occurred at the base of the eastern walls, and again in the upper portion of the work. On the late, and thoroughly Spanish chapel of Santiago also, a good many occur on the outer face of the stones. Owing to the works which were in progress in the south transept, I had an unusually good opportunity of looking for these marks, not only on the face of the stones, but also on their beds, and their almost entire absence from the early work was very remarkable.

On the other hand, there were markings on some of the other stones which were of much more interest. I found, for instance, one of the large stones forming the capital of the pier at the crossing of the nave and transepts, carefully marked, first with an outline of the whole of the jamb mould, then with the lines of the capital, and finally with the whole of the archivolt. It had all the air of being the practical working drawing used for the execution of the work, some little alterations having been made in the archivolt. It is easy to conceive that the architect may thus have designed his details, and his mode bears considerable a.n.a.logy to that which M. Verdier describes as having been adopted at Limoges, where the lines of the groining and all the working outlines were scratched on the floor of the triforia; here the lines are scratched boldly on the surface of the stones.