CHAPTER II.CONTENTS.

Romanesque: Churches at Naranco, Roda, and Leon—Early Spanish Gothic: Churches at Santiago, Zamora, Toro, Avila, Salamanca, and Tarragona—Middle Pointed style: Churches at Toledo, Burgos, Leon, Barcelona, Manresa, Gerona, Seville—Late Gothic style: Churches at Segovia, Villena—Moresco style: Churches at Toledo, Ilescas, and Saragoza.

Asmight be expected from what we know of the history of Spain, the only specimens of this style which are known to exist in the country are to be found in the Asturias or in the recesses of that mountain range which extends from Corunna to Barcelona. It was in these regions alone that the Spanish Christians found refuge during the supremacy of the Moslems in the Peninsula, and were free to exercise their religious forms without molestation.

Four or five examples of the style have been described in sufficient detail to enable us to see what its leading features were. The earliest appears to be that of Santa Maria de Naranco, near Oviedo, said to be erectedA.D.848.[131]Another is San Miguel de Lino, which appears to be nearly as old. A third, San Salvador de Val de Dios,[132]is less important than the other two, though peculiar, more like an Irish or French oratory than the others. A fourth is Santa Cristina de Lino.[133]San Pablo, Barcelona,[134]may be of about the same age as these; and no doubt there are many others which have escaped notice from their insignificant dimensions.

Among these the most interesting is that first named, which stands at Naranco. As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No.923), it is unlike any contemporary example we are acquainted with. Practically it is a Roman tetrastyle amphiprostyle temple, if such terms can be applied to a Christian edifice; and, so far as we can understand, the altar was placed originally in one of the porticoes,and the worship was consequently probably external. The great difference seems to have been that there was a lateral entrance, and some of the communicants at least must have been accommodated in the interior. The ornamentation of the interior differs from classical models more than the plan. The columns are spirally fluted—a classical form—but the capitals are angular, and made to support arches. On the walls also there are curious medallions from which the vaulting-ribs spring, which seem peculiar to the style, since they are found repeated in S. Cristina.

922. View of Church at Naranco. (From Parcerisa.)

923. Plan of Church at Naranco. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

The chief interest of this building, however, lies in the fact that it exhibits the Spaniards in the middle of the 9th century trying to adapt a Pagan temple to Christian purposes, as if the Romans had left no basilicas in the land, and as if the Goths had been unable to elaborate any kind of “ecclesia” in which they might assemble for worship. San Miguel and Santa Cristina are adapted for internal worship, but their form is very unlike those of any other church we are acquainted with. The church of San Pablo differs essentially from them, inasmuch as it is a complete Christian church in all its essentials. Though very small (80 ft. by 67), it is triapsal, with a central dome and all the arrangements of a church, but more like examples found in the East than anything usuallyknown in the West. Its details still retain traces of classic feeling (Woodcut No.925), though something not unlike the Jewish candlestick of the Temple is mixed up with ornaments of Christian origin.

924. Plan of S. Pablo. (From ‘Mon. Arch.’)

925. Detail of S. Pablo. (From ‘Mon. Arch.’)

926. Church at Roda. (From Parcerisa.)

It is difficult to distinguish between the buildings existing in Catalonia and on the southern side of the Pyrenees, and those which prevailed in thesouthern Aquitanian province. The church at Roda, for instance (Woodcut No.926), might as well have been found at Alet (Woodcuts Nos.549,550) or Elne (Woodcuts Nos.560,561). It presents a complete Gothic style, rich and elegant in its details, but the parts badly fused together, and not well proportioned either to each other or to the work they have to do. Still the combinations are so picturesque, and the details so elegant, that it is not without regret that we find the style of Alet and Roda passing away into something more mechanically perfect, but without their quasi-classical refinement.

927. Panteon of St. Isidoro, Leon. (From Parcerisa.)

Towards the other extremity of the architectural province we find in the Panteon of the church of San Isidoro at Leon (A.D.1063) a contemporary example, exhibiting a marked difference of style. At the time when this and the church at Roda were erected, Catalonia belonged architecturally to Aquitaine, and Leon to Anjou, or some more completely Gothicised province of France. In consequence, we find the style at Leon much more complete in principle, but very much ruder in detail. The eastern province was in the hands of a Latin people; the inhabitants of the western must have been far more essentially Gothic in blood, and their style is strongly marked with the impress of their race.

