The primitive cathedral of Salamanca is said to have been the church of San Juan el Blanco, in the riverside suburb. Its proportions and situation were not suited to the dignity of the new city founded by Count Raymond, and we find him before long laying the first stone of a new cathedral on one of the three eminences enclosed within the walls. The exact date of the foundation and the names of the architects are unknown. But tradition avers that Bishop Jeronimo consecrated the church, and the master-builders who raised the walls of Avila at Count Raymond’s orders most likely had some share in this, his greater work. They were Cassandro, an Italian, Florin de Southren, a Frenchman, and Alvar Garcia, a Navarrese. Placed at their disposal was a band of five hundred Moslem masons and carpenters, made prisoners by the count.
Bishop Jeronimo died in the year 1120, but the records show privileges conceded to the workmen engaged in the construction of the cathedral in 1152, 1183, and as late as 1285. According to Street, a priest of Medina del Campo, in the year 1178, bequeathed his property to the chapter for the purpose of completing the cloister, fromwhich it may be inferred that not much remained to be done to the church itself at that date. Successive popes and kings showered donations and privileges upon the nascent cathedral, till the chapter, rich in lands and vassals, ranked as a feudal power, and the sacred edifice itself as a formidable stronghold. Massive, simple, vigorous, it well deserves the epithetfortis Salamantina, by which it is distinguished in the well-known lines about the cathedrals of Spain, ‘Sancta Ovetensis, dives Toletanas, pulchra Leonina, fortis Salamantina.’
A building so long in course of construction is sure to present certain varieties of style, and though the old cathedral of Salamanca has undergone very little alteration since its completion, its original Romanesque character is seen to have been modified by Gothic influence. The Byzantine pillars, remarks Don Jose Quadrado, carry graceful pointed arches, and the Romanesque capitals of the clustered columns exhibit an elegance very rare in works of that style.
In plan the church is a Latin cross, one arm having been removed to make way for the new cathedral. The nave and aisles terminate in apsidal chapels. Cloisters adjoin the southern side, and the entrance from the west is through along portico, once flanked by two massive fortified towers. This vestibule is Byzantine, though adorned with Gothic statuary, and now entered through a very poor arrangement of Doric and Corinthian columns.
The nave produces a more imposing effect than is usual in Spanish churches, owing to the absence of a choir. There is no triforium, but the nave is lighted by round-arched windows of single lights. Over the crossing rises the glorious dome or lantern, called by the Salamancans the Torre del Gallo from the weathercock on its apex. This fine work is supported on arcades, divided into sixteen compartments, and pierced with windows over each of the cardinal sides. Outside, the lantern is roofed with scaled tiles. At the four angles are rounded pinnacles with continuously moulded windows; between these and contrasting with them are pointed gables with windows, the arches of which spring sharply from capitals. In his work onGothic Architecture in Spain, Mr. Street remarks, ‘I have seldom seen any central lantern more thoroughly good and effective from every point of view than this is: it seems to solve, better than the lantern of any church I have yet seen elsewhere, the question of the introduction of the dome to Gothicchurches. Though the scale of this work is very moderate, its solidity and firmness are excessive, and thus only is it that it maintains that dignified manliness of architectural character which so very few of our modern architects ever seem even to strive for.’
Standing beneath the lantern, we see the fine wooden retablo, adjusted so as to fit the curving wall of the apse. Its fifty-five subjects are arranged in five rows, and enclosed each in an arched frame painted white and gold. These paintings, representing scenes from the life and passion of Christ, are more delicate and skilful than the fresco of the Last Judgment, on the semi-dome above, painted perhaps half a century later in 1446, by Nicolás Florentino.
The chancel was at first reserved as a burying-place only for those of the blood-royal. Here are the tombs of the Infanta Mafalda, daughter of the King of Castile, who died here in the kingdom of Leon in 1204; of Don Fernando Alfonso, natural son of AlfonsoIX., Dean of Santiago and Archdeacon of Salamanca; and ofhisnatural son by Doña Aldara Lopez, Don Juan Fernandez, surnamed the Golden-Haired, a brave warrior, who died in 1303. On the gospel side is the tomb of good Bishop Sancho deCastilla, a descendant of Pedro the Cruel, and Doña Juana de Castro, who died in 1446, and close to him his successor Vivero, a counsellor of Fernando and Isabel. The statues of the two prelates are contained in the same sepulchral arch. Here also lie the noble cavaliers, Don Diego Arias, Archdeacon of Toro (obiit1350), and Don Arias Diez Maldonado (1474), both benefactors of the cathedral, whose ashes were removed here in 1620 by order of the dean and chapter. In the chapel of St. Nicholas, on the epistle side, lies the Dominican Bishop Fray Pedro, who baptized AlfonsoXI., and died in the first quarter of the fourteenth century; his effigy is enclosed by a pointed arch, above which Christ is shown as judge.
