In addition to the western doorway there were four others in these screens, two on the north and two on the south; these opened into small chapels contrived in the space left between the screen just described, outside the columns, and the wooden screen inside the columns and behind the choir-stalls.
The screen on the south side of the apse—the remains of what no doubt once went all round it—is even more elaborate than that round the Coro: it is pierced below, so that the altar may be seen, and has large statues of saints above, and an open-gabled parapet, finished with angels everywhere, and truly a most gorgeous work! This is in the south-west arch of the choir only, a late flamboyant screen having been added afterwards beyond it to the east, whilst on the north side a Berruguetesque monument has taken the place of the old screen.
The last great middle-pointed feature is the chapel of San Ildefonso, at the extreme east end of the church. It is a most elaborate work, groined with an eight-sided vault; its windows and arches full of rich mouldings, and enriched by ball flowers and some of the other devices commonly seen in our own work of the same age. Each side of this chapel had an elaborate tomb with an arched recess in the wall over it, surmounted by a gabled canopy between pinnacles, and under which sculptured subjects are introduced.[241]These tombs were evidently all erected at the same time, and help to make thetout ensembleof the chapel very rich and striking. A string-course is carried round above them; and above this there are large traceried windows, alternately of three and four lights. The vaulting-ribs are treated in an unusual and rather effective way, being fringed with a series of cusps on their under side, which give great richness to the general effect. There are smalltriangular vaulting compartments in the two western angles, which are necessary in order to bring the main vault to a true octagon in plan.
The works added in the fifteenth century were both numerous and important. The cloister and chapel of San Blas, on its north side, are the first in importance. They owe their origin, indeed, to the previous century, the first stone having been laid on the 14th of August,A.D.1389, by Archbishop Tenorio,[242]Rodrigo Alfonso being the master of the works. In the chapel is a fine monument of the Archbishop; and in the cloister walls a door which, in the capricious cusping and crocketing of its traceried work, illustrates the extreme into which the Spanish architects of this age ran in their elaboration of detail and affectation of novelty. The traceries of the whole of the windows of the cloister are destroyed, but the groining remains, and the proportions and scale of the whole work are both very fine.
The west front was commenced inA.D.1418, and the north-west tower inA.D.1425, one Alvar Gomez being the architect employed upon them; and inA.D.1479 the upper part of the west front was completed; but the whole of this was again repaired and altered inA.D.1777, so that now it presents little if anything really worthy of notice. The circular west window seems to be of the earlier half of the fourteenth century, and the later works were carried out in front of it. Between this window and the gable of the great doorway is an enormous sculpture of the Last Supper: the table extends from buttress to buttress; and our Lord and the Apostles sit each in a great niche. The steeple is certainly rather imposing in outline: a simple square tower at the base, and for some 170 feet from the ground, it is then changed to an octagon with bold turrets and pinnacles; and above this is a low spire, chiefly to be noticed for the three rows of metal rays which project from its sides. The upper part of the steeple was built when Alonso Covarrubias was the master of the works, but rebuilt after a fire inA.D.1660.[243]
The chapel of Santiago, to the north-east of the chevet, was another great work of this period. It is similar in plan to that of San Ildefonso, by the side of which it is built, and has in its centre a grand high tomb, carrying recumbent effigies of the Constable D. Alvaro de Luna and his wife Doña Juana.[244]Each of the tombs has life-size kneeling figures, one at each angle, looking towards the tomb, and angels holding coats of arms—that most unangelic of operations, as it always seems to me—in panels on the sides. Here, as in the chapel of San Ildefonso, the sides of the chapel were each provided with a great canopied tomb, whilst on one side a mediæval carved and painted wooden Retablo to an altar conceals the original altar arrangement. The exterior of this chapel is finished with a battlement and circular overhanging turrets at the angles; above which is a tiled roof of flat pitch. Don Alvaro de Luna died inA.D.1453, and his wife inA.D.1448; and the chapel bears evidence in the “perpendicular” character of its panelling, arcading, and crocketing, of the poverty of the age in the matter of design. At this period, indeed, the designers were sculptors rather than architects, and thought of little but the display of their own manual dexterity.
I have already described the external screens of the Coro. Its internal fittings must not be forgotten, being very full of interest, and of much magnificence. The lower range of stalls all round (fifty in number) are the work of Maestro Rodrigo, circaA.D.1495; and the upper range were executed, half by Berruguete, and half by Felipe de Borgoña, inA.D.1543.[245]The old stall ends are picturesque in outline, very large, and covered with tracery, panels, and carvings, with monkeys and other animals sitting on them. The upper range of stalls is raised by four steps, so that between the elbows of the lower stalls and the desk above them are spaces which are filled in with a magnificent series of bas-reliefs illustrating the various incidents of the conquest of Granada. They were executed whilst all the subjects depictedin them must have been fresh in the minds of the people; and they are full of picturesque vigour and character. The names of the fortresses are often inscribed upon the walls: in some we have the siege, in others the surrender of the keys, and in others the Catholic monarchs, accompanied by Cardinal Ximenes, riding in, in triumph, through the gates. It may be a fair complaint that the subjects are rather too much alike; but in subjects all of which were so similar in their story, it was, of course, difficult to avoid this. Their effect is in marked contrast to the heavy dull Paganism of the sculptures by Berruguete, whose work took the place, no doubt, of some more ancient stalls. The canopies in his work rest on columns of jasper, a material which seems to be very abundant here.
