CATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA. From the Plaza.Photo by J. Lacoste, MadridCATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA.From the Plaza.
Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
CATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA.From the Plaza.
In 1525 Segovia was fairly started. House after house that impeded the progress of the work was destroyed, until up to a hundred of them had been razed. Santa Clara was kept for the services until the very last moment, when a sufficient portion of the new building was ready for their proper celebration.
It was unusual to start with the western end, the apse and its surrounding arches being the portion necessary for services. In Segovia, however, as well as in the new Salamancan Cathedral, the great western front was the earliest to rise. Gil did not live to finish it, but it is evident that, as long as he directed, the work drew the attention of the entire artistic fraternity of the Peninsula. We find constant mention in old documents of the visits and the praise of illustrious architects, among them Alfonso de Covarrubias, Juan de Alava, Enrique de Egas, and Felipe de Borgoña. Gil's clerk-of-the-works, Cubillas, succeeded him as "maestro," and under him the western front with its tower, the cloisters, and the nave and aisles as far as the crossing, were virtually completed by 1558. Aside from the manual labor, "it had taken more than forty-eight collections of maravedis" to bring it to this point. The magnificent old cloisters erected by Bishop Davila beside the old Cathedral in 1470, had been spared the fury of the mob, and in 1524 they were moved stone by stone to the southern flank of the new Cathedral. This would have been a remarkable{178}feat of masonry in our age, and, for the sixteenth century, it was astonishing. Not a stone was chipped nor a piece of carving broken. Juan de Compero took the whole fabric apart and put it together again, as a child does a box of wooden blocks.
The 15th of August, 1558, when the first services were held in the Cathedral, was the greatest day in Segovia's history. Quadrado, probably quoting from old accounts, tells us, "The divine services were then held in the new Temple. People came to the festival from all over Spain, and music, from all Castile. At twilight on August 14th, 1558, the tower was illuminated with fire-works, the great aqueduct, with two thousand colored lights, and the reflection of the city's lights alarmed the country-side for forty leagues round. The following day, the Assumption of Our Lady, there was an astonishing procession, in which all the parishes took part and the community offered prizes for the best display. The procession went out by the gate of Saint Juan, and, after going all around the city, returned to the plaza, where the sacrament was being borne out of Santa Clara. There was a bull-fight, pole-climbing, a poetical competition and comedies. The generosity of the donations corresponded to the pomp of the occasion. Ten days afterwards the bones were taken from the old church and reinterred in the new one, among which were those of the Infante Don Pedro, Maria del Salto, and different prelates."
The bones of the two former were laid to rest under the arches of the cloister. Don Pedro was a little son of King Henry II who had been playing on one of the iron balconies in front of the Alcazar windows, and, while his nurse's back was turned, pitched headlong{179}over the precipice into eternity and the poplar trees three hundred feet below. The nurse, who knew full well it would be a question of only a few hours before she followed her princely charge, anticipated her fate and jumped after him. Maria del Salto ("of the leap") was a beautiful Jewess who, having been taken in sin, was forced to jump from another of Segovia's steep promontories. Bethinking herself of the Virgin Mary as a last resource, she invoked her assistance while in mid-air, and the blessed saint immediately responded, causing the Jewess to alight gently and unharmed. It was naturally a great pious satisfaction to the Segovians to carry to the new edifice such cherished bones.
With services in the church, the building was well under way. Juan Gil's son, Rodrigo Gil, had worked on Salamanca as well as very ably assisted Cubillas. Upon the latter's death, in 1560, Rodrigo became maestro mayor. Three years later, when the corner stone of the apse was laid, the Chapter seems to have seriously discussed the advisability of finally deviating from the original Gothic plans and building a Renaissance head. It was, however, left to Rodrigo, who loyally adhered to his father's original designs, and when he died in 1577, there was fortunately but little left to do. Indeed, most of what followed in construction, repair or decoration was rather to the detriment than embellishment of the church. It was consecrated in 1580. Chapels were added to the trasaltar by Rodrigo's successor, Martin Ruiz de Chartudi; the lantern above the crossing was raised by Juan de Mogaguren in 1615; five years later, the northern porch was erected and Renaissance features invaded{180}the edifice. Like most Spanish churches, it has been constantly worked upon and never completed.
The plan is admirable,—at once dignified and harmonious, and the semicircular Romanesque termination is striking. The total length is some 340 feet, its entire width, some 156; the nave is 43 and the side aisles are 32 feet wide. It is thus logical, symmetrical, and fully developed in all its members. Beyond the side aisles stretches a row of chapels separated from each other by transverse walls. As the transepts, which are of the same width as the nave, do not project beyond the chapels of its outer aisles, the Latin cross disappears in plan. The nave, aisles and chapels consist of five bays up to the crossing crowned by the great dome. Beyond this comes the vault of the Capilla Mayor and the semicircular apse surrounded by a seven-bayed ambulatory, or "girola," and an equal number of radiating pentagonal chapels. The chevet is clear in arrangement and noble in expression. Entrances lead logically into the nave and side aisles of the western front and into the centres of the northern and southern transepts, while cloisters which abut to the south are entered through the fifth chapel. When Segovia was built, Spaniards were thoroughly reconciled to the idea of placing the choir west of the crossing and the Capilla Mayor east, and consequently the latter was designed no larger than was requisite for its offices, and a space was frankly screened off between it and the choir for the use of the officiating clergy. The third and fourth bays of the nave contained the choir.