Early Spanish Gothic.

After three centuries of more or less complete supremacy over the whole of Spain with the exception of the northern mountain fastnesses, the tide of fortune at length turned against the Moors. During the course of the 11th century the Castilles and all to the north of them were freed for ever from their power. Their favourite capital, Toledo, fell into the hands of the Christians in 1085, and from that time the Christians had nothing to fear from the Moors, but on the contrary had the prospect of recovering the whole of their country from their grasp. It was consequently a period of great and legitimate exultation, greater than that which followed the fall of the last stronghold of the infidels before the conquering arms of Ferdinand and Isabella (A.D.1492)—an event that ended the drama of the Middle Ages in Spain, which the conquest of Toledo had commenced. It is between these two events that the history of Gothic art in Spain is practically included.

928. Plan of Santiago di Compostella. (Reduced from Street.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

For present purposes it may suffice to divide this history into three great chapters.

1. Early Spanish Gothic, commencing about 1060, and lasting for two centuries. A plain and simple, but bold and effective style, first borrowed from the French, but latterly assuming a local character. Round-arched when first introduced, but adopting the pointed form in its later development, though still retaining the rounded form in many of its details till a very late period of the style.

929. Santiago Cathedral. Interior of South Transept, looking North-East. (From Street.)

2. Middle or perfect Pointed Gothic, introduced from France about the year 1220, when Amiens and Salisbury were founded; and used in the plans of Toledo, Burgos, and Leon. It consequently overlaps the other to some extent, though its actual development as we now see it (except in plans) must probably date from the latter part of the 13th century. It may be said to have lasted for more than200 years, though it is extremely difficult to draw a line between it and the

3rd period, or Late Gothic style, the duration of which was probably hardly more than one century. The cathedral at Salamanca was founded 1513, and that at Segovia 1525; and these are the two typical examples of the style, which in minor examples continued to be practised till nearly the end of the 16th century, but latterly with a considerable admixture of Renaissance detail.

930. Interior of S. Isidoro, Leon. (From Street.)

One of the earliest examples of a complete cathedral in Spain is that of Compostella, commenced in 1078, and carried on vigorously from the foundation. As will be seen by the plan, it is a complete French cathedral in every respect, very nearly identical with that of St. Sernin at Toulouse (Woodcut No.572), possessing only three aisles instead of five in the nave, though otherwise very similar to it in arrangement and general dimensions.

Its internal structure is also that of the French cathedral, and forms an instructive point of comparison with our English examples of the same age. Up to the string-course above the triforium the Spanish, French, and English examples are much alike, except that the section of the piers in England is nearly double that of the others. Above this, at Toulouse and Compostella, there is a bold tunnel-vault with transverse ribs; at Ely, Norwich and Peterborough a clerestory with a flat wooden roof. These differences in the treatment of the upper part no doubt arose to some extent from the difference of latitude, sufficient light being attainable in the South without a clerestory, though the gloom of such a design could never be tolerated in Normandy, and much less in England.

931. Cathedral at Zamora. (From Villa Amil.)

What is most striking, however, at Compostella is the completeness of the style. The piers are not only judiciously proportioned to thework they have to perform, but are as perfect in their details as any of the contemporary churches in Auvergne; and though in what may be called a Doric style, this church is as complete in itself as any of the florid Corinthian Gothics that succeeded it.

The same may be said of the church of San Isidoro at Leon, which, though probably somewhat later—the church seems to have been completed about 1149—presents the same simple style in the same degree of well-understood completeness, all the lines running through without confusion, and every part well proportioned to the other. The foliation of the transept arch may be a peculiarity borrowed from the Moors, but, as used here, it is simple and appropriate, and perhaps betterthan a roll moulding, which would have been the mode of treatment on this side of the Pyrenees.

932. Collegiate Church at Toro. (From Villa Amil.)

The interior of Zamora Cathedral, which seems to have been erected about the year 1174, though wholly in the pointed-arch style, is as plain and as little ornamented as that last described. Even the interior of the dome is plain when compared with its exterior, which is varied in outline and rich in decoration, like most of those of that age in Spain. As in the façade, the round arch is employed in thecimborio almost to the exclusion of the pointed arch as a decorative feature, though in the lower part of the façade and under the dome all the arches are pointed.