In the south transept, still fortunately preserved, are four interesting tombs, which appear to date from the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. The first is crudely sculptured with reliefs of the Adoration of the Magi, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection; the recumbent figure is said to be that of Diego Lopez, Archdeacon of Ledesma. Beneath a star-shaped cupola is the hooded figure of a woman, one Doña Elena, who passed away in the year 1272; the reliefs represent her deathbed and ascent toheaven. The third tomb is that of Don Alfonso Vidal, Dean of Avila and Canon of Salamanca; and the fourth, in the best Gothic style and fine arabesques, probably dates from the beginning of the fifteenth, rather than the preceding, century. It certainly cannot be, as used to be believed, the tomb of the precentor Aparitius, who died in 1274. Other very plain tombs are to be seen in the aisles, which are adorned with paintings by Fernando Gallego, called by Quadrado the Dürer of Salamanca.
The cloister, though as old as the church, has been extensively modernised. The doorway from the transept, however, has not lost its Byzantine character, nor its capitals their beautiful ornamentation of foliage with birds and nude figures. The four altars at the angles, dedicated respectively to the Blessed Virgin, St. Michael, St. Anthony of Padua, and the Magi, are enriched with the paintings of Gallego. In the cloister are also some tombs in the late Gothic style. The sarcophagus of the Archdeacon Diego Rodriguez (1504) is upheld by three lions; and another tomb enshrines the remains of Pedro Xerique (1529), a canon of this cathedral, who left a fund for the endowment of fifty poor girls with dowries—a very necessary bequest in these unsentimental Latin countries! Of the oldtwelfth-century sepulchres nothing but a few epitaphs and tablets remain.
Communicating with the cloister by some very ancient doorways are four interesting chapels. The oldest is the Capilla de Talavera, so called after the ‘Doctor de Talavera’ (one of the Maldonado family), who in the beginning of the fifteenth century endowed it with twelve chaplaincies for the celebration of the Mozarabic ritual. The chapel must have been very old at that time. ‘It is a very remarkable chamber,’ says Street, ‘square in plan below, and brought to an octagon above by arches thrown across the angles, and finally roofed with a sort of dome, carried upon moulded and carved ribs of very intricate contrivance. The interlacing of these ribs gives the work somewhat the effect of being Moorish, and there can be little doubt, I think, that it owes its peculiarities in some degree to Moorish influence. I should be inclined to attribute this room and its vault to the architect of the lantern of the church.’ The Mozarabic rite is still performed here six times a year.
The Capilla de Santa Barbara was founded about the year 1350 by Bishop Juan Lucero, who is buried here. His tomb was hidden during centuries by the table at which sat the examinersof the university and at which were conferred degrees. There are several other notable tombs belonging to the Gothic period. The effigy of a knight with a long beard and sword represents one Garcia Ruiz, the ecclesiastic close by, Canon Garcia de Medina, who died in 1474.
In the beautiful Gothic chapel of St. Catalina or Capilla del Canto, now dismantled and neglected, synods and provincial councils were customarily held. The fourth chapel, dedicated to St. Bartholomew, was founded early in the fifteenth century by Diego de Anaya, Archbishop of Seville. This prelate was a native of Salamanca, and took a prominent part in affairs of state. He was deputed to persuade the anti-pope, Don Pedro de Luna, to abandon his claims to the papacy; and failing in this, or for some other reason, was not suffered to take possession of his see till a few years before his death. The roof of the chapel is adorned with stars on a very dark background. Something of the Byzantine spirit is traceable in the ornamentation. Attention is however distracted from these details to the imposing tombs of the founder and his family. Enclosed by a fine railing with Renaissance designs of centaurs and floral scrolls, the recumbent statue of the bishopis seen, clad in full pontificals and watched over by a lion, a dog, and a hare. The tomb is of pure alabaster, and supported by lions. At the angles are groups of bishops and friars, and at the sides Christ with the Twelve Apostles and the Virgin with an equal number of female saints. The architects of this fine work and of the equally admirable railing are, unfortunately, unknown. Several others of the tombs in this chapel are of scarcely inferior conception and workmanship. The statues, believed to represent Don Gabriel de Anaya and his wife, and two earlier fifteenth-century effigies of a knight and a lady, are in partly Moorish costume, according to an affectation of that age. The only tomb with an epitaph is that of Doña Beatriz de Guzman, sister-in-law of the founder. The two sons born to Don Diego before he entered the Church by Doña Maria de Orozco are also buried here: on the gospel side lies Don Diego Gomez, fully armed, with a lion at his feet; his brother, the warlike archdeacon, Juan Gomez, rests in the niche adjoining the retablo.
The chapter house, also communicating with the cloister, contains some beautifully carved chairs and tables, and a replica of a Madonna and Child by Reni.
It may be presumed that the faithful of Salamanca had suffered for a number of years on account of the smallness of their cathedral; for the demand for a new place of worship is not traceable to any immediate or special cause, nor to any particular individual. At the instance of the bishop and the municipality, Fernando and Isabel, in the year 1491, solicited and obtained from Pope InnocentVIII.authority to erect a new cathedral at Salamanca, on the ground that the old fabric no longer sufficed for the needs of the congregation.