As one enters the church, there is a consciousness of joy and order. The stone surfaces are just sufficiently{181}warmed and mellowed by the glorious light from above. The piers are very massive and semicircular in plan; the foliage at their heads underneath the vaulting is so delicate and unpronounced that it scarcely counts as capitals. The walls of the chapels in the outer aisles, as well as round the ambulatory, are penetrated by narrow, round-headed windows, as timid and attenuated as those of an early Romanesque edifice; the walls of the inner aisle, by triple, lancet windows; and the clerestory of the nave, by triple, round-headed ones. Under them, in the apse, is a second row of round-headed blind windows. None of them have any tracery whatever. The glass is of great brilliancy of coloring and exceptional beauty, but the designs are as poor as the glazing is glorious. In the smaller windows, the subjects represent events in the Old Testament; in the larger, scenes from the New. Around the apse much of the old, stained glass has been shamefully replaced by white, so as to admit more light into this portion of the building.
There is no triforium, but a finely carved late Gothic balcony runs around the nave and transepts below the clerestory. In the transepts, this is surmounted by a second one underneath the small roses which penetrate their upper wall surfaces. Both nave and side aisles are lofty, the vaulting rising in the former to a height of about 100 feet and, in the latter, to 80 feet, while the cupola soars 330 feet above. The vaulting itself is most elaborate and developed. While the early Gothic edifices have only the requisite functional transverse, diagonal and wall ribs, we now find every vault covered with intermediate ones of most intricate designs. Especially over the Capilla{182}Mayor in its ambulatory chapels and around the lantern, this ornamentation becomes profuse,—everywhere ribs are met by bosses and roses. The general effect of the endless cutting up of the vaults into numberless compartments by the complicated system of lierne ribs is one of restlessness. One misses the logical simplicity of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and is reminded of the decadent surfacing of late German work and the ogee, lierne ribs of some of the late English, in which the true ridges can no longer be distinguished from the false.
Looking up into the dome over the crossing, we see that the pendentives do not rise directly above the four arches, but spring some fifteen feet higher up above a Gothic balustrade which is surmounted by elliptical arches pierced by circular windows. The dome, disembarrassed of the ribs which still cling to some of its predecessors, is finely shaped,—a thorough Renaissance piece of work. Light streams down through the bull's eye under the lantern.
There is considerable difference in the design as well as workmanship of the many rejas. Tremendous iron rails, surely not as fine as those of Seville, Granada, or Toledo, but still very remarkable, close the three sides of the Capilla Mayor and the front of the choir. The emblematical lilies of the Cathedral rise in rows one beside the other, as one sees them in a florist's Easter windows. Rejas close off similarly all the outer chapels from the side aisles.
Among the very few portions of the old Cathedral which remained intact after the fury of the Comunidades, were the choir stalls and an exquisite door. The former were placed in the new choir and the latter{183}became an entrance to the transplanted cloisters. It was indeed fortunate that these stalls were spared, for they are among the most exquisite in Spain and excelled by few in either France or Germany.
Wood-carving had long been a favorite art in Spain, one in which the Spaniards learned to excel under the skillful tutelage of the great masters from Germany and Flanders. The foreign carvers settled principally in Burgos, where there grew up around them apprentices eager to fill the churches with statues, retablos, choir stalls, and organ screens executed in wood. The art of carving became highly honored. An early ordinance of Seville referring to wood-carving, masonry and building, esteems it "a noble art and self-contained, that increaseth the nobleness of the King and of his kingdom, that pacifieth the people and spreadeth love among mankind conducing to much good." In the numerous panels of cathedral choir stalls, there was a wonderful opportunity for relief work and the play of the fertile imagination and childlike expressiveness of the middle ages. Curious freaks of fancy, their extraordinary conceptions of Biblical scenes, the events and personages of their own day, could all be portrayed and even carved with wonderful skill. Leonard Williams, in his "Art and Crafts of Older Spain," tells us that "the silleria consists of two tiers, theselliaor upper seats with high backs and a canopy, intended for the canons, and the lower seats orsub-selliaof simpler pattern with lower backs, intended for thebeneficados. At the head of all is placed the throne, larger than the other stalls, and covered in many cases by a canopy surmounted by a tall spire."{184}
Few of the many Gothic stalls are finer than those of Segovia. The contrast with the work above them, as well as with that which backs onto them, is doubly distressing. The tremendous organs above are a mass of gilding and restless Baroque ornamentation, while their rear is covered by multicolored strips of stone which would have looked vulgar and gaudy around a Punch and Judy show and here enframe the four Evangelists. The chapels and high altar are uninteresting, decorated in later days in offensive taste. Apart from these furnishings, which play but a small part, it is rare and satisfying to survey an interior in which there has been so much decorative restraint, in which the constructive and architectural lines dominate the merely ornamental ones, and where harmony, severity and excellent proportions go hand in hand. Were it not for the cupola and a few minor details, there would be added to these merits, unity of style.