It is possible that these interiors, which now look so plain, were, or were intended to be, plastered and painted; though, had the intention been carried out, it is hardly probable but that traces of this mode of decoration would have remained to this day, which does not seem to be the case. Still it is difficult to understand why they should have designed a façade so rich as that of Zamora Cathedral (Woodcut No.931), if it were to lead to an interior infinitely plainer than the exterior would lead one to expect. In all the countries of Europe during the Romanesque period the external doorways were the features on which the architects lavished all their art, and Spain was certainly not behind the others in this respect. That at Zamora is excelled in richness by that at Toro (Woodcut No.932), though the rest of the façade is not so well worked up to its key-note as in the last example. Among a hundred, one of those at Lérida (Woodcut No.933), borrowed from Mr. Street’s work, will illustrate their beauty, and seems to force on us the conviction that so much labour would not have been bestowed on them if they were not intended to herald a greater richness within.

933. Lérida Old Cathedral. Door of South Porch. (From Street.)

In this last example, the doorway has been covered by a porch of 14th or 15th century work; but occasionally the Spaniards seem to have attempted a porch on the scale of Peterborough, as in the church of San Vincente at Avila (Woodcut No.934). In this instance we have only one arch between two flanking towers; but, though limited in extent, it forms a very noble feature, and gives a dignity to the entrance, too often wanting in Gothic design. Its date is uncertain—probably the end of the 12th century—but, strange as it may appear,the richly carved doorway within, though round-arched, seems to be an insertion either of the same age, or subsequent to the pointed-arch architecture which surrounds it.

934. San Vincente, Avila. Interior of Western Porch. (From Street.)

935. Exterior of Lantern, Salamanca Old Cathedral. (From Street.)

Beautiful as are these details, the great feature of the Early Spanish style is the cimborio, or dome, which generally occurs at the intersection of the nave with the transepts. Something very similar is to be found in France, especially in Auvergne and Anjou; but the Spaniards seized upon it with avidity, and worked it out more completely than anyother nation; and with their wide naves it afterwards assumed an importance almost equal to the octagon at Ely. One of the most perfect examples in the early style is that which crowns the old cathedral at Salamanca (Woodcut No.935), and dates about 1200. As will be observed from the view of the exterior, every detail belongs tothe round-arched style, and in France would certainly be quoted as belonging to that date, or earlier; but when we turn to the interior (Woodcut No.936), we find that the whole substructure is of pointed architecture. True it is the old simple Early Spanish style, yet still such as rather to upset our ideas of architectural chronology in this respect. The internal diameter of the dome is only 28 ft.; yet it is a most effective feature both internally and externally, and gives great dignity to what otherwise would be a very plain building.

936. Section of Cimborio at Salamanca. (From ‘Mon. Arch. d’Espana.’) No scale.

Without going beyond the limits of the style, the dome at Tarragona (Woodcut No.938) illustrates the form usually taken by Gothic domes when resting on square bases. There is a little awkwardness in the form of the pendentives, which do not fit the main arches below them, though at that age the Spaniards might have learned from the Saracens how to manage this feature. At Salamanca the mode in which the square base was worked up into a circle was by pendentives of Byzantine form, the courses of masonry simply projecting beyond one another till the transition was effected, but without that accentuation which was thought so essential in Gothic art. Above the pendentives, however, at Tarragona, the form of the dome is perfect. The windows are alternately of three and four lights, and the whole is fitted together with exquisite propriety and taste.

937. St. Millan, Segovia. (From Gailhabaud.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

Although borrowing their style in the first instance immediately from the French, the Spaniards developed it with such a variety of plans and details, as might have made it a style of their own but for the fresh importation of French designs in the beginning of the 13th century. Before these came in, however, they had very frequently intheir churches adopted a form of external portico which was singularly suited to the climate and produced very original and pleasing effects. In the annexed plan of St. Millan at Segovia (Woodcut No.937), they form fourth and fifth aisles, opening externally instead of internally; these, with the windows over them and the shadow they afford, break up the monotony of the sides of the church most pleasingly.[135]Sometimes the aisles are carried round the church, so as to form a portico at the west end as well as at the sides. Sometimes they are on one sideor the other as the situation demands; but wherever used they are always pleasing and appropriate.