The city was then nearing the zenith of its prosperity, and all over Western Europe there was a craving for the pompous, the magnificent, and the merely big. We can imagine that the Salamancans of the new era were impatient of the plainness and masculine vigour of the little cathedral of Jeronimo. The chapter spared no pains to raise an edifice which should be as splendid as any in Spain. Nothing, however, was done till 1510, when the matter was placed in the hands of the two most celebrated architects of the kingdom, Antonio Egas, architect of the cathedral of Toledo, and Alfonso Rodrigues,master of the works at Seville. These two masters could not agree as to certain details in the plans, and the bishop Francisco de Bobadilla, son of Queen Isabel’s favourite Beatriz, summoned the nine most eminent architects of Spain to a conference. These were—Antonio Egas, Juan Gil de Hontañon, Juan de Badajoz, Alfonso de Covarrubias, Juan Tornero, Juan de Alava, Rodrigo de Zaravia, Juan Campero, and Rodrigues, who had by this time gone to the island of Santo Domingo. At this conference, held on September 3, 1512, the plan and proportions of the proposed building were decided, Juan Gil de Hontañon was appointed architect, and Juan Campero clerk of the works. The project being so far advanced, liberal donations poured in from the municipality and the citizens, and at last the foundation-stone was laid, as the inscription at the right-hand corner of the main façade records, on Thursday, May 12, 1513. De Hontañon was engaged at Seville rebuilding the dome of the cathedral, but under his occasional supervision and that of his assistant, Juan de Alava, the work was actively carried on. De Hontañon died in 1531, and was succeeded in his office by his assistant; and in 1560, his son Rodrigo being then architect, the cathedral was openedfor divine worship, the event being thus commemorated on a tablet: PioIIII.papa, PhilippoII.rege, Francisco Manrico de Lara episcopo, ex vetere ad hoc templum facta translatioXXV.mort. anno à Christo natoMDLX.
The cathedral exhibits the transition from late Gothic to Renaissance. It is certainly constructed on very ambitious lines, and is not wanting in majesty, though that fervent lover of the Gothic, Mr. Street, declared the planning to be infelicitous and the detail throughout of the very poorest kind. The favourable impression the interior produces is almost entirely due to its spaciousness. The ground plan forms a rectangle, 195 feet long by 198 feet wide. On the south side it is built against the old cathedral, with which it communicates by a flight of eighteen steps. The western or principal façade is the oldest part of the building, and, as might be expected, is in the Gothic style, with hardly any admixture of the plateresque. The three entrances are recessed within graceful arches, and separated by massive buttresses adorned with statuary. The main entrance has two doors, separated by a pillar on which is a beautiful figure of the Virgin. Immediately above the doorway are two very fine reliefs of the Nativityand the Adoration of the Magi. These are contained within semicircular arches, which are in turn contained within a bewildering series of arches, rounded, elliptical, and pointed, all elaborately moulded and ornamented with animals, putti, and heraldic achievements. The vertex of the outermost of these arches upholds a vigorous relief of the Crucifixion, flanked by the Apostles Peter and Paul. Hardly a square foot has been left free of decoration, and the whole is overwrought and florid, though the rich cream colour of the stone in itself produces a pleasing effect. The side doors are much less elaborate, though designed on the same plan, and appear to have been intended to receive more statuary and ornament. The tower above is one of the few creditable performances of Churriguera—a native of Salamanca. The noble steeple to the right was part of the old cathedral, but was recast in the sixteenth century. It forms a landmark for travellers in the dreary country round the city.
On the north side of the church is the fine Puerta de las Palmas, which probably derives its name from the fine relief representing the entry of Christ into Jerusalem. The exterior of the cathedral generally suffers from comparison with the older structure at its side.
The interior consists of a nave and two aisles. The centre of the nave is occupied by the choir, which is connected, as is usual in Spanish churches, with the Capilla Mayor by a railed-in passage. There are no projecting transept arms. Over the crossing is a lantern with a half-orange dome, eight windows between Corinthian columns, and a superabundance of ornamentation, which only too well announces this to be the handiwork of Churriguera. The nave is higher than the aisles. Both are pierced with windows, made intentionally small to exclude the light. In front of these runs a pierced balustrade of very Renaissance character, below which is a charming frieze in the older style, with cherubs and animals peeping through foliage. The piers that support the roof have their capitals painted in blue and gold. Above certain of the arches is displayed the Vase of Lilies with the Angelic Salutation, adopted as its arms by the chapter; above others the medallions with busts so common in the architecture of this period.
The Capilla Mayor still lacks the retablo which it is proposed one day to set up, and is backed by hangings and a canopy over the statue of the Virgin. In the sanctuary are thesilver urns containing the remains of Saints Juan de Sahagun and Tomas de Villanueva; further back in the Capilla del Carmen the tomb of Bishop Jeronimo, transported here from the old cathedral in 1744, together with the famous Cristo de las Batallas, the crude black image carried by the Cid with him on all his expeditions. It must be confessed that few Spanish cathedrals contain a less remarkable Capilla Mayor than this one.