The cloisters are rich and flamboyant, but nevertheless more restrained than those of Salamanca. They are elaborately subdivided, carved and festooned, and, in the bosses of the arches, they carry the arms of their original builder, Bishop Arias Davila. Just inside their entrance lie three of the old architects, Rodrigo Gil de Hontañon, Campo Aguero, and Viadero. The old well in the centre is covered with a grapevine, and nothing could be lovelier than the deep emerald leaves dotted with purple fruit growing over the white and yellow stonework.
Few Spanish cathedrals can be seen to such advantage as Segovia, its situation is so unusual and fortunate. In mediæval towns closely packed within their city walls, there could be but little room or{185}breathing space either for palace or hovel, and the buildings adjacent to a cathedral generally nestled close to its sides. The plaza of Segovia is unusually large compared to the area of the little city. The clearing away of Santa Clara and San Miguel and all the smaller surrounding edifices condemned for the Cathedral site, left much room also in front of the western entrance for a fine broad platform as well as an unobstructed view from the opposite side of the square. Most of the flights of granite steps leading to it from the streets below are now closed by iron gates and overgrown with grass and weeds. The days of the great processions are past, when the various trades, led by their bands of musicians, filed up to deliver their offerings towards the construction, and the staircases are no longer thronged by devout Segovian citizens anxious to see the daily progress of the work. The platform is paved with innumerable granite slabs which in the old Cathedral covered the tombs of the city's illustrious citizens, whose names may still be easily deciphered.
Taken as a whole, the façade is bald and void of charm. It is neither good nor especially faulty, of a certain strength, but without interest or merit. It is logically subdivided by five pronounced buttresses marking the nave, side aisles and outer row of chapels. Their relative heights and the lines of their roofing are clearly defined. To the north, a rather insignificant turret terminates the façade, while to the south rises the lofty tower, three hundred and forty-five feet above the whole mountain of masonry, the most conspicuous landmark in the landscape of Segovia. It consists of a square base of sides thirty{186}-five feet wide, broken by six rows of twin arches; the first, the third and the sixth are open, the last is a belfry. The present dome curves from an octagonal Renaissance base, the transitional corners being filled with crocketed pyramids similar to the many crowning buttresses and piers at all angles of the church below. The dome and lantern are almost exact smaller counterparts of those crowning the crossing. They were put up by the same architect, Mogaguren, who certainly could not have been over-gifted with artistic imagination. The tower had varying fortunes,—much to the distress of the citizens, it has been twice struck by lightning. The wooden structure and lead covering were burned and melted by the fire which followed the first catastrophe, but fortunately it was soon put out by the rain which saved the Cathedral and city. After the second thunderbolt, in 1809, the surmounting cross was replaced by a lightning-rod.
The nave is entered by the Perdon portal, which, under a Gothic arch, is subdivided into two elliptical openings. Peculiarly late Gothic railings here, as elsewhere, crown the masonry and conceal the tiling of the sloping roofs.
Rounding the church to the south, we find the view obstructed by the cloisters and sacristy; only the façade of the transept, ascended from the lower ground by a flight of steps, remains visible. The southern doorway is quite denuded, and even its buttresses rise without as much as a corbel to soften their lines. When one has, however, dodged through the tortuous, narrow, malodorous streets and come out opposite the apse and northern flank, the whole bulk{187}of the logical organic body of the church becomes visible with its larger squat and higher lofty domes towering into the blue. To the same Renaissance period as the two domes belongs the classical portal of Pedro Brizuela, leading to the northern transept. The view from the northeast is particularly fine. Every portion of the structure is expressed by the exterior lines. One above the other rise chapels, ambulatory, apse, transepts and lanterns, each level crowned by its sparkling balustrade. The sky is jagged by the crocketed spires which terminate the flying buttresses, the piers and the angles of the wall surface. Here the Latin cross may be seen, and the sub-divisions of every portion of the interior. There is no deception nor trickery. It is simple and straightforward. Its artistic merits may be small, the forest of carved turrets rising all around the apse, tiresome, but this final impression of Spanish Gothic was thoroughly sincere.{188}{189}
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CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE The Giralda, from the Orange Tree CourtPhoto by J. Lacoste, MadridCATHEDRAL OF SEVILLEThe Giralda, from the Orange Tree Court
Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLEThe Giralda, from the Orange Tree Court
SEVILLEis ever youthful, for the blood which courses in her veins absorbs the sunlight. Venice is the city of dreamy love, Naples, of indolence, Rome, of everlasting age, but Seville keeps an eternal youth.
What picturesqueness, what color, what passion blend with memories of Andalusia!
All sunny land of love!When I forget you, may I failTo . . . say my prayers!