In the centre of the Coro stands the great Eagle, a magnificent work in brass. The enormous bird, with outstretched wings, is fighting a dragon which struggles between its feet: its eyes are large red stones, and it stands upon a canopied, buttressed, and pinnacled pedestal, crowded with statues, among which are those of the twelve apostles. Six lions couchant carry the whole on their backs, and serve to complete the family likeness to other brass eagles, of which, however, this is, I think, by far the most grandiose I have ever seen.
Here as elsewhere throughout Spain the iron and brass screens are very numerous. The two Rejas, east of the Coro and west of the Capilla mayor, were finished inA.D.1548. There is little to admire in their detail; but they are massive and bold pieces of metal-work, for the dignified simplicity of which there is much, no doubt, to be said, when we think of the terribly over-ornamented work—semi-renaissance in its feeling—which is so unfortunately fashionable among some of our own church restorers now-a-days.[246]The great iron screen outside the north transept door is an earlier work, and fine in its way. The detail of this is very much like the screens already described at Palencia.
There are also many Retablos, and some of them ancient. That behind the high altar is a grand work, of so great height that it rises quite from the floor to the roof, being filled with subjects from our Lord’s life, arranged with the most complete disregard to their chronology, and, so far as I could see, without any other better system of arrangement. The whole, however,is most effective, the subjects being richly painted and gilded, and the whole of the canopies and niches covered with gold, so that the effect is one of extreme richness and perfect quietness combined, the usual result of the ample use of gold. Many other small Retablos exist elsewhere, and many have been destroyed.[247]
The difficulty in the way of seeing to sketch anything inside the cathedral is as great as it usually is in Spain, but not at all in consequence of the absence of windows; for, as will have been seen from my description, the windows are both many and large: all of them, however, are filled with stained glass, and hence, in addition to the wonderful charm of contrasted lights and shades, which we have here in marvellous perfection, we have also the charm of seeing none but coloured rays of light where any fall through the windows on the floor or walls.
Most of the glass appeared to me to be of the fifteenth century, and later. The rose of the north transept, which is earlier, has already been described; and the glass in the eastern windows of the transept clerestory (single figures under canopies) looked as if it were of the same date, or at any rate earlier thanA.D.1350. The rest of the church is glazed rather uniformly with cinquecento glass of extreme brilliancy and unusual depth of colour, the upper windows having generally single figures, the others subjects in medallions. I had not time to make out the scheme of their arrangement; but I observed that the medallions of the clerestory of the intermediate aisle began at the west end, with the Expulsion from Paradise, and went on with subjects from the Old Testament.
Of colour on the walls, little, alas! remains. They have been whitewashed throughout, and in the choir coarsely diapered with broad gilt masonry lines, edged with black. The internal tympanum of the south transept door has a tree of Jesse, and close to it is an enormous painting of S. Christopher; and the cloister walls had remains of paintings which used to be attributed (but without the slightest foundation, I believe) to Giotto, but these have now given way to new wall-paintings of poor design and no value of any kind.
The stateliness of the services here answers in some degree tothe grandeur of the fabric in which they are celebrated. At eight o’clock every morning there appears to be mass at the high altar, at which the Epistle and Gospel are read from ambons in the screen in front of it, the gospeller having two lighted candles; whilst the silvery-sounding wheels of bells are rung with all their force at the elevation of the Host, in place of the single tinkling bell to which our ears are so used on the Continent.[248]The Revolution in Spain, among other odd things, has enabled the clergy here to sing the Lauds at about four o’clock in the afternoon instead of at the right time. The service at the Mozarabic Chapel at the west end of the aisle goes on at the same time as that in the Coro, and anything more puzzling than the two organs and two choirs singing as it were against each other can scarcely be conceived. There are neither seats nor chairs for the people; the worshippers, in so vast a place, seem to be few, though no doubt we should count them as many in one of our English cathedrals. I always wish, when I see a church so used, that we could revive the same custom here, and let a fair proportion, at any rate, of the people stand and kneel at large on the floor. Our chairs, benches, and pews are at least as often a nuisance to their occupiers as the contrary; and for all parts of our services, save the sermon, all but superfluous. Some day, perhaps, when we have discovered that it is not given to every one to be a good preacher, we may separate our sermons from our other services, and may live in hopes of then seeing the floors of our churches restored to the free and common use of the people, whilst some chance will be given, at the same time, to our architects of exhibiting their powers to the greatest advantage.