938. Tarragona Cathedral. View across Transepts. (From Street.)

The round form of church does not seem ever to have been a favourite in Spain. There are some examples, it is true, but they seem, like that at Segovia (Woodcut No.939), to have been built by the Templars in imitation of the church at Jerusalem, and used by them, and them only. The idea of a circular ceremonial church attached to a rectangular “ecclesia,” does not appear to have entered into Spanish arrangements. As before remarked, the sepulchres of the original people of Spain do not seem to have been sufficiently important to lead to any considerable development of this form in the Christian times.

939. Church of the Templars at Segovia. No scale.

While the early style described in the last chapter was gradually working itself into something original and national, its course was turned aside by a fresh importation of French designs in the beginning of the 13th century. Before the Germans had made up their minds by building the Cathedral of Cologne to surpass the grandest designs of the French architects, the Spaniards had already planned a cathedral on a scale larger than any attempted even in France. The great church at Toledo was commenced in 1227, seven years after Amiens and Salisbury cathedrals had been determined upon. The plan is certainly of that date; the present superstructure may rather be taken as representing the style of the end of the 13th century, though it does not seem to be known when the church was first consecrated.

The church which Toledo Cathedral most resembles in that plan is at Bourges (Woodcut No.640). The length is about the same, but the French example is only 130 ft. in width across the five aisles, while the Spanish church is 178 ft., so that its area is considerably in excess. Itis not easy to say what the area of Toledo Cathedral really was, as we cannot quite determine which of the excrescences belong to the original design; but we shall not probably be far wrong in estimating it as under 75,000 sq. ft. It is less therefore than Seville, Milan, or Cologne. It covers rather more ground than York Cathedral, but considerably exceeds Chartres (68,000 sq. ft.), or any of the French cathedrals.

940. Plan of Cathedral at Toledo. (From ‘Monumentos Arquitectoricos d’Espana.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The church at Toledo possesses the same defect in plan that we remarked on in describing that at Cologne: it is too short for its other dimensions. When the French architect at Bourges found himself in that difficulty he omitted the transepts, and so, to a great extent, restored the appearance of length. The architect at Toledo has not projected his transepts to the same extent as at Cologne, but they are still sufficiently prominent internally to make the church look short; but, on the other hand, by keeping his vault low, he has done much to restore the harmony of his design; and instead of the 150 ft. of Cologne, or the 125 of Bourges, even with his greater lateral extension, the height of the central vault is little over 100 ft. (105?). The next aisle is 60, the outer 35,—a proportion certainly more pleasing than Bourges, or any other five-aisled cathedral. So thoroughly French is the design, that there is no attempt at a cimborio or dome of any sort at theintersection of the nave and transepts; but, on the other hand, the arrangement of the choir is essentially Spanish, and the screen surrounding it among the most gorgeous in Spain, and one of the most beautiful parts of the cathedral.

941. View in the Choir of the Cathedral at Toledo. (From Villa Amil.)

The origin of the Spanish arrangement of the choir will be understood by referring to the plan of San Clemente at Rome (Woodcut No. 395). The higher clergy were in the early days of the Church accommodated on the bema in the presbytery. The singers, readers, &c., were in an enclosed choir in the nave. The place for the laity was around the choir outside. So long as the enclosing wall of the choir was kept as low as it was at Rome (about 3 ft.), this arrangement was unobjectionable: but when it came to be used as in Spain, it was singularly destructiveof internal effect. In France the stalls of the clergy were in the choir beyond the transept, and all to the eastward of the intersection was reserved for them, the nave being wholly appropriated to the laity. This was an intelligible and artistic arrangement of the space; but in Spain the stalls of the clergy were projected into the nave, blocking up the perspective in every direction, and destroying its usefulness as a congregational space, where the laity could assemble or be addressed by the bishop or clergy. Worse than this, it separated the clergy from the high altar and Capilla Mayor, in which it was situated, so that a railed gangway had to be kept open to allow them to pass to and fro.[136]When the Spaniards determined that this was the proper liturgical arrangement for a church, had they been an artistic people they would have invented an appropriate shell tocontain it; but to put such an arrangement into a French church was a mistake that nothing could redeem. Even the elaborate richness of the exterior of the choir at Toledo fails to reconcile us to it, though it is perhaps the richest specimen of its class in Europe, and betraying in certain parts of its ornamentation the influence of Moorish taste which still lingered in the soil in spite of persecution and every attempt to eradicate it.