And Seville is the queen of Andalusia, of noble birth, proud and beautiful. Distinctly feminine in her subtle, indefinable charm, like a woman she changes with her surroundings, and her mutability adds to her fascination. We never fathom nor quite know her, for she is one being as she slumbers in the first chalky light of morning, another, in the resplendent nakedness of noontide, overarched by the indigo firmament, and yet another, in the happy laughter of evening when her mantle has turned purple and her throbbing life is more felt than seen. The roses, hyacinths and crocuses have closed in sleep, but the orange groves, the acacia, and eucalyptus, jasmine, lemon, and palm trees and hedges of box fill the air with heavy, aromatic perfume. To the exiled Moors she was so{192}sweet in all her moods that they said, "God in His justice, having denied to the Christians a heavenly paradise, has given them in exchange an earthly one." With the oriental languor of her ancestors, she keeps the freshness and sparkle of the dewy morn. She is as gay and full of youthful vitality as her Toledan sister is old and worn and haggard. While Toledo is sombre and funereal, Seville is alive with the tinkling of silver fountains, the strumming of guitars and mandolins, and the songs of her women. She lies rich and splendid on the bosom of the campagna, fruitfulness and plenty within her embattled walls. "She is a strange, sweet sorceress, a little wise perhaps, in whom love has degenerated into desire; but she offers her lovers sleep, and in her arms you will forget everything but the entrancing life of dreams."
Andalusia and Seville justly claim an ancient and royal pedigree, which through all the vicissitudes of centuries has still left its stamp upon them. Andalusia was the Tarshish of the Bible, whither Jonah rose to flee. Her commerce is spoken of in Jeremiah, Isaiah, the Psalms, and the Chronicles: "Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches, with silver, iron, tin, and lead they traded in thy fairs" (Ezekiel xxvii, 12).
In passing the Straits of Hercules, Seville and Ceuta alone caught Odysseus' eye:—
Tardy with ageWere I and my companions, when we cameTo the Strait pass, where Hercules ordain'dThe bound'ries not to be o'erstepp'd by man.The walls of Seville to my right I left,On th' other hand already Ceuta past.Inferno, xxvi. 106-110.
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The honor of founding the city of Seville seems to be shared by Hercules and Julius Cæsar. In the popular mind of the Sevillians, as well as through an unbroken chain of mediæval historians and ballad-makers, Hercules is called its father. Monuments throughout the city bear witness to its founders. On one of the gates recently demolished the inscription ran,—
Condidit Alcides, Renovavit Julius urbem.Restituit Christo Fernandus tertius heros.
The Latin verses were later paraphrased in the Castilian tongue over the Gate of Zeres:—
Hercules me edifico,Julio Cesar me cerco,de meno y torres altesy el rey santo me ganó,Con Garci Perez de Vargas.
"Hercules built me, Julius Cæsar surrounded me with walls and high towers, the Holy King conquered me by Garcia Perez de Vargas." Statues of the founder and protector still stand in various parts of the city.
In the second centuryB. C., the shipping of Seville made it one of the most important trade centres of the Mediterranean. Phœnicians and Greeks stopped here to barter. In 45B. C., Rome stretched forth her greedy hand, and Cæsar entered the town at the head of his victorious legion. Eighty-two years later the Romans formed the whole of southern Spain into the "Provincia Bætica." With its formation into a Roman colony, Seville's historical background begins to stand out clearly and its riches are sung by the ancients. "Fair art thou, Bætis," says Martial, "with thine olive crown and thy limpid waters, with the fleece stains of a brilliant gold." The whole province{194}contained what later became Sevilla, Huelva, Cadiz, Cordova, Jaen, Granada and Almeria. Seville, or Hispalis, became the capital and was accordingly fortified with walls and towers, garrisoned and supplied with water from aqueducts and adorned with Roman works of art. After the spread of Christianity during the later Emperors, Seville was important enough to be made the seat of a bishop.
With the fall of Rome, Hispalis was overrun by hordes of Goths and Vandals. They held possession of the country until they were conquered in 711 by the Moors, who, after crossing the strait between Africa and Europe, gradually spread northward through the Iberian peninsula. The Goths made Hispalis out of the Roman Hispalia, and the Arabians in their turn, unable to pronounce the p, formed the name into Ixbella, of which the Castilians made Seville.
To the Moors, Andalusia was the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. What was lacking, their genius and husbandry soon supplied. The land which they found uncultivated soon became a garden filled with exotic flowers and rich fruits, while they adorned its cities with the noblest monuments of their taste and intelligence. They divided their territory (el Andalus) into the four kingdoms of Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada, which still exist as territorial divisions. To-day the three latter contain only the ruins of a great past. Seville alone remains in many respects a perfectly Moorish city. Her courts, her squares, the streets and houses, the great palace and the tower are essentially Arabian and bear witness to the magnificence of her ancient masters.
KEY OF PLAN OF SEVILLE CATHEDRAL
{195}They had lost all the rest of Spain except Granada before Cordova and Jaen surrendered, and finally Seville fell into the hands of Ferdinand III of Castile in 1248, and its Christian period began. Three hundred thousand followers of the detested faith were banished from Seville, and slowly the power of the Catholic Church began to rise and the agricultural beauty and industry of the surrounding province to wane.
The city was divided into separate districts for the different races, the canals were dammed up, the water-works fell to pieces, the valley was left untilled, and fruit trees were unpruned and unwatered. Hides bleached in the sun and webs rotted on the looms, sixty thousand of which had woven beautiful silk fabrics in the palmy days of the Moors.