It would be easy to elaborate the account which I have given of this cathedral, to very much greater length; for there areother erections in connexion with it besides all those that I have noticed, of a grand and costly kind, owing their foundation to the builders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and everywhere affording the same exhibition of magnificence and wealth; but these works are all worthless from the point of view which I have taken for my notes of Spanish architecture, and if I were to chronicle them I should be bound to chronicle all the works of Berruguete, Herrera, and Churriguera elsewhere, for which sad task I have neither space nor inclination. I cannot, indeed, forgive these men, when I remember that to them it is due that what remained before their time of the original design of the exterior of this church was completely modernized or concealed everywhere by their additions.
The only other great Gothic work in the city, after the cathedral, seems to be the church of San Juan de los Reyes,[249]which was erected by order of Ferdinand and Isabella, inA.D.1476, to commemorate their victory in the battle of Toro over the King of Portugal. Nothing can be much more elaborate than much of the detail of this church, yet I have seen few buildings less pleasing or harmonious. It was erected in the age of heraldic achievements, and angels with coats of arms are crowded over the walls. There is a nave of four bays, a Cimborio or raised lantern at the Crossing, roofed with an octagonal vault with groined pendentives, quasi-transepts (they are in fact mere shallow square recesses), and a very short apsidal choir of five unequal sides. The western bay of the nave has a deep groined gallery, of the same age as the church, and in which are the stalls and organs, with two small ambons in its western balustrade: chapels are formed between the nave buttresses. Other ambons are placed at some height from the floor against the north-west and south-west piers of the Cimborio. The lantern on the outside is octagonal with pinnacles at the angles and a pierced parapet.
The bald panelling of the external wall of the south transept is furnished with a ghastly kind of adornment in the chains with which Christians are said to have been confined by the Moors in Granada.
The ruling idea of the interior of this church is evidently that which, unfortunately I think, is somewhat fashionable at the present day—the bringing of the altar forward among the people without reserve or protection. The removal of the Coro to the western gallery, the shallow recess in which the altar is placed, and the broad, unbroken area of the nave, are all evidences of this, and could only have been adopted when all desire to interest the people in any but the altar services had been given up, and with it that wholesome reverence which, in earlier days, had jealously guarded, fenced around, and screened these the holiest parts of holy buildings.
A blue velvet canopy still hangs above the altar; it is a square tester, with hangings at the back and on either side. The velvet is marked with vertical lines of gold lace, and the eagle of St. John—the crest of Ferdinand and Isabella—is introduced in the embroidery.
The pulpit was against one of the piers on the south side of the nave; the door into it is now stopped up, and another pulpit has been erected below the Gospel ambon. There is a gallery corbelled out from the clerestory, in front of one of the south windows, the use of which did not seem to be at all clear, unless, indeed, it was similar in object to such an example as the minstrels’ gallery at Exeter Cathedral.
The old cloister, though falling down through neglect and bad usage, is, on the whole, the finest portion of the whole work; it is groined throughout, and covered with rich sculpture of foliage and animals, and saints in niches. It has been much damaged, mainly, I believe, by French soldiers during the war, and is now used in part as a picture gallery, and in part as a museum of antiquities. The pictures, like those in most of the inferior Spanish collections, are very sad, ghastly, and gloomy; but among the antiquities are many of value, including a good deal of Moorish work of various ages. The cloister is of two stages in height, the lower having traceried openings, the upper large open arches in each bay.
The refectory also remains, with ogee lierne ribs on its groining: over the entrance to it is a great cross, recessed within an arch, with a pelican at the top, and statues of St. Mary and St. John[250]on either side, but without the figure of our Lord.
And now I bid farewell to Toledo. Few cities that I have ever seen can compete in artistic interest with it; and none perhapscome up to it in the singular magnificence of its situation, and the endless novelty and picturesqueness of its every corner. It epitomizes the whole strange history of Spain in a manner so vivid, that he who visits its old nooks and corners carefully and thoughtfully, can work out, almost unassisted, the strange variety which that history affords. For here, Romans, Visigoths, Saracens, and again Christians, have in turn held sway, and here all have left their mark; here, moreover, the Christians, since the thirteenth century, have shown two opposite examples,—one of toleration of Jews and Moors, which it would be hard to find a parallel for among ourselves, and the other of intolerance, such as has no parallel out of Spain elsewhere in Europe.
I need hardly say that in such a city the post-Gothic builders have also left their mark. They have built many and imposing houses of various kinds, chief among which are the altered Alcazar, now destroyed and ruined, and the Convent of Sta. Cruz. But there was nothing in these works specially appropriate to the locality, and nothing, therefore, which takes them out of the position which their class holds elsewhere in Spain.
I believe that Toledo, in addition to all its other charms, is a good starting-point for visits to several of the best examples of mediæval Castilian castles. I have not been able to afford the time necessary for this work, and was unluckily obliged, therefore, to neglect it altogether; but the Spanish castles are so important that they deserve a volume to themselves; and it is to be hoped that ere long some one will undertake the pleasant task of examining and illustrating them.
[larger view][largest view]TOLEDO Ground Plan of Cathedral &c. Plate XIV. W. West, Lithr. Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.