942. Plan of Burgos Cathedral. (Reduced from Street’s.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

943. West Front of Burgos Cathedral. (From Chapuy, ‘Moyen-Âge Monumental.’)

The external appearance of this church is very much less beautiful than that of the interior. It is, however, so encumbered, that a good view of it can hardly be obtained, and what is seen has been so much altered as to have lost its original character. The north-western tower, in granite, of the façade is fine, though late (1428-1479) and hardly worthy of so grand a building. Its companion was terminated with an Italian dome in the last century, and both in height and design is quite incongruous with the rest.

944. Plan of Leon Cathedral. (Reduced from Street’s.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

If at Toledo we find a noble interior encased in an indifferent husk, the contrary is the case at Burgos. Although very much smaller, being only originally designed to be 90 ft. wide by about 310 ft. long, and all its dimensions reduced in proportion, still externally it is as picturesque and effective a design as can be found anywhere in Europe. The western façade (1442) is essentially a German design, originally consisting of three portals deeply recessed and richly sculptured, and still crowned with two spires of open work, and is exquisitely proportioned to the size of the building, though its details are open to criticism. It is well supported by the cimborio or dome at the intersection, though this is even later, having been erected to replace the old dome which fell in 1539, and seems not to have been completed till 1567. Beyond this again, to the extreme east, rises the chapel of the Connestabile, erected about 1487, and though this also is impure in detail, it is beautiful in outline, and groups pleasingly with the other features of the design. The effect of the interior is very much injured by the four great masses of masonry which were introduced as piers to support the cimborio when it was rebuilt; and which, with the “Coro” thrust as usual into the nave, greatly destroy the appearance of the building. On the other hand, the richness of the details of the Capilla Mayor and of the Connestabile chapel, together with the variety and elaborateness of the other chapels, make up aninterior so poetic and so picturesque, that the critic is disarmed, and must admit that Burgos merits the title of a romance in stone if any church does.

945. Bay of Choir, Leon Cathedral. (From Street.)

946. Compartment of Nave, Burgos Cathedral.

Leon is a third 13th-century church, the design of which seems certainly to have been imported from France. The exact date of its commencement is not known. Mr. Street thinks it about 1250-58, which seems very probable, and it may have been practically completed about 1305. Its dimensions are not unlike those of Burgos; but it has been very much less altered, and may be taken as the type of a 3-aisled basilica as imported into Spain in the 13th century. In the arrangement of the pier-arches (Woodcut No.945) it very much resembles Beauvais, and in the extent of the clerestory it is more essentiallyFrench than almost any other church in Spain. Burgos, on the contrary (Woodcut No.946), possesses features not to be found in France, such as the round-arched head to the triforium, and the rounded form of the clerestory intersecting vault. The tracery of the clerestory windows is also peculiar in such a situation, and altogether there is a Southern feeling about the whole design which we miss at Leon.

Oviedo is another example of the same class, and generally it may be said that the Spanish cathedrals which were commenced in the first half of the 13th century are all more or less distinctly French in design. But the Spaniards were again working themselves free from their masters, and towards the end of the century and during the next erected a class of churches with wide naves and widely spaced piers which were very unlike anything to be found in France; and, if they cannot be considered as original, their affinities must be looked for rather in Italy than to the north of the Pyrenees.

947. Plan of Cathedral at Barcelona. (Reduced from Street’s.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

Among these churches the most remarkable group is that still existing in Barcelona. That city seems during the 14th century to have had a season of great prosperity, when the cathedral and other churches were rebuilt on a scale of great magnificence, and with special reference to the convenience of the laity as contradistinguished from the liturgical wants of the clergy. The cathedral seems to have been commenced about 1298, and been tolerably far advanced in 1329. Its internal length is about 300 ft., its width, exclusive of the side chapels, about 85 ft., so that it is not a large church, but is remarkable for the lightness and wide spacing of its piers, and generally for the elegance of its details. Looked at from a purely æsthetic point of view, it has neither the grandeur nor solemnity of the older and more solid style; but gloom and grandeur are not necessary accompaniments of a city church, and where cheerfulness combined with elegance are considered appropriate, few examples more fully meet these conditions than this church. Considerable effect is obtained by the buttresses of the nave being originally designed, as was so frequently the case in the South of France, as internal features, and the windows being small arenot seen in the general perspective. This supplies the requisite appearance of strength, in which the central piers are rather deficient, while the repetition of the side chapels, two in each bay, gives that perspective which the wide spacing of the central supports fails to supply. Altogether the design seems very carefully studied, and the result is more satisfactory than in most Spanish churches.