Ferdinand the Holy was a great king, of a saintliness and greatness still acknowledged by the soldiers of Seville. After eight centuries they still lower their colors as they march past the great shrine of the Third Ferdinand, in the church which he purged from Mohammedanism and dedicated to the worship of the Christians' God and the Holy Virgin.
After him, Seville became the theatre of momentous deeds and events that had a far-reaching influence on the history of the country. Into her lap was poured the riches of the New World; within her halls Queen Isabella laid the foundation of her united kingdom; from Seville came the intellectual stimulus that revived the arts and letters of the whole Peninsula. Here were born and labored Pedro Campaña, Alejo Fernandez, Luis de Vargas, the several Herreras, Francisco de Zurbaran, Alfonso Cano, Diego de Silva{196}Velasquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Miguel Florentino. The riches of the western world made of Seville a second Florence, where art found ready patrons, and literature, cultivated protectors. She rivaled the great schools of Italy and the Netherlands, but out of her secret council chambers came the Institution of the Holy Office, the scourge that withered the nation. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, forty-five thousand people were put to death in the archbishopric of Seville. Finally, under Philip II, Seville and her great church rose to stupendous wealth and power.
"When Philip II died, loyal Seville honored the departed king by a magnificent funeral service in the Cathedral. A tremendous monument was designed by Oviedo. On Nov. 25th, 1598, the mourning multitude flocked to the dim Cathedral while the people knelt upon the stones, and the solemn music floated through the air. There was a disturbance among a part of the congregation. A man was charged with deriding the imposing monument and creating disorder. He was a tax-gatherer and ex-soldier of the city named Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Some of the citizens took his side, for there was a feud between the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities in Seville. The brawler was expelled from the cathedral,—but he had his revenge. He composed a satirical poem upon the tomb of the King which was read everywhere in the city:—
To the Monument of the King of SevilleI vow to God I quake with surprise,Could I describe it, I would give a crown,And who, that gazes on it in the town{197}But starts aghast to see its wondrous size;Each part a million cost, I should devise:What pity 'tis, ere centuries have flown,Old time will mercilessly cast it down!Thou rival'st Rome, O Seville, in my eyes!I bet, the soul of him who's dead and blest,To dwell within this sumptuous monument,Has left the seats of sempiternal rest!A fellow tall, on deeds of valour bent,My exclamation heard. "Bravo," he cried,"Sir Soldier, what you say is true, I vow!And he who says the contrary has lied!"With that he pulls his hat upon his brow,Upon his sword-hilt he his hand doth lay,And frowns—and—nothing does, but walks away!"[16]
Far more ineffaccable even than the record left by Philip's life upon the history of Seville and Spain is that of this immortal soldier and scribbler, who "believed he had found something better to do than writing comedies."
The soft, sonorous syllables of Guadalquivir (from the Arabic Wad-el-Kebir, or The Great River) would picture to the imaginative eye a river far more poetic than the sluggish stream that loiters across the wide plain and fruitful valley until it pierces the amber girdle of crenelated walls and embattled towers which enclose the treasures of Seville. On its broad bosom have swept the barks and galleys of Phœnicia and Greece, of Roman, Goth, and Moor. On its shores Columbus lowered the sails of his caravel and presented Spain with a new world on Palm Sunday, 1493; Pizarro and Cortez here first embarked their greedy and daring adventurers; hither Pizarro returned with hoards of gold and silver treasures from Mexico and Peru, for the Council of the Indies restricted{198}all the trade of the colonies to the port of Seville. The valley through which the river descends is sheltered from the cold tablelands lying northward by the Sierra Moreña chain. Gray olive trees, waving pastures, and fields of grain cover its slopes. A soft, tempered wind whispers through the grassy meadows of La Tierra de Maria Santissima, and the atmosphere is so dry and clear that far away against the horizon objects stand out in clear silhouette. So vivid are the colors that the smoky olive groves, the orange and lemon-colored walls, the fir trees, the chalky white of the stucco, the fleshy, prickly leaves of the cacti, and the tall standards of the aloes seem photographed on the brain.
In a fair and fruitful land lies the city, and her spires pierce a smokeless, unspotted sky.
In the heart of the city, set down in the very centre of her life of song and laughter and childish simplicity, surrounded by crooked streets and great airy courts, in the widest sunlit square, lies her Cathedral.
The first impression made by a building is generally not only the most distinct but the truest. That produced by Seville's Cathedral is its immensity of scale.
Toledo la rica,Salamanca la fuerta,Leon la bella,Oviedo la sacra,Sevilla la grande,
runs the Spanish saying. The size is overpowering. Each of the four side aisles is nearly as broad and high as the nave of Westminster Abbey, while the arcades of Seville's nave have twice the span. To the{199}impressionable sensitiveness of Théophile Gautier it was like a mountain scooped out, a valley turned topsy-turvy. Notre Dame de Paris might walk erect under the frightful height of the middle nave; pillars as large as towers appear so slender that you catch your breath as you look up at the far-away, vaulted roof they support.