FROMToledo I took the railway to Valencia. But as the junction of the Toledo branch with the main line is a small station of the meanest description, and as there were three or four hours to dispose of before the mail-train passed, I went back as far as Aranjuez, intending to dine there. The station is close to the palace, a large, bald, and uninteresting pile. The principal inn is kept by an Englishman with a French wife, and as it was not the right season for Aranjuez we had great difficulty in getting anything. In truth the French wife was a tartar, and advised us to go back again; but finally, the husband having interceded, she relented so far as to produce some eggs and bacon.
Aranjuez seemed to consist mainly of the palace and its stables, and to be afflicted with even more than the usual plague of dust: but in the spring no doubt it is in a more pleasant state, and may, I hope, justify the landlord’s assertion that there is nothing in the world to compare with it!
Late in the evening we started for Valencia: it was a bright moonlight night, so that I was able, when I woke and looked out, to see that the country we traversed was an endless plain of extremely uninteresting character, and that we lost little by not seeing it. I should have preferred leaving the railway altogether, and going by Cuença on my way to Valencia; but time was altogether wanting for this détour, though I have no doubt that Cuença would well repay a visit.
At Almanza, where the lines for Alicante and Valencia separate, there is a very picturesque castle perched upon a rock above the town, and here the dreary, uninteresting country, which extends with but short intervals all the way from Vitoria, is changed for the somewhat mountainous Valencian district, which everywhere shows signs of the highest luxuriance and cultivation, resulting almost entirely from the extreme care and industry with which the artificial irrigation is managed. The villages are numerous, and around them are beautiful vineyards, groves of orange-trees, and rice-fields; whilst here and thereclumps of tall palm-trees give a very Eastern aspect to the landscape. The churches seemed, as far as I could judge, to be all modern and most uninteresting. After passing the hilly country, a broad plain is crossed to Valencia. Here the system of irrigation, said to be an inheritance from the Moors, is evidently most complete. Every field has its stream of water running rapidly along, and the main drawback to such a system, so completely carried out, is that the beds of the rivers are generally all but dry, their water being all diverted into other and more useful channels. The Valencian farm-labourers’ dress is quite worth looking at. They wear short, loose, white linen trousers and jackets, brilliantly colouredmantas—generally scarlet—thrown over their shoulders, coloured handkerchiefs over their heads, and violet scarfs round their waists. They have a quaint way of sitting at work in the fields, with their knees up to their ears, like so many grasshoppers; and their skin is so well bronzed that one can hardly believe them to be of European blood. They are said to be vindictive and passionate, but they are also, so far as I saw them, very lively, merry, and talkative. The farms appear to be very large, and when I passed the farmers were hard at work threshing their rice. This is all done by horses and mules on circular threshing-floors. In many of the farms eight or ten pair of horses may be seen at work at the same time on as many threshing-floors, and the effect of such a scene is striking and novel.
As we went into Valencia we passed on the right the enormous new Plaza de Toros, said to be the finest in Spain. Railroads will, I suppose, rather tend to develop the national love for this institution, and this theatre must have been built with some such impression, for otherwise it is difficult to believe that a city of a hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants could build a theatre capable of containing about a tenth of the whole population!
The national vehicle of Valencia is thetartana, a covered cart on two wheels, with a slight attempt only at springs, and rendered gay by the crimson curtains which are hung across the front. Jumping into one of these, we soon found ourselves at the excellent Fonda del Cid, whose title reminds us that we are on classic ground in this city of Valencia del Cid.
The Cid took the city from the Moors after a siege of twenty months, inA.D.1094, established himself here, and ruled till his death, inA.D.1099. The Moors then regained possession for a short time, but inA.D.1238 or 1239 it was finally re-taken from them by the Spaniards.
It is hardly to be expected that anything would remain of Christian work earlier thanA.D.1095, or, more probably, thanA.D.1239, and this I found to be the case. The cathedral, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, is a church of only moderate interest, its interior having been overlaid everywhere with columns, pilasters, and cornices of plaster, and the greater part of the exterior being surrounded so completely with houses, that no good view can be obtained of it.
The ground-plan is, however, still so far untouched as to be perfectly intelligible. It has a nave and aisles of four bays, transepts projecting one bay beyond the aisles, and a lofty lantern or Cimborio over the Crossing. The choir is one bay only in length, and has a three-sided apse. An aisle of the same width as that of the nave is continued round the choir, and has the rare arrangement of two polygonal chapels opening in each of its bays. The vaulting compartments in the aisle are therefore cincopartite, those throughout the rest of the church being quadripartite. A grand Chapter-house stands detached to the south of the west bay of the nave, and an octagonal steeple, called “El Micalete,” abuts against the north-west angle of the west front.
The ritual arrangements are all modern, and on the usual plan. The western bay of the church is open; the stalls of the Coro occupy the second and third bays; and metal rails across the fourth bay of the nave and the Crossing connect the Coro with the Capilla mayor.