Nor is the choir specially remarkable, except as a specimen of Churriguera’s decorative frenzy. The stalls are carved with the figures of saints, full-length and half-length, in very stagy poses, though the boy-martyrs, Justus and Pastor, are, it must be confessed, very well executed. Wherever space permitted, cherubs, floral scrolls, and all sorts of decorative patterns have been put in. Thetrascoroor altar at the rear of the choir surpasses the latter in the extravagance of its style. The Eternal Father, accompanied by angels, apostles, and prophets, may be seen amidst a profusion of clouds and foliage. The statues of St. Anne and St. John the Baptist obviously belong to an earlier period and a better school. They are attributed by Ponz to Juan de Juni, who was responsible formuch of the ornamentation over the main entrance.
The chapels are all square and of the same height and size—twenty-eight feet square and fifty-four feet high. They are all decorated in the Gothic style, a uniformity which suggests that they were all built at the same time, or very carefully copied from the first one planned. Each contains a semicircular window, and four arched recesses for tombs. This regularity of style has operated to some extent as a check upon the excesses of the Churrigueresque school. The Golden Chapel—the second in the south aisle—dates from the sixteenth century. All within it is superbly gilded, the decoration reflecting credit on its author, Canon Francisco Sanchez de Palencia, whose noble tomb is here. His dignities are set forth on the beautiful plateresquereja. The chapel also contains a notable skeleton or memento mori. The next chapel is called after the Presidente de Lievana, and is adorned with some good paintings by the dumb artist Navarrete, particularly by a copy of Titian’s ‘Deposition.’ The fourth chapel on this side contains the good statue of a very good man, Canon Palacios, who died in the odour of sanctity in the year 1591. We may now descendto the old cathedral by a doorway on the right, close to a fine picture of the Madonna and Child and St. John, by Morales. The monuments of Count Raymond and Doña Urraca must have been destroyed to make room for this part of the new building. Good paintings by Gallego may be seen in the Capilla de San Antonio on the opposite side of the church. There are not many good tombs, the only ones remaining to be mentioned being those of the Bishops Corrionero (1620), Felipe Beltran (1783), and Agustino Varela (nineteenth century).
The sacristy is a gorgeous apartment, where mirrors, gilding, and ornamentation of every style are combined to produce a not altogether unpleasing effect. The treasury is rich in relics of doubtful authenticity. The silver reliquaries were once the property of the Knights Templars, whose cause Salamanca long upheld. Here you may gaze (with a befittingly credulous air) upon three thorns from Christ’s crown, a piece of the true cross, an arm of St. George, St. Lawrence’s shoulder, the head of one of the eleven thousand virgins who escorted St. Ursula, the hearts of St. Bartholomew and St. Sebastian, and the bodies of five Spanish martyrs who suffered under the Vandals. More interesting are a letterin St. Teresa’s handwriting, and a small crucifix of blackened bronze, often confounded with the Cristo de las Batallas, and probably of the same period and source. The chalice, monstrance, and other sacred vessels are beautifully wrought, even for a country where metal-working has been carried almost to perfection.
thanks to which the name of Salamanca was honourably known throughout the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries from Lisbon to Novgorod, was founded by AlfonsoIX., King of Leon, in the first quarter of the thirteenth century—moved thereto, it is said, by the establishment of the university of Palencia by his cousin of Castile. Consequent on the union of the two kingdoms in the person of FernandoIII., the latter university declined and faded out of existence, Salamanca thus remaining the oldest seat of learning in Spain. Valladolid, the next in order of antiquity, dates from 1346, Alcalá from 1499, Seville from 1504. The sainted king in 1243 bestowed a charter on the young university, by virtue of which the students were exempted from the municipal law and madesubject to their own tribunals. The first court thus constituted was composed of the bishop, the dean and prior of the Friars Preachers, the father guardian of the Discalced Franciscans, and certain persons named as Don Rodrigo, and Pedro Guigelmo, Garcia Gomez, Pedro Vellido, Fernando Sanchez de Porto Carrero, Pedro Muñiz, canon of Leon, and Miguel Perez, canon of Lamego.
Under Alfonso the Learned the new foundation naturally flourished. He not only confirmed by a royal ordinance, dated from Badajoz, 1252, all the privileges granted by his predecessors, but exempted the students from tolls and certain other dues, and secured them priority in the matter of accommodation at inns. Furthermore, in 1254, he endowed a chair of law with an annual stipend of five hundred maravedis, an assistant or bachelor also being appointed; a master of decrees, at a salary of three hundred maravedis; two masters of decretals, at five hundred maravedis a year each; two masters in physics, in logic, and in grammar, each at two hundred maravedis; an organist at fifty maravedis; and a librarian, at a hundred maravedis. The same monarch reduced the number of rectors to two—the Dean of Salamanca and one ArnalSanz. In the celebrated Partidas, in the compilation of which Alfonso was doubtless assisted by members of this university, directions are given that at all such seats of learning there should be good inns, abundance of bread and wine, and pleasant walks where the students might in the evenings take the air.