Here are the first impressions of two early Spanish writers. Cean Bermudez finds that, "seen from a certain distance, it resembles a high-pooped and beflagged ship, rising over the sea with harmonious grouping of sails, pennons, and banners, and with its mainmast towering over the mizzenmast, foremast, and bowsprit." Caveda is struck by "the general effect, which is truly majestic. The open-work parapets which crown the roofs; the graceful lanterns of the eight winding stairs that ascend in the corners to the vaults and galleries; the flying buttresses that spring lightly from aisle to nave, as the jets of a cascade from cliff to cliff; the slender pinnacles that cap them; the proportions of the arms of the transept and of the buttresses supporting the side walls; the large pointed windows to which they belong, rising over each other, the pointed portals and entrances,—all these combine in an almost miraculous effect, although they lack the wealth of detail, the airy grace, and the delicate elegance that characterize the cathedrals of Leon and Burgos."
Such are the varying impressions of ancient critics. To the student's question, "To what period of architecture does the Cathedral of Seville belong?" we must answer, "To no period, or rather to half a dozen." Authorities and writers will give completely{200}different information, and Seville has found more willing and loving chroniclers than any other of Spain's churches. Gallichan classes it as the "largest Gothic cathedral in the world," and Caveda calls it "a type of the finest Spanish Gothic architecture."
The interior of the main body of the church is pure, severe Gothic, the sacristy major, highly developed Renaissance; the main portions of the exterior are what might be termed for want of a better word "Spanish Renaissance—plateresco"; other details are Moorish, classical, late florid Gothic, rococo, and so forth. As if to add to the incongruity of the architectural hodge-podge, it is surrounded by shafts of old Roman columns as well as Byzantine pillars from the original mosque, sunk deep into the ground and connected with iron chains. The total impression to any student of architecture is one of outraged law and order, composition and unity. Recalling the carefully membered and distinctly developed plan of the great Gothic churches of France, the expressive exteriors of the huge Renaissance cathedrals of Italy, the satisfying perspective of English monastic temples, one feels the hopelessness of attempting a comparison between this huge, impressive undertaking and any accepted standards or schools. It is something so entirely different and apart, a mighty and unbridled effort which cannot be classified nor grouped with other churches, nor studied by methods of earlier architectural training. It is full of romance,—a building romantic as the Cid, a child of architectural fervor or even architectural furor. Centuries of Spanish history and religion and the various temperaments of different and inspired races{201}have created it and fostered its growth. Like many of its sister churches, the artisans that labored on it were gathered from different lands and their work stretches through centuries of time and architectural thought. There is the sparkling, oriental fancy of the Mudejar, the classic training of the Italian, the brilliant color and technique of the Fleming and Dutchman, the skilled and masterful chiseling of the German, and the restless pride and domination of the Spaniard. You find it expressed in every way,—on canvas, in wood and clay and stone, on plaster and in glass. It is a museum of art from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, with portions still waiting for the work of the twentieth. The artists range from Juan Sanches de Castro, "the morning star of Andalusia," in 1454, to Francisco Goya, the last of the great Spanish painters.
It is colossal, incongruous, mysterious, and elusive. It breathes the spirit of the middle ages with all their piety and loyalty to church and crown, and their unparalleled ardor in building religious temples. Gazing at it, you feel the same religious fervor that flung the arches of Amiens and Chartres high into the northern air and rounded the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore under Lombardy's azure vault.
If you stand in the Calle del Gran Capitan, or better, the Plaza del Triumfo, best of all, near the gateway of the Patio de las Banderas, where the Cathedral and the Giralda pile up in front of you, unquestionably you have before you Spain's mightiest architectural work, a sight as impressive as the view from the marble pavement of the Piazzetta by the Adriatic.{202}
The lofty tower is entirely oriental. The walls of the Cathedral which rise from a broad paved terrace consist below of a classical screen, whose surface is broken by a Corinthian order carrying a Renaissance balustrade and topped by heavy, meaningless stone terminations. Windows with Italian Renaissance frames pierce the ochre masonry. Above rises a confusion of buttresses, kettle-shaped domes, and Renaissance lanterns, simple, massive walls, some portions entirely bare, others overloaded with delicate Gothic interlacings full of Spanish feeling; flowers and rosettes, broad blazons and coats-of-arms,—above all, a forest of Gothic towers, finials, crockets, parapets, and rails peculiarly Spanish in carving and treatment. There is practically no sky line. The interior of the nave and aisle vaulting are entirely concealed externally by the parapets and walls.
So lacking in sobriety is the first view!—but you are ready to echo the Spanish saying,—
Quien no ha visto SevillaNo ha visto maravilla.[17]
or the words of Pope, "Therestands a structure of majestic fame!"
The Spanish Christians in Seville, like those who obtained possession of other Moorish strongholds, first appropriated the old Arab mosque for their house of worship. Later, when it no longer sufficed, they and their fellow-believers elsewhere built the new cathedral on, around, or adjacent to, the old consecrated walls. Like all other churches from which Islam had been driven, the great mosque of Seville{203}was dedicated to Santa Maria de la Sede. The famous Moorish conqueror, Abu Jakub Jusuf, had laid the foundation stones of his mosque and tower in 1171, building his walls with the materials left by imperial Rome, and laying out orange courtyard and walls in a manner befitting his power and the traditions of his race. It belongs to what architectural writers have for convenience called the second period of the Spanish Arabs, between 1146 and about 1250, under the Almohaden dynasty. This was the period of the Moors' greatest constructive energy,—they no longer blindly copied the ancient architecture of Byzantium, but endeavored to create a bold and independent art of their own.