The system which was introduced in this cathedral was carried a step further in Sta. Maria del Mar (1328-1383). There the central vault was made square and quadripartite, as was frequently the case in Italy; the vault of the aisles oblong, on exactly the contrary principle to that adopted in the North of Europe. Again, however, the equilibrium is to some extent restored by each bay containing three side chapels, though the effect would have been better if these had been deeper and more important. Such a design is inappropriate when a choir is necessarily introduced to separate the clergy from the laity, but for a congregational church it is superior to most other designs of the Middle Ages.

A third church, Sta. Maria del Pi (1329-1353), carries this principle one step farther—this time, however, evidently borrowed from such churches as those of Alby (Woodcut No.568) or Toulouse (Woodcut No.569). It has been carried out with the utmost simplicity. The clear internal length is nearly 200 ft., the clear width upwards of 50 ft. Such a church would easily contain 2000 worshippers seated where all could see and hear all that was going on. Though it may be deficient in some of those poetic elements which charm so much in our Northern churches, there is a simple grandeur in the design which compensates for the loss.

948. Sta. Maria del Mar, Barcelona. (From Street.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

949. Sta. Maria del Pi, Barcelona. (From Street.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The church (Woodcut No.950) at Manresa is very similar in design so Sta. Maria del Mar, only carried a step farther, and in the wrong direction. From wall to wall it is 100 ft. wide, and 200 ft. long, and is thus so comparatively short that we miss the perspective which is the great charm in Northern cathedrals. Still if it were not that the central aisle is blocked up by the choir, as is usual in Spain, it would be a very noble church. Its central aisle, which possesses aclear width of 56 ft., would be a very noble place of assembly for a congregation. There is, at the same time, a simplicity and propriety about its details and the arrangement of its apse which have seldom been surpassed, while at the same time, they are characteristic of Spain.

950. Interior of Collegiate Church, Manresa. (From Street.)

The Spaniards having once grasped the idea of these spacious vaulted halls, and found out the means of constructing them, they carried the principle far beyond anything on this side of the Pyrenees.Their most successful effort in this direction was at Gerona. The choir of a church of the usual French pattern had been erected there in the beginning of the 14th century (1312?), but it had remained unfinished till 1416, when after much consultation it was determined to carry out the design of a certain Guillermo Boffiy, who proposed to add a nave without pillars, of the same breadth as the centre and side aisles of the choir. As will be seen from the plan, it consists of a hall practically of two squares, the clear width being 73 ft., the length 160 ft. Considering that 40 ft. is about the normal width of the naves of the largest French and English cathedrals, such a span is gigantic, though with the internal buttresses of the side chapels it presented no great difficulty of construction. Indeed, when we remember that in their vaulted halls the Romans had adopted 83 ft. (vol. i. p. 331) as the normal span of their intersecting vaults, it is not its novelty or mechanical boldness that should surprise us so much as its appropriateness for Christian worship. As might be expected, there is a little awkwardness in the junction of the two designs. It is easy to see what an opportunity the eastern end of the great nave offered to a true artist, and how a Northern architect would have availed himself of it, and by canopies and statues or painting have made it a masterpiece of decoration. It is too much to expect this in Spain; but it probably was originally painted, or at least intended to be. Otherwise it is almost impossible to understand the absence of string-courses or architectural framings throughout. But, even as it stands, the church at Gerona must be looked upon as one of the most successful designs of the Middle Ages, and one of the most original in Spain.

951. Plan of Cathedral at Gerona. (Reduced from Street’s to 100 ft. to 1 in.)

The cimborio had somewhat gone out of fashion in the North of Spain in the 15th century, and with these very wide naves had become not only difficult to construct, but somewhat inappropriate.

Still there are examples, such as that at Valencia (Woodcut No.953), which, externally at least, are very noble objects. The church at Valencia seems to have been erected in 1404, and probably it was originally intended to have added a spire or external roof of some sort to the octagon. So completed, the tower would have been a noble central feature to any church, though hardly so perfect in design as that of the old cathedral at Salamanca (Woodcut No.935).