No mention is made in the decrees of 1252 and 1254 of a faculty of theology, which probably came within the province of the cathedral chapter. The connection between the university and the cathedral was very intimate. Examinations were held and degrees conferred, as we have seen, in the chapel of Santa Barbara; the doctors were admitted to the choir, the canons reciprocally to the university theatres. Pope InnocentIV.had referred in flattering terms to the university at the Council of Lyons in 1245; and in 1255 AlexanderIV., in a brief dated from Naples, acclaimed it as one of the four wonders of the world, and gave it his pontifical sanction. BonifaceVIII.sent the professors a copy of his decretals, and revised the university statutes. The students were divided into eight sections, according to the part of the Peninsula from which they came, and the heads of these sectionselected the rector. The election took place at Martinmas, and the installation on St. Catharine’s Day. The newly elected dignitary was escorted to his house by the students, each section being marshalled behind an ensign consisting of the principal fruit of its country. The rivalries between these different groups generally led to blows, and frequently called for the intervention of the authorities. On such occasions it was the privilege of the rector to defray all damages and fines. But the reign of cakes and ale did not always endure at Salamanca. In 1308 the times were so bad that the stipends of the professors were suppressed, and the university only survived the crisis through the self-sacrifice of the chapter and the intervention of the pope, who devoted a ninth of the tithes of the archbishopric of Santiago to its maintenance.
Subsequent pontiffs continued to exhibit great interest in the now flourishing institution, and to it belonged the honour of terminating, by its decision in favour of ClementVI., the schism which had divided the Christian church. A less honourable incident was the unfavourable decision pronounced by its professors on the great project of Columbus, referred to them by Queen Isabel. This verdict was the more surprising as the university had adopted the Copernicansystem at a time when it was considered heretical and dangerous.
The most famous school in all Spain shared the fortunes of the monarchy. In the days of Luis de Leon there were 70 professors and 10,000 students, and the 52 printing-offices and 84 bookshops employed 3600 men. In the year 1552 there were still no fewer than 6328 undergraduates. Women competed equally with men for the honours of the learned. Among the most illustrious members of the university were Beatriz Galendo, surnamed the Latin, the daughter of a professor, and the teacher and friend of Isabel the Catholic; Alvara de Alba, the author of a mathematical treatise, and Cecilia Morillas, the wife of a Portuguese, Dom Antonio Sobrino, and the mother of several learned doctors, who consulted her on the most difficult points in the humanities, in philosophy, and theology. Salamanca remained to the last a stronghold of Catholic orthodoxy. The only one of its professors who ever advanced heretical opinions—Pedro de Osuna—recanted in good time, and assisted with the rest of the university at the solemn burning of his books and the purification of the class-rooms in which he had taught. At the end of the eighteenth century the numberof students had fallen to 2000. To-day it may be estimated at 1200 students, all drawn (excepting those of the Irish college) from the surrounding provinces. The nineteen professors are worse paid than an English ledger-clerk, and no book or pamphlet has issued from the university press (if such exists) for many years past.
The colleges were classified as Escuelas Mayores and Escuelas Menores. The college to which the name university is specially applied seems to have been built between 1415 and 1433 by Alfonso Rodriguez Carpintero, though the shield of the anti-pope BenedictXIII.(Pedro de Luna) over the door leading to the cathedral, dating from about 1380, leads one to suppose that part of the building was already standing at that date. For a long time, however, the cloisters of the cathedral were used as class-rooms. The present edifice has little about it to suggest the Gothic era. Restored by Fernando and Isabel, it ranks indeed as one of the earliest and finest specimens of plateresque architecture. Over the double entrance of the main façade are two rudely executed busts of the Catholic sovereigns, clasping the same sceptre, and enclosed in one medallion. Around this is inscribed the legend: ‘οί βασιλεῖς τῇ ἐγκυκλοπαιδείᾳ, αὕτη βασιλεῦσί’(‘the Kings to the University, the University to the Kings’). The panels into which the three stages of this beautiful façade are divided are filled with escutcheons, medallions, foliage, scrolls, and grotesques, all admirably executed in the creamy stone, which gives so beautiful an appearance to the buildings of Salamanca. This fine work is ascribed to Enrique de Egas, and said to have cost 30,000 ducats. It is surmounted by a parapet of elaborate pierced work, and two pinnacles, which we could perhaps have spared.
Opposite, in the courtyard, stands the fine bronze statue of the university’s most brilliant alumnus—Luis de Leon. This great man was born at Granada in 1527, and entered the Augustinian Order in 1544. His writings went far to give permanency and purity to the Castilian idiom, which only at that time was coming into use by the learned. Promoted to the chair of theology at Salamanca, his translation into the vernacular of the Song of Solomon excited the suspicions of the Holy Office. He was arrested and kept in confinement at Valladolid during five years, at the end of which time he was released, the charges against him not having been proved to the satisfaction even of the inquisitors.On his return to his chair he received a tumultuous ovation. As he rose, the crowd of students awaited in dead silence an apology, a condemnation of his unjust accusers, some reference at least to the prosecution which had dragged on through five weary years. They were disappointed. Leon had no mind to dwell on his personal affairs. He broke the silence of five years with the simple words, ‘As we were saying yesterday ...’ He died, Provincial of his order, in the year 1591, and was buried in the Convent of San Agustino at Salamanca.
On the left side of the square is the old students’ hospital, with a fine effigy of St. Thomas Aquinas over the doorway, and a cornice in the plateresque style. Finer still is the portal of the adjacent Escuelas Menores, also dating from the early sixteenth century. Above the doorway of two arches are displayed the three escutcheons which proclaim the university to be royal, and the triple crown and the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul which proclaim it pontifical. These emblems appear amidst a profusion of detail, in which the Gothic and plateresque styles seem to have been assimilated.