After the capture of Seville in 1248, Ferdinand at once consecrated the mosque to Christian service, and it was used without alteration until it began to crumble. Its general plan was probably very much like the one in Cordova, a great rectangle filled with a forest of columns: its high walls of brick and clay supported by buttresses and crowned with battlements enclosed an adjacent courtyard with fountain and rows of orange trees, abutted by the bell or prayer tower. The courtyard and tower remain with but slight changes or additions; portions of the foundation walls, the northeast and west porticos, decorative details and ornamentation still to be found on the Christian church are all Moorish. The plan and general structure have been restricted by the lines of the old Moorish foundations. There are no documents extant that give a trustworthy account of what portions of the old mosque were allowed to remain when the Christians finally decided to rebuild, but the most{204}cursory glance at the outline of the Cathedral shows how organically it has been bound by what was retained. The mosque must have been built on as large and magnificent a scale as the one which still amazes us in Cordova. The peculiar, oblong, quadrilateral form was probably common to both.
On the 8th of July, 1401, the Cathedral Chapter issued the challenge to the Catholic world which to the more practical piety of to-day rings with a true mediæval fervor. Verily a faith that could remove mountains! The inspired Chapter proclaimed they could build a church of such size and beauty that coming ages should call them mad to have undertaken it. And their own fat pockets were the first to be emptied of half their stipends. The pennies of the poor, grants from the crown, indulgences published throughout the kingdom, all went to satisfy the ever-grasping building fund.
In 1403 the work of tearing down and commencing afresh on the old foundations was begun. These measured about some 415 feet in length by 278 feet in width. The old mosque or the present church proper is now only the central edifice in a rectangle of about 600 by 500 feet. This is the size of a village, with its courts, its tower, the great library of the Cathedral Chapter where books were collected from all over the lettered world by the son of Columbus, the parroquia or parish church, the endless row of chapels, some larger than ordinary churches, the sacristy, the chapter house and offices. It became the largest church of the middle ages, covering 124,000 square feet; Milan covers only 90,000, Toledo, 75,000, and Saint Paul's in London, 84,000. Among the churches of all ages,{205}Saint Peter's, with an area of 162,000 square feet, alone exceeds it in size.
In 1506, under the archbishops Alfonso Rodriguez and Gonzalo de Rojas, the building was completed. For a century the work had been carried on with such reckless haste that inferior building methods had been employed, which led to subsequent disasters. On December 28, 1511, to the consternation of the devout workmen, the great central dome fell in during an earthquake, carrying with it or weakening many of the vaults and much of the masonry below. After the earthquake, some of the large piers supporting the great crossing as well as the adjacent ones were found filled with the most carelessly laid rubble and earth, with no carrying power nor resistance. About 1520 the building might in the main be said to be finished. Externally it has never been completed, although in the nineteenth century the west front was finished and its central doorway ornamented. An extensive restoration which took place in 1882 was interrupted by the second earthquake of 1888, during which the dome again fell in. To-day it is all rebuilt.
The entrance is at the west end. The plan, as I have said, was governed by the old basilica-shaped mosque. The transepts do not project beyond the chapels of the side aisles, and at the east end it differs from most Spanish churches in having a square termination instead of an apse. Also along the east wall chapels have been built between the buttresses similar to those between the north and south sides. The central portions of the east end open into the great Capilla Real. There are nine doorways to the church.
In studying the plan, it is interesting to note what{206}Mr. Ferguson has indicated, that similarly to what is found in the Indian Jain temples, the diagonal of the aisle compartments has the same length as the width of the nave. The original documents and accounts of the church, which have disappeared, were probably burnt among Philip II's papers destroyed by the great Madrid fire.
Scarcely two of the Cathedral's many biographers agree as to its architects, its historic precedents or what part of the work was actually inspired by earlier Spanish architecture and national builders. Naturally Spanish writers attribute workmanship, precedents and builders all to their own Peninsula, while the different foreign authorities vary in their estimates. Distinctly Spanish features of construction as well as ornamentation are found side by side with others which unquestionably came from masters trained beyond the Pyrenees. In various places vaulting is found thoroughly German in its complexity and florid detail. Several authorities point out the resemblances between Milan and Seville, not that the ornamentation of the frosted and encrusted Italian misconception can be intelligently compared with the Plateresque carving, but there is a certain mixture of local and foreign feeling in both. In Seville French and German feeling seems to be struggling under Spanish fetters, just as in Lombardy the German seems to be laboring with Italian comprehension of Gothic, finally abandoning the inorganic scheme for a lovely, riotous, and marvelous attempt at carving to which the material no longer placed any limitations.