The evidence as to the age of the various portions of the building is sufficient to enable us to date most of the work rather accurately. The foundation of the church is recorded by an inscription over the south-transept door to have been laid in 1262:[251]and some portion of the exterior is, I have no doubt, of this date. The whole south-transept front, a portion of the sacristy on the east side, and the exterior of the apse, are all of fine early-pointed style, and, in the absence of any specific statement of their date, might well have been thought to belong to quite the commencement of the century. But I think a careful examination of the detail will show that the work is possibly not so early as it looks: and it has so muchin common with Italian work of the same age, that we need not be surprised to find in it features which would nevertheless be inconsistent with its execution in the middle of the thirteenth century in any work in the North of Europe. The south transept façade consists of a round-arched doorway, with a horizontal cornice over it, and a large and fine lancet-window above. The door and window have respectively six and three jamb-shafts, and the abaci throughout are square in plan. The archivolt of the doorway is very rich: it includes five orders of enriched dog-tooth moulding, one order of seraphs in niches, one of chevron, one of scalloping, and two of foliage: good thirteenth century mouldings are also freely used. The shafts are detached, and there is foliage on the jamb between them. The abaci are very richly carved with animals and foliage, and the capitals are all sculptured with subjects under canopies. The detail of the whole of the work is certainly very exquisite. Undoubtedly in the north of France such work would be assumed to have belonged to the twelfth rather than the thirteenth century; but the quatrefoil diapering on the capitals, the canopy work over the subjects in them, and the pronounced character of the mouldings and dog-tooth enrichment, make it pretty clear that the recorded date applies to this work. Indeed I do not know how we can assume any other date for it without altogether throwing over the extremely definite old inscription: for as it is evident that the south transept and choir are of the same date, it is difficult to see how it could have been possible to speak of the first stone, if all this important part of the fabric were already in existence.[252]Close to the transept on the east, in the wall of what is now a sacristy, is another lancet window, of equally good, though simpler detail. Enough, too, remains of the original work in the exterior of the apse to show that it is of the same age as the south transept. The clerestory windows seem to have been simple broad lancets; there are corbel-tables under the eaves; and the buttresses are very solid and simple. On the interior nothing but the groining has been left untouched by the pagan plasterers of a later day.
No. 32. VALENCIA CATHEDRAL. p. 263. NORTH TRANSEPT AND CIMBORIO.No. 32.VALENCIA CATHEDRAL.p. 263.NORTH TRANSEPT AND CIMBORIO.
I have found no evidence as to the date of the next portion of the fabric, which is the more to be regretted as it is altogether very important and interesting in its character. It includes the whole façade of the north transept, a noble lantern at theCrossing, and a small pulpit, and the whole of this is a good example of probably the latter half of the fourteenth century. The north transept elevation is extremely rich in detail. The great doorway in the centre of the lowest stage—De los Aposteles—has figures under canopies in its jambs, and corresponding figures on either side beyond the jambs. The arch is moulded, and sculptured with four rows of figures and canopies, divided by orders of mouldings. The tympanum of the door is adorned with sculptures of the Blessed Virgin with our Lord and angels. Over the arch is a gabled canopy, the spandrels of which are filled with tracery and figures. Above, and set back rather from the face of the doorway, is a rose window, the very rich traceries of which are arranged in intersecting equilateral triangles; over it is a crocketed pediment, with tracery in the spandrels and on either side, and flanked by pinnacles. Every portion of the wall is panelled or carved. This front affords an admirable example of that class of middle-pointed work which was common in Germany and France at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries. The style prevailed for some time, and it was probably about the middle of the fourteenth century that this building was executed.
The pulpit is placed against the north-east pier of the Crossing; it has evidently been taken to pieces and reconstructed, and it is not certain, I think, that it was originally a pulpit. Many of the members of the base and capital of its stem, and the angles of the octagonal upper stage, are modern, and of bronze; the rest is mainly of marble. The stem is slender, and the upper part is pierced with richly-moulded geometrical traceries, behind which the panels are filled in with boards, gilt and diapered with extremely good effect. A curious feature in this pulpit is that there is now no entrance to it, and if it is ever used for preaching, the preacher must get into it by climbing over the sides!
The lantern or Cimborio, though in some respects similar to, is no doubt later than the transept; it is one of the finest examples of its class in Spain. Mr. Ford says that it was built inA.D.1404, but I have been unable to find his authority for the statement,[253]and though he may be right, I should have been inclined to date it somewhat earlier. It is an octagon of two rather similar stages in height above the roof. Crocketed pinnacles are arranged at each angle, and large six-light windows with very rich andvaried geometrical tracery fill the whole of each of the sides. The lower windows have crocketed labels, and the upper crocketed canopies, and the string-courses are enriched with foliage. From the very transparent character of this lantern, it is clear that it was never intended to be carried higher. It is a lantern and nothing more, and really very noble, in spite of its somewhat too ornate and frittered character.[254]
The Micalete.The Micalete.