Returning to the principal façade, we findthe archives on the ground floor. Opening out of the innerpatiomay be seen the lecture-room of Louis de Leon. His ashes now repose in the chapel once adorned by Fernando Gallego, but ‘restored’ in the eighteenth century. The coloured stones and marbles used in the reconstruction are not without a certain pleasing effect. Passing up the noble staircase, with its banisters formed of dancing figures and foliage and superb artesonado ceiling, we reach the handsome library. This contains many treasures, among them forty Greek codices, as many Latin, the illuminated MS. of ‘famous and virtuous women,’ written by Alvaro de Luna, and a fifteenth-century Bible, richly illuminated. The Sala del Claustro is shown, outside which the student about to contest a thesis was obliged to remain for twenty-four hours to consider his subject at leisure.
Of the four Escuelas Mayores (High Schools)—San Bartolomé, del Arzobispo, Cuenca, and Oviedo—only the two first remain. These colleges bore the same relation to the Escuelas Menores that our Staff College does to Sandhurst. Here graduates were prepared for the highest posts in church and state. The College of San Bartolomé was founded in 1401 by Bishop de Anaya, whose sons were educated within itswalls, and transferred to the present site sixteen years later. Vergara says that it produced seven cardinals, eighteen archbishops, seventy bishops, and innumerable judges and councillors of state. Like so many other similar institutions, originally intended for the poor and scholarly, the college soon became the preserve of the rich and aristocratic. The quarterings on the applicant’s shield were more carefully examined than his pretensions to scholarship, and when CarlosIII.undertook to reform the college, it had earned the name of a hot-bed of vice. Its inward reformation corresponded with its material restoration. Little or nothing remains of the original structure. A spacious flight of steps leads up to the handsome portico in the Grecian style, with its four Corinthian columns and triangular pediment. The whole building is simple and massive, and crowned by a balustrade, in the centre of which are displayed the arms of the Anayas; the main façade the chapel with a heavy dome and Churrigueresque entrance. The inner court orpatiois surrounded by a double gallery, the lower formed by sixteen Doric columns, the upper by as many Ionic. The magnificent staircase, dividing after the first flight into two branches, with its arches, Corinthian columns, and windowsall in stone, surpasses any similar feat of architecture in Spain.
In the western part of the city, where abundant evidence yet remains of the frightful destruction wrought by the French in Wellington’s day, stands the interesting Colegio del Arzobispo, better known as the Colegio de los Irlandeses. Founded by Alfonso de Fonseca, successively Archbishop of Santiago and Toledo, it dates from the year 1521. The portal is in the classic style, with eight Ionic columns, a medallion of Santiago, and the archiepiscopal escutcheon; the adjoining façade is of the late Gothic. Above it rises the square cupola of the chapel designed by Pedro de Ibarra, and containing a retablo which ranks one of Berruguete’s finest works. The subjects of the eight panels of which it is composed are: the Ascension, Baptism, Flight into Egypt, the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Presentation in the Temple, the Finding of Moses, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and Ananias and Sapphira. The whole was executed in less than eighteen months. Under a simple marble slab rests the body of Archbishop de Fonseca.
The galleries of thepatioare formed by fluted columns and adorned with the heads of warriors very skilfully executed.
This college is now occupied, as its modern name implies, by Irish theological students, whose original seminary was founded by PhilipII.in 1592. A college for Scottish Catholics was founded at the same time in Valladolid.
Of the forty colleges which once composed the University of Salamanca, the three described above alone remain. Most have utterly disappeared; of others, a few columns or chambers still exist, forming part now of buildings of another sort. The Colegio de Calatrava has survived, as a building, the three other colleges founded by the great military orders. It was extensively restored at the end of the eighteenth century, but the old doorway was spared with the saint’s head and knights upholding the banner of the order carved above it. The fine court has been dismantled, and the large chapel with transept and cupola has been stripped of the paintings and altar-pieces which once adorned it.
Among the sacred edifices of Salamanca, next to the two cathedrals, ranks the church and convent of the Dominicans, variously known as Santo Domingo and San Estéban. The Dominicans, on their establishment at Salamanca in the year1221, were first housed at San Juan el Blanco. Thirty years later they removed to San Estéban. Their convent was honoured in 1484 by the presence of Columbus, who found a generous host, a powerful protector, and a mind sufficiently broad to comprehend his project in the Friar Diego de Deza, afterwards grand inquisitor of Spain. His scheme, rejected by the university, was carefully considered by this learned man, and recommended to the queen. In gratitude, Columbus named the first town founded by him in the New World, Santo Domingo, after the order which had befriended him. From this monastery, too, departed the first Christian missionaries for America.