952. Interior of Cathedral at Gerona, looking East. (From Street.)

953. Cimborio of Cathedral at Valencia. (From Chapuy.)

Of about the same age (1401) is the great cathedral of Seville, the largest and in some respects the grandest of Mediæval cathedrals. Its plan can, however, hardly be said to be Gothic, as it was erected on the site of the Mosque which was cleared away to make room for it, and was of exactly the same dimensions in plan (Woodcut No.954). It consists of a parallelogram 415 ft. by 298, exclusive of the sepulchral chapel behind the altar, which is a cinque-cento addition. It thus covers about 124,000 sq. ft. of ground, more than a third in excess ofthe cathedral at Toledo (75,000), and more than Milan (108,000 sq. ft.), which, next to Seville, is the largest of Mediæval creations. The central aisle is 56 ft. wide from centre to centre of the columns, the side-aisles 40 ft., in the exact proportion of 7 to 10, or of the side of an isosceles right-angled triangle to the hypothenuse. As will be explained hereafter, this is the proportion arrived at from the introduction of an octagonal dome in the centre of the building, though it may have arisen here from the existence of an octagonal court in the centre of the mosque; but, be that as it may, it is a far more agreeable proportion than the double dimensions generally adopted by Gothic architects, and probably the most pleasing that has yet been hit upon.Unfortunately no section of the cathedral has been published, but the nave is said to be 145 ft. in height, and the side-aisles seem to be in as pleasing proportion to it in height as they are in plan, so that, though different from the usually received notions of what a Gothic design should be, it is an invention that should well bear to have been further followed out. Perhaps it might have been, had it not come so late. The cathedral was only finished about 1520, when St. Peter’s at Rome was well advanced.

954. Plan of Cathedral at Seville. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The architect of this noble building is not known, but he was probably a German acting under Spanish inspiration, as at Milan we find a German carrying out an Italian design with just that admixture of foreign feeling which seems to prevail at Seville. When, however, we consider what was done at Barcelona so shortly before, or at Segoviaso soon afterwards, we need hardly be surprised if a Spanish architect really built this cathedral also. Those features which to us have a foreign aspect may really be peculiarities forced upon him by having to suit his church to the lines of a mosque, and there may be forms in Andalusian architecture derived from Moorish examples with which we are not so familiar as with those which the Northern provinces derived from France. But, be this as it may, Spain may well feel pride in possessing a cathedral which is certainly the largest of those of the Middle Ages, as well as far more original in design than Toledo or any that were built under French influence. These remarks apply only to the interior. Externally it never was completed, and those parts which are finished were erected so late in the style that their details are far from pleasing in form or constructively appropriate.

The last stage of Spanish Gothic was not less remarkable than those which preceded it, and perhaps more original. At the time when other Continental nations were turning their attention to the introduction of the classical styles, Spain still clung to the old traditions, and actually commenced Gothic cathedrals in the 16th century. A new cathedral was designed in the year 1513, for Salamanca, to supersede the old one; and another very similar both in dimensions and style was commenced at Segovia in 1523.[137]Both these churches are practically five-aisled, but as they have three free aisles and two ranges of chapels between the internal buttresses, making a total internal width of 160 ft., with an internal length of twice that dimension, no fault is to be found with their internal proportions. But their details want that purity and subordination so characteristic of the earlier styles.

Their great peculiarity, however, consists in the extreme richness and elaboration of their vaults. In this respect they more resemble St. Jacques, Liège (Woodcut No.681), and some of the late German churches, than anything to be found nearer home. But, wherever derived from, the practice of thus ornamenting the vaults at this late date contrasts singularly with what was done in earlier stages of the style.

One of the defects of Spanish architecture, after the earliest examples in the round-arched forms, is the poverty of its vaults. Generally they are like those of the French; but owing to the vast extent they attained at Gerona, Manresa, and elsewhere, the one leanrib in the centre and the absence of any ridge-rib make themselves more painfully felt than even in the French examples. When in the 16th century the architects tried to obviate this defect, it was not done as in England by constructive lines representing the arches, but by waving curved lines spread capriciously over the vault, which was thus certainly enriched, but can hardly be said to have been adorned.

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