The portion of the work next in date to this seems to have been the tower. This, like the lantern, is octagonal in plan, and it is placed at the north-west corner of the aisle, against which one of its angles is set. A more Gothic contempt for regularity it would be impossible to imagine, yet the effect is certainly good. The circumference of this steeple is said to be equal to its height, but I had not an opportunity of testing this. Each side is 20 ft. 8 in. from angle to angle of the buttresses, so that the height, if the statement is true, would be about 165 feet. It is of four stages in height; the three lower stages quite plain, and the belfry rather rich, with a window in each face, panelling all over the wall above, and crocketed pediments over the windows. The buttresses or pilasters—for they are of similar projection throughout their height—are finished at the top with crocketed pinnacles. The parapet has been destroyed, and there is a modern structure on the roof at the top. The evidence as to the age of this work is ample. It is called “El Micalete” or “Miguelete,” its bells having been first hung on the feast of St. Michael.
Some documents referring to it are given by Cean Bermudez,[255]and are as follows:—
I. A deed executed in Valencia before Jayme Rovira, notary, on the 20th June, 1380, by which it appears that Michael Palomar, citizen, Bernardo Boix and Bartolomé Valent, master masons, estimated what they considered necessary for the fabric of the tower or campanile at 853 scudi.
II. From the MS. diary of the chaplain of King D. Alonso V. of Aragon, it appears that on the 1st January,A.D.1381, there was a solemn procession of the bishop, clergy, andregidorsof the city to the church, to lay the first stone of the Micalete.[256]
III. By a deed made in Valencia, May 18th,A.D.1414, before Jayme Pastor, notary or clerk of the chapter, it is settled that Pedro Balaguer, an “able architect,” shall receive 50 florins from the fabric fund of the new campanile or Micalete, “in payment of his expenses on the journey which he made to Lérida, Narbonne, and other cities, in order to see and examine their towers and campaniles, so as to imitate from them the most elegant and fit form for the cathedral of Valencia.”
IV. By another deed, made before the same Jayme Pastor, September 18th,A.D.1424, it is agreed that Martin Llobet, stone-cutter, agrees to do the work which is wanting and ought to be done in the Micalete, to wit, to finish the last course with its gurgoyles, to make the “barbacano,” and bench round about, for the sum of 2000 florins of common money of Aragon,[257]the administration of the fabric finding the wheels, ropes, baskets, &c.
An inscription on the tower itself, referred to by Mr. Ford (but which I did not see), states that it was raised betweenA.D.1381 andA.D.1418, by Juan Franck, and it is said to have been intended to be 350 feet high.[258]
It is evident, therefore, that several architects were employed upon the work, and I know few facts in the history of mediævalart more interesting than the account we have here of the payment of an architect whilst he travelled to find some good work to copy for the city of Valencia. The steeple of Lérida cathedral will be mentioned in its place, and it is sufficient now to say that it is also octagonal, of great height, and dates from the commencement of the fourteenth century. I know nothing at Narbonne which could have been suggestive to Pedro Balaguer, but the city was Spanish in those days, and is probably only mentioned as one of the most important places to which he went.
When the Micalete was built the nave of the church seems to have been still unfinished, the choir and transepts and part of the nave only having been built. In 1459, under the direction of an architect named Valdomar, a native of Valencia, the work was continued, and the church was joined to the tower. The authority for this statement is a MS. in the library of the convent of San Domingo, Valencia, which says: “In the year of our Lord 1459, on Monday, the 10th of September, they commenced digging to make the doorway and arcade of the cathedral; Master Valdomar was the master of the works, a native of the said city of Valencia.”[259]Of Valdomar’s work in this part of the church nothing remains, the whole has been altered in the most cruel way, and the most contemptible work erected in its place. Valdomar appears to have died whilst his work was in progress, and to have been succeeded by Pedro Compte, who concluded the work in 1482. The manuscript already quoted from the library of San Domingo is the authority for this statement, and describes Pedro Compte as “Molt sabut en l’art de la pedra.”[260]
On the south side of the nave there is a Chapter-house, which is said by Ponz[261]to be the work of Pedro Compte, and to have been built at the cost of Bishop D. Vidal Blaues, inA.D.1358. If this statement is correct, it follows that there were two architects of this name, the second having erected the Lonja de la Sedia, to which I shall have presently to refer, inA.D.1482. The tracery of the windows, and the details generally of the Chapter-house, is so geometrical and good, that it is probable that the date given by Ponz may be depended upon. It is a square roomnearly sixty feet in diameter, and groined in stone. The vault is similar to those which I first saw at Burgos, having arches thrown across the angles to bring it to an octagon, and the triangular compartments in the angles having their vaults below the main vault. It is lighted by small windows very high up in the walls on the cardinal sides, and these are circular and spherical triangles in outline, filled with geometrical tracery. On the south side is a very elaborate arcaded reredos and altar, and on the west a pulpit corbelled out from the wall. The design and detail of the whole are extremely fine, and I regret that I was able to make but a very hurried examination of it, and no sketches; meeting here, almost for the first time in Spain, with a sacristan who refused to allow me to do more than look, the fact being that it was his time for dinner and siesta!