The building itself, unfortunately, has disappeared. It was pulled down in 1524 to make room for the present superb edifice, designed by Juan de Alava, the fellow-workman of Hontañon, who was succeeded by four other architects, till the completion of the work in 1610. The church is accounted one of the two or three most important monuments of the middle Renaissance period in Spain. The main façade, in the soft sandstone usual here, exhibits a marvellous profusion of figures, ‘excellently wrought, beautiful of themselves,’ remarks a critic, ‘but lacking inappropriateness, and not forming a part of a comprehensive scheme.’ On each side of the doorway, between pillars, are seen the figures of four of the Dominican saints; above, between four similarly placed statues of the doctors of the church, is an admirable relief of the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, executed by Juan Ceroni of Milan, who has carved his name and the date (1610) on the stones which were the instruments of the saint’s death. Above this, again, is a Crucifixion, overshadowed by the great arch which encloses the whole façade. The medallions and friezes exhibit very careful and graceful workmanship.
The side façades are mainly Gothic in character. Each buttress is surmounted by an ornate pinnacle. The nave is almost as spacious as that of the cathedral. The six-pointed vaults spring from fluted columns, and are brilliant with gilding. The windows of three lights and the rose-windows above are filled with good stained glass. The gorgeous retablo, which cost the Duke of Alba 4000 of his pine trees, is the work of Churriguera; its garishness is redeemed by the fine painting of the Martyrdom of St. Stephen by Claudio Coello, and the curious twelfth-century image of the Virgin de la Vega in gilt bronze. Over the choir, built byBishop de Aranjo, is the fine Apotheosis of St. Dominic, a fresco by Palomino. The frescoes over the altar of the Rosary and in the chapel of the Cristo de la Luz are by his contemporary, Villamor. In the chapel of St. John is the tomb of Don Lope de Paz, the defender of Rhodes and Eubœa, and in a wooden urn in the Reliquary chapel are contained the ashes of the terror of the Low Countries, Fernando de Toledo, Duke of Alba.
The chapter-house is a grandiose apartment, with pillars of the Doric order, and a Corinthian altar beneath a canopy. Here may be seen some bas-reliefs of the thirteenth century from the old church. In the magnificent sacristy is the tomb of Bishop Herrera of Tuy, who died in 1632, and is shown in a kneeling posture. More interesting is the cloister, with its early Renaissance arcading and fanwork vaulting. Some of the medallions and reliefs which adorn the cloister were designed by Alfonso Sardiña in 1626. The noble staircase adorned by a Magdalene, which was executed by order of the illustrious Dominican theologian, Fray Domingo Soto, of whom it was punningly said, ‘Qui scit Sotum, scit totum.’
The seminary, built in 1617 by Gómez de Mora for the Society of Jesus, is a building of the typemore commonly admired by Spaniards than other peoples. It is vast and heavy, commanding respect by its bulk rather than its proportions. Over the façade, with its six gigantic columns, rise two lofty steeples, flanking an acroterium with very bad statuary. The cupola or lantern is not ungracefully constructed, but spoilt with indifferent ornamentation. The interior is cold and monotonous, though free from the extravagant decoration of the epoch of its construction. The sacristy, which contains four copies of paintings by Rubens, is vast even for this vast church, the richest Jesuit establishment in Spain.
Another great but much less admirable pile is the church of the Recollect Augustine nuns, the convent having been founded in 1626 by the favourite of FelipeIV., the Count of Monterey, as a retreat for his sister, Doña Catilina. The architect was Juan Fontana. The church is in the usual shape of a Latin cross, and is richly adorned with coloured marbles, jasper, and lapis lazuli. The architecture was spoilt by injudicious repairs effected on the collapse of the dome in 1680. The tombs of the founder and his wife are in indifferent taste, but the statues are good. The church is rich in paintings. Ribera’s Conception hangs over the high altar, and thehandsome retablo is adorned by his Virgin de la Piedad. In the transept are two other works of the same master—Our Lady of the Rosary and the Nativity. These paintings were bought in Naples by Monterey, then viceroy, at the time of the papal pronouncement on the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. According to Ford, it is believed that better pictures are preserved in the convent itself, which is not open to visitors.
San Benito is an interesting church, originally founded by the Galician settlers in 1104, and rebuilt in the late Gothic style by the Maldonado family in the fifteenth century. The tombs of several members of that family are within. The statues of Arias Perez Maldonado and his wife lie to the right and left of the chancel. The knight wears armour, and a page rests at his feet; the lady wears the costume of the age of Isabel the Catholic. Here also sleeps that haughty lord of Monleón, whose wife was so reluctant to save his life at the expense of his castle. From this church the Maldonado faction took the name of San Benito; the opposite faction, descended from Maria la Brava, affected the church of Santo Tomé de los Caballeros. There are some good tombs of the fourteenthand sixteenth centuries in the church of San Isidoro, founded by the French settlers of Count Raymond. The Portuguese built the little church dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, which still preserves a triple apse and windows in the Romanesque style. The doorway is Gothic, and the tomb of Bishop de Velasco, supported by lions, obviously of the Renaissance. San Martin, built by settlers from Toro, though injured by a fire in 1854, preserves many ancient features. Some of the columns of the nave are Byzantine, and the doorway, with its triple-pointed arch, belongs to the best Gothic period. The south front is Renaissance. This is the burial-place of the Santisteban family. An architectural curiosity to which Street calls attention, is the little circular church of San Marcos, close to the wall at the north end of the city, with its three apses vaulted with semi-domes, while the rest of the edifice is roofed with wood. This odd little church was built as a chapel royal by AlfonsoIX.in 1202.