The Spanish architect of the middle ages was{207}placed in a novel situation, and his art had very peculiar and unusual influences bearing upon it. Gothic methods of construction and ornamentation had slowly spread over the country with the growing sovereignty of Aragon and Castile, and in spite of the corresponding decline of the Arab kingdoms, Moorish art began to work hand in hand, as far as was possible, with the forms of the Christian invader, although the hostility between the races hindered any extensive fusion of the two. They began, however, to influence each other for good or bad and to flourish side by side. The result might be called architectural volapük. In Seville it is certain that, whatever the nationality of the original architect and however incongruous and expressionless the exterior may finally have become, the interior is less exotic, less unquestionably a French importation, than in either of the great Gothic churches of Toledo or Burgos. When we recall the organic completeness, the truthful exterior expression, of interior lines and construction in the greatest Gothic cathedrals of France, we turn with sadness to the outer form of so fair a soul as that of Santa Maria of Seville, the work of the most famous architects of her age. Some attribute the original plans of the church to Alfonso Rodriguez, others to Alfonso Martinez, who was Maestro Mayor of the chapter in 1396, others again to Pedro Garcia; a long list of names follows: Juan the Norman, Juan de Hoz, Alfonso Ruiz, Ximon, Alfonso Rodriguez, and Gonzalo de Rojas, Pedro Mellan, Miguel Florentin, Pedro Lopez, Henrique de Egas, Juan de Alava, Jorge Fernandez Alleman, Juan Gil de Hontañon and the masters who after the earthquake hurried to Seville from their buildings in Toledo,{208}Jaen, Vittoria, and other places. Casanova is the last of her many architects.
Correctly speaking, there is no façade. The Cathedral runs from west to east, the western or main entrance portal being pierced by three ogival doorways, the Puerta Mayor with a modern relief of the Assumption, the Puerta del Nacimento or de San Miguel to the south, and the Puerta del Bautizo or de San Juan to the north. Saint Miguel has a relief of the Nativity of Christ, Saint Juan, one representing Saint John baptizing. In the moldings surrounding these, are very exquisite little figures of early sixteenth-century work executed in terra-cotta. They are full of the best Gothic feeling, splendidly fitted to their spaces, alive with the expression of the imaginative period of their sculptor, Pedro Millan. Above and around the door of San Juan is a Gothic tracery of the most elaborate character.
One cannot refrain from comparing the sculptural work of these three doorways. Riccardo Bellver's modern Assumption over the central doorway is as congealed as the terra-cotta sculptures above and around the side portals are admirable. They are unquestionably among the most interesting bits of relief as well as figure sculpture of their kind produced in Spain during the fifteenth century. Pedro Millan stands out as a great mediæval master, not only from the consummate skill with which the drapery is treated but from the living, breathing personality and attitudes of the men and women around him, which we still gaze at in the truth of their curious, naïve, fifteenth-century light.
As the whole western façade was not completed in{209}its present form until 1827, much of its work is as poor as it is modern.
There are two entrances to the eastern end, richly decorated with fine terra-cotta statues and reliefs of angels, patriarchs, and Biblical figures, attributed to Lope Marin. In the northern façade there are three,—one classical and of very little interest leading to the parish church; the second is the Puerto de los Naranjos.
In the Puerta del Lagarto, where the Giralda abuts the Cathedral, there hangs a poor stuffed crocodile, once sent by a Sultan of Egypt in token of admiration to Saint Ferdinand. The beast, having died on his way from the Nile, could never crawl in the basins of the Alcazar gardens, but found a resting-place under the shelves of the Columbina library.
On the opposite side of the orange-tree court is the Puerta del Perdon. The Florentine relief above, representing the crouching traders as they were driven from the Temple, naturally spoils the effectiveness of the magnificent Moorish portal below. Its horseshoe curve, with delicate Moorish interlacing, arabesques, frieze and bronze doors, is a curious and striking note of a bygone age, leading as it does to the walled and fragrant courtyard of its builders, and the fountain where they made their ablutions. Later Renaissance statues of the Annunciation and Saint Peter and Saint Paul, as well as Florentine pilasters and ornament, flank the Moorish moldings in an utterly meaningless manner.
On the south is the gate of San Cristobal, or of the Lonja, finished only a few years ago.
In and out of these many entrances the populace{210}stream, to worship, to whisper, to gossip, to rest, to bargain, to beg, and to make love. The whole drama of life in its conglomerate population goes on within the walls of the Cathedral. It is the most frequented thoroughfare, where the people enter as often with a song on their lips as with a prayer. The great edifice with all the ceremonial of its religious services is woven into their life, as is the sound of the guitars and castanets that echo within its portals and courtyards. The church and her children are not strangers. The Sevillian does not approach her altars with religious awe and fear, but with a childish trust; he kneels down before them as much at home as when rolling his cigarette on the bench of his café. The Cathedral, like the houses nestling and crumbling around it, opens wide and hospitable gates that lead to the refreshing shade and comfort within.
The western front is practically the only one which presents the Cathedral unobscured by adjacent buildings climbing up its sides or struggling between the buttresses,—or which is not concealed by enclosing screenwork. To the north the walls of the Orange Court block the view; to the east, the high screen; and to the south, the chapter house and the Dependencias de la Hermanidad and the sacristy. The mass of domes with supporting flying buttresses, ramps and finials above it, all remind one curiously of a transplanted and ecclesiasticized Chambord.