In the old sacristy to the east of this room are still preserved two embroidered altar frontals, said to have been brought from our own old St. Paul’s by two merchants, Andres and Pedro de Medina, just about the time of the Reformation.[262]They are therefore of especial interest to an Englishman. They are very large works, strained on frames, and were, I believe, hangings rather than altar frontals, as they are evidently continuations one of the other. The field is of gold, diapered, and upon this a succession of subjects is embroidered. On one cloth are (beginning at the left) (1) our Lord bearing his Cross; (2) being nailed to the Cross; (3) crucified, with the thieves on either side; (4) descending from the Cross; (5) entombed. The next cloth has (1) the descent into Hell; (2) the Maries going to the sepulchre; (3) the Maries at the tomb, the angel, and (4) the Resurrection. The effect of the whole work is like that of a brilliant German painting, and the figures are full of action and spirit, and have a great deal of expression in their faces. The diapered ground is made with gold thread, laid down in vertical lines, and then diapered with diagonal lines of fine bullion stitched down over it to form the diaper. The gold is generally manufactured in a double twist, and borders and edgings are all done with a very bold twisted gold cord. The faces are all wrought in silk, and some of the dresses are of silk, lined all over with gold. The old border at the edge exists on one only of the frontals. The size of each is 3 ft. 1 in. by 10 ft. 2 in., and the date, as nearly as I can judge, must be aboutA.D.1450. Thereis also preserved here a missal which once belonged to Westminster Abbey.
I could find no other church of any interest. There are several which have some old remains, but they are generally so damaged and decayed, that it is impossible to make anything of them. One I saw desecrated and occupied by the military, and was unable to enter; and there is another in a street leading out of the Calle de Caballeros, which has a very fine round-arched doorway, with three shafts in the jambs, and good thirteenth-century mouldings in the arch, and which is evidently of the same age as the south door of the cathedral. The capitals have each two wyverns fighting, and the abaci are well carved. The church, however, was desecrated, and no one knew how I could gain admission to it.
Puerta de Serranos. Valencia.Puerta de Serranos. Valencia.
The walls and gates are of more interest. They are lofty,and generally well preserved. The two finest gates are the Puerta de Serranos, and that del Cuarte. The former, said by Ford[263]to have been built inA.D.1349, is a noble erection. Two grand polygonal towers flank the entrance archway, which is recessed in the centre. Above this the wall is covered with tracery panelling, and then a great projecting gallery or platform, supported on enormous corbels, is carried all round the three exposed sides of the gateway. The towers are carried up a considerable height above this gallery, and it is probable that there was originally a wooden construction over it, of the kind which M. Viollet le Duc, in his treatise on military architecture, has shown to have been commonly adopted in fortifications of this age. The Puerta del Cuarte is of the same description, and has two circular flanking towers, but is less imposing, and is said to have been built inA.D.1444. Both gateways are completely open at the back, enormous open arches, one above the other, rendering them useless for attack against the city; and the corbelled-out passages at the top are not continued across the back.
The domestic remains here are of some importance. One feature of rather frequent occurrence is the window of two or three lights, divided by detached shafts. The earlier examples have simple trefoil heads, and sculptured capitals to the columns. In the later examples there are mouldings round the cusped head, and the abaci and capitals are carved: but it is a very curious fact, that wherever I saw any old towns on the coast of the Mediterranean, there I always saw some specimens of this later kind of window, with detail and carving so identical in character, that I was almost driven to the conclusion that they were all executed in the same place, and sent about the country to be fixed! Nevertheless, they are always very pretty, so that one ought not to grumble if they do occur a little too often. The shafts are generally of marble, and often coupled one behind the other.
The Arabs had a name for this class of windows, and as we have not, and want one, it may be as well to mention it. They are calledajimez, literally windows by which the sun enters. The Arabs seem to have supplied many of the architectural terms in use in Spain, and probably we owe them in this case not only the name, but the design also. Among other Arab words still in common use, I may mention Alcazar, Alcalá, Tapia, and many more are given in vocabularies.
Ajimez Window. Valencia.Ajimez Window. Valencia.
No. 33 VALENCIA. p. 270. THE CASA LONJA.No. 33VALENCIA.p. 270.THE CASA LONJA.