The only church of interest besides those enumerated above is the Sancti Spiritus, built about 1190, and granted to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in 1222. Afterwards, with the adjacent convent, it passed into thepossession of an aristocratic sisterhood. Rebuilt in 1541 by Leonor de Acevedo, the portal is in the Renaissance style, and the interior in late Gothic. The lower choir has fine artesonado work and well-carved stalls. The retablo, which dates from 1659, displays fine reliefs of the life of St. James, and good statues of the apostles. Near the entrance are the tombs of the great benefactors of the convent, Martin Alfonso, natural son of AlfonsoIX., and his wife, Maria Mendez, a Portuguese lady (1270). Another tomb is that of Pedro Vidal, an ecclesiastic, who died in 1363.
Salamanca contains several old mansions of the nobility, which might well have delighted Prout. However remote may have been the date of their foundation, later restoration has given them for the most part a plateresque or Renaissance aspect. The Casa de las Salinas was built for the Fonseca family in 1538, and was afterwards used as a place of storage for salt. It is considered to be the best example of the plateresque style in the city. The four arches of the principal façade spring from granite columns with very well chiselled capitals. Good also arethe busts in medallions between the arches. The second story is pierced by three square windows, supported by splendid masculine figures, emblematic of the victories of CharlesV., and in the best style of the period. Hardly inferior to these are the cherubs and grotesques on the columns of the jambs. Angels’ heads appear over the arches of the gallery which crowns the edifice. The beautifulpatiois adorned by arches similar to those of the façade. Round the court runs a mean wooden gallery carried on sixteen brackets superbly carved with terminal figures in every sort of posture, and supporting delightfully fantastic monsters. These figures are among the best sculptures in Salamanca, and merit close examination.
We find the five lilies of the Maldonados, those old Capulets of the city, displayed over the entrance of the Casa de las Conchas, built for the family in 1512. The house derives its name from the thirteen rows of shells decorating its front. The most interesting features of the building are the windows, each divided by a slender central shaft, and with delicate traceries in the early plateresque style. Quadrado states that the Jesuits, wishing to acquire the site, offered an ounce of gold for each of the shells,but the owners declined to give up the property at any price.
The unfinished palace of the counts of Monterey dates from the same epoch (1530). It is a massive building of three low stories, the upper pierced with an elegant gallery, and surmounted by a beautiful balustrade composed of figures and foliage intertwined. Above the general level rise square towers with open galleries, exhibiting some good decorative details. The lower stories of the mansion are devoid of interest.
Very suggestive of Salamanca’s fiery, flourishing days is the device over the doorway of an old house in the little Plaza de San Cebrian—‘Quod tibi non vis, alteri non facias.’ Close by in an underground cellar the famous Enrique de Villena is said to have studied magic under a sacristan from a neighbouring church. Not far away, we believe, is a house which we failed to find, called the Casa de las Batallas, where a temporary peace was patched up between the rival factions of the city in 1478—a peace commemorated by a text sculptured above the arch, ‘Ira odium generat, concordia nutrit amorem.’
Close to the Casa de las Salinas stands another memorial of that stormy time—the battered Torre del Clavero, built in 1470 by a knight of theOrder of Alcantara, Francisco de Sotomayor. Its eight faces are strengthened by projecting bartizan turrets, not placed as is usual at the angles, and adorned with rude sculpture. It forms an interesting example of Castilian military architecture. Close by were formerly the headquarters of the Templars, and not far away is the street called after the ‘Yellow Well,’ from which St. Juan of Sahagun miraculously rescued a drowning child.
The centre of the city is occupied by the fine Plaza Mayor, planned in 1720 by Don Andres de Quiñones. The square compares very favourably with the finest open spaces of the kind in Europe. It is surrounded by a colonnade of twenty-two arches on each side, above which rise three stories, to a pierced parapet with pinnacles. Archways, surmounted by an acroterium, in the centre of each side, afford communication with the adjoining streets. The arcades are adorned with medallions of Spanish worthies. The bust of Cortes is said to mark the site of the house he lodged in when a student. In this square, which is occupied by gardens and is the fashionable promenade, bull-fights on an enormous scale have been organised, and from the balconies the townsmen have more than once looked down on thedeath-agonies of some wretched malefactor. One side is occupied by the town hall (Ayuntamiento). Its architecture is strictly in keeping with the surrounding line of houses. The façade, supported on a gallery of five arches, is flanked by fluted columns, statues appear between the windows, and on each side of the clock-tower rising above the parapet.
This modern centre of what activity Salamanca can boast may be compared with the old resorts of the population—the Plaza de la Yerba, and the Plaza de San Boal, where Englishmen will look with interest at the palace of the Marques de Almarza, built about the end of the fifteenth century. Here lodged the Iron Duke in those days when Spain and England stood side by side for war, as they now do, and we hope may ever do, in the cause of peace.
Printed byT.andA. Constable, Printers to His Majestyat the Edinburgh University Press