Moresco Style.

955. Plan of Cathedral at Segovia. (Reduced from Street.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

In one or two instances, the late Gothic architects aimed at the introduction of new principles, not perhaps in the best taste, but still so striking as to merit attention. In the church at Villena (1498-1511), for instance, all the columns are ornamented with spiral flutings so boldly executed as to be very effective; and as this spiral ornament is consistently carried throughout the design, and the parts are sufficiently massive not to look weakened in consequence, the whole design must be admitted to be both pleasing and original.

956. Section of Church at Villena. (From ‘Mon. Arch. d’Espana.’) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

The exteriors of these 16th century churches have a much more modern look than their interiors. From the buttresses being internal, the external walls are perfectly flat, generally terminating upwards by a cornice more or less classical in design. The windows are frequently without tracery, and are ornamented with balconies, and Renaissance ornaments are often intermixed with those of Gothic form in a manner more picturesque than constructive. At times, however, they exhibit such a gorgeousexuberance of fancy that it is impossible to avoid admiring, though we feel at the same time that it would be heresy to the principles of correct criticism to say that such a style was legitimate.

Among the minor examples of the age, perhaps the most remarkable is the church or chapel of San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo, built by Ferdinand and Isabella as a sepulchral chapel for themselves, though not used for that purpose. It is thus the exact counterpart of our Henry VII.’s Chapel, and of the church at Brou in Bresse. As its founders were at the time of its erection among the richest and most prosperous sovereigns in Europe, all that wealth could do was lavished on its ornamentation. It is as rich as our example, and richer than the French one. But, on the whole, the palm must be awarded the English architect. There is more constructive skill, and the construction is better expressed, at Westminster, than either at Toledo or Brou; though it is difficult not to feel that the money in all these cases might have been better expended on a larger and purer style of art.

Some parts of the church of San Miguel at Xeres exceed even this in richness and elaborateness of ornament, and surpass anything found in Northern cathedrals, unless it be the tabernacle-work of some tombs, or the screens of some chapels. In these it is always applied to small and merely ornamental parts. In Spain it is frequently spread over a whole church, and thus, what in a mere subordinate detail would be beautiful, on such a scale becomes fatiguing, and is decidedly in very bad taste.

It would be tedious to attempt to enumerate or describe the other cathedrals of Spain, or the numerous conventual or collegiate churches, many of which are still in use, with their cloisters and conventual buildings nearly complete. In this respect Spain is nearly as rich as France; while she possesses, in proportion to her population, a larger number of important parochial churches than that country, though inferior in that respect to England. The laity seem during the Middle Ages to have been of more importance in the Spanish Church than they were north of the Pyrenees, and the tendency of the architecture therefore was to provide for their accommodation. If, however, any such feeling then existed, it was carefully stamped out by the Inquisition after the fall of Granada. It would be interesting, however, to trace it back, and try to ascertain the cause whence it arose. Was it that the Aryan blood of the Goths was then more prevalent, and that the Iberian race has since become more dominant? Whatever the cause, it is one of those problems on which architecture may hope to throw some light, and to which, consequently, it is most desirable that the attention of architects should be turned.

Moresco Style.

While Gothic churches were being erected under French influence in the north and centre of Spain, another style was developing itself under Moorish influence in the south, which in the hands of a more artistic people than the Spaniards might have become as beautiful as any other in Europe. It failed, however, to attain anything like completeness, primarily because the Spaniards were incapable of elaborating any artistic forms, but also perhaps because the two races came to hate one another, and the dominant people to abhor whatever belonged to those they were so cruelly persecuting.

If we knew more of the ethnic relations of the Moors, who conquered Spain in the 8th century, we might perhaps be able to predicate whether it were possible for such dissimilar parents to produce a fertile hybrid. It seems certain, however, that the Moors did not belong to any Turanian race, or traces of their tombs would be found; but none such exist. Nor did they belong to any of the great building races, for during the whole of their sojourn in Spain they showed no constructive ability, no skill in arrangement of plans, and no desire for architectural magnificence. But they were a rich, luxurious, and refined people possessing an innate knowledge of colour and an exquisite perception of the beauty of form and detail. They were, in fact, among the most perfect ornamentalists we are acquainted with, but they were not architects. Had the inhabitants of Toledo from the 11th century been French, or any Celtic race, the combination of their constructive skill with the taste in detail of the Moors could hardly have failed to produce the happiest results. As it was, after a few feeble efforts the style died out, but not without leaving some very remarkable specimens of architectural art, though on a small scale. They were also only in perishable plaster, which, though well suited to the style of the Moors, is a material which no architectural people ever would have employed.

957. Sta. Maria la Bianca. (From ‘Mon. Arch.’) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

As might be expected, the principal examples of this style are to be found in or about Toledo, but specimens exist in almost every province of Spain up to the very roots of the Pyrenees, and its influence is often felt in the extreme richness of ornamentation into which the architects of Spain were often betrayed, even when expressing themselves in Gothic or Renaissance details.