One of the earliest of theseajimezwindows is in a house on the east side of the cathedral; and a fine example of later date is in an old house in the Calle de Caballeros, the internal court and staircase of which are also picturesque, though hardly mediæval. All the houses here seem to be built on the same plan, with the stables and offices on the ground floor, arranged round an internal court, an open stone staircase to the first floor, and the living-rooms above. The fronts towards the streets are generally rather gloomy and forbidding-looking, but the courts are always picturesque. The finest domestic building in the city is the Casa Lonja, or Exchange, which was commenced on the 7th November, 1482, the year in which the works at the cathedral were completed by Pedro Compte. There is no doubt, I believe, that he was the architect; and on March 19, 1498, he was appointed perpetual Alcaide of the Lonja, with a salary of thirty pounds (“libras”) a year. He was also “Maestro Mayor” of the city, and was employed in several works of engineering on the rivers and streams of the district.[264]The main front of the Lonja is still very nearly as he left it, a fine specimen of late Spanish pointed work. The detail is of the same kind as, but simpler than, the contemporary works at Valladolid and Burgos, and there is a less determined display of heraldic achievements; though the great doorway, and the window on either side of it which open into the great hall, and which are so curiously grouped together by means of labels and string-courses, have some coats of arms and supporters rather irregularly placed in their side panels. The great parapet of the end, and the singularfinish of the battlements, are very worthy of note, and give great richness to the whole building. The principal doorway leads into a fine groined hall, 130 feet long by 75 feet wide, divided into a quasi nave and aisles of five bays by eight columns, sculptured and spirally twisted. The portion of the building to the left of the centre is divided into three chambers in height, the upper and lower rooms being low, the central room lofty and well proportioned. The lower rooms have plain square windows; the next stage, windows of much loftier proportions, and with their square heads ornamented with a rich fringe of cusping. There are pointed discharging arches over them. The upper stage of this wing is extremely rich, the window-openings being pierced in a sort of continuous arcading, the pinnacles of which run up to and finish in the parapet. This parapet is enriched with circular medallions enclosing heads, a common Italian device, betokening here the hand of a man whose work was verging upon that of the Renaissance school. At the back is a garden, the windows and archways opening on which are of the same age as the front.
Valencia, though not containing any building of remarkable interest, is nevertheless well worth a visit: it is a busy city, full of picturesque colour and people. Themantaor rug worn by the peasants throughout Spain is here seen in perfection: it is of rich and very oriental colour, and charms the eye at every turn. I went into a shop and looked at a number of them, and there were none which were not thoroughly good in their colour; and, worn as they are by the sunburnt peasants, hanging loosely on one shoulder, they contrast splendidly with their white linen jackets and trousers, and swarthy skins. The river is, at any rate in the autumn, the broad dry bed only of a river, with here and there a puddle just deep enough for washerwomen. The water is all carried off to irrigate the fertile country around, and troops of cavalry and artillery, with their guns all drawn by fine mules, were hard at work exercising where it ought to have been. On the side of the river opposite to the city are some rather nice public gardens, with fine walks and drives planted with noble trees. A drive which begins here extends all the way to Grao, the port of Valencia, some two or three miles off. In the afternoon it seems to be always thronged withtartanas, carriages, and equestrians on their way to and from the sea: and eachtartanais full generally of a lively cargo of priests and peasants, men, women, and children, all laughing, cheerful, and picturesque. I went to Grao to embark on the steamer for Barcelona. There isnothing to see there save the usual accompaniments of a sea-port, and the provision for a large and fashionable population of bathers from Madrid during the summer months. For their convenience small and very rude huts are put up on the beach, and left there to be destroyed by the winter storms. Not much is sacrificed, as they are of the very rudest description, and evidently devised for the use of people who go to Grao to be amused and to bathe, and not merely to show themselves off as fine ladies and gentlemen.
At Valencia the national love for themantilla, which in courtly Madrid seems to be now half out of fashion, finds vent in the positive prohibition at one of the churches for any woman to enter who wears a bonnet in place of it!
NOone should go from Valencia to Barcelona without paying a visit to Tarragona. It is even now easy of access, and before long will be still more accessible by means of the railway which is being made between the two towns. I travelled from Barcelona to Tarragona and back again by diligence, and both journeys, unfortunately, were made for the most part by night, so that I am unable to speak very positively about the scenery upon the road. But both on leaving Barcelona and again before I reached Tarragona the road was very beautiful, and I have no doubt it would reward any one who could contrive to give up more time and daylight to it than I could. There is but one town of any importance on the road—Villafranca de Panades,—and here I caught a glimpse of an old church, which seemed to be of the fourteenth-century Catalan type, and fully to deserve examination.
The approach to Tarragona is very lovely. The old city stands on the steep slope of a hill, crowned by the stately mediæval cathedral, and surrounded on all sides by walls, which are still very perfect and in some parts unusually lofty and imposing. Below and beyond the walls to the left, as you approach, is the mean and modern town which covers a low promontory, and is now the centre of all the trade and business of the city. A broad street, in which are the principal inns, divides the two halves of the city, on the upper side of which the whole architectural interest is centred. The views on all sides are beautiful. Looking back to the east one sees hill after hill, ending in point after point, which jut out into the sea one beyond the other, and, combining with the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean, produce the most charming picture. To the south, looking over the modern town, mole, and harbour, is the sea; whilst to the west the eye wanders, well content, over a rich green expanse of level land, studded all along its breadth with rich growth of trees, till the view is bounded by the hills which rise beyond the old town of Reus, now an active and enterprising centre of manufacturing industry.
I ought, no doubt, to fill many pages here with an account of the Roman antiquities, which are numerous and important, Tarragona having been one of the most important Roman stations in Spain. But they have been often described, and the time at my disposal allowed only of a hurried glance at them, unless I chose to neglect in their favour the—to me—much more interesting Christian remains, which I need hardly say I was not prepared to do. The city walls are, I believe, to a considerable extent Roman. There are remains—though but slight—of an amphitheatre; the magnificent