958. Sta. Maria la Bianca. (From Villa Amil.)

Among the examples at Toledo the two best interiors seem to be the church of Sta. Maria la Bianca and that of Nuestra Senora del Transito, both originally built as synagogues, though afterwards appropriated to Christian purposes. The first is said to have been erected in the 12th century, and was appropriated by the Christians in 1405. As will be seen by the plan, it is an irregular quadrangle, about 87 ft. by 65 ft. in width across the centre, and divided into five aisles by octagonal piers supporting horse-shoe arches. Above these now runs what may be called a blind clerestory, though it appears as if light were originally admitted through piercings in it. The objects are so dissimilar that it is difficult to institute a very distinct comparison between the synagogue and a contemporary Gothic church of the same dimensions; but it may safely be said that if the Northern style is grander in conception, this is far more elegant in detail: the essential difference lying in the fact that the Gothic style always had, or aimed at having, a vault, and consequently forced the architects to work and think—the very difficulty of the task being thus the cause of its success. The Saracens in Spain, on the contrary,never attempted either a vault or a dome, but were always content with an easily constructed wooden roof, calling for no ingenuity to design, and no thought how to convert its mechanical exigences into artistic beauties. The Moorish architects could play with their style, and consequently produced fascinating elegances of detail; the Gothic architects, on the contrary, were forced to work like men, and their result appeals to our higher intellectual wants; though in doing so they frequently neglected the polish and lighter graces of style which are so pleasing in the semi-Asiatic art of the South of Spain.

The other synagogue—del Transito—we know was completed in 1366. It is merely a large room, of pleasing proportion, the walls of which are plain and solid up to about three-fourths of their height. Above this a clerestory admits the light in a manner singularly agreeable in a hot climate. The roof is of wood, of the form calledArtesinadoin Spain, from its being something in the form of an inverted trough—with coupled tie-beams across, so that, though elegant in detail it has no constructive merit, and the whole depends for its effect,[138]like all Moorish work in Spain, on its ornamental details.

959. Apse of St. Bartolomeo. (From ‘Mon. Arch.’) Scale 25 ft. to 1 in.

All the churches we know of in this style date within the period comprised between the fall of Toledo (1085) and that of Granada (1492). During that time the Moors were still sufficiently powerful to be respected and their art tolerated. After their expulsion from their last stronghold, fear being removed, bigotry became triumphant, and persecution followed, not only of the people and their religion, but of everything that recalled either to remembrance.

It is possible that some larger and more important churches than those we now find were erected during this period in this style; but if so, they have perished. One of the largest at Toledo, San Bartolomeo, has an apse (Woodcut No.959) little more than 30 ft. across over all, and others, such as Santa Fé, Santa Leocadia, San Eugenio, or SantaIsabel, are all smaller, St. Ursula alone being of about the same dimensions with St. Bartolomeo. The decoration of the apse of the latter will afford a fair idea of the style of detail adopted in these churches. For brick architecture it is singularly appropriate. It admits of more or less light, as may be required. It is crowned by a cornice of pleasing profile, and the whole is simpler and better than the many-buttressed and pinnacled apses of the Gothic architects.

A more picturesque example, though not so pure as that last quoted, is found in the little chapel of Humanejos in Estremadura (Woodcut No.960). As will be observed from the woodcut, there is some 13th-century tracery in its windows, thus revealing its date as well as betraying its origin, and but for which it might almost be mistaken for an example of pure Saracenic architecture.

960. Chapel at Humanejos. (From Villa Amil.)

This is even more the case in a beautiful chapel in the monastery of the Huelgas, near Burgos, which, were it not for some Gothic foliage of the 14th century, introduced where it can hardly be observed, might easily pass for a fragment of the Alhambra. The same is true of many parts of the churches at Seville. That of La Feria, for instance, and the apse of the church of the Dominicans at Calatayud, are purely in this style, and most beautiful and elaborate specimens of their class.

Very pleasing examples of the adaptation of Moorish art to Christian purposes are to be found in various churches throughout Spain.That of St. Roman at Toledo[139]is a very pleasing and pure example of the style, but neither so picturesque nor so characteristic as that at Ilescas (Woodcut No.961), not far from Madrid, which, though differing essentially from any Gothic steeple, is still in every part appropriately designed, and, notwithstanding its strongly marked horizontal lines, by no means deficient in that aspiring character so admirable in Gothic steeples.

961. Tower at Ilescas. (From Villa Amil.)

Another remarkable example is the tower and roof of the church of St. Paul, Saragoza. It is so unlike anything else in Europe, that it might pass for a church in the Crimea or the steppes of Tartary. Asif to add to its foreign aspect, the tiles of the roof are coloured and glazed, thus rendering the contrast with Gothic art stronger than even that presented in the details and forms of the architecture.

The Church of St. Thomé at Toledo has a tower so perfectly Moorish in all its details, that but for its form it might as well be classed among the specimens of Moorish as of Mozarabic architecture. Throughout Spain there are many of the same class, which were undoubtedly erected by the Christians. Both in this country and in Sicily it is never safe to assume that because the style of a building is Moorish, even purely so, the structure must belong to the time when the Moors possessed the country, or to a happy interval, if any such existed, when a more than usually tolerant reign permitted them to erect edifices for themselves under the rule of their Christian conquerors.

962. St. Paul, Saragoza. (From Villa Amil.)

Sometimes we find Moorish details mixed up with those of Gothic architecture in a manner elsewhere unknown, as for instance in the doorway, in Woodcut No.963, from the house of the Ablala at Valencia. The woodwork is of purely Moorish design, the stonework of the bad unconstructive Gothic of the late Spanish architects, altogether making up a combination more picturesque than beautiful, at least in an architectural point of view.

963. Doorway from Valencia. (From Chapuy.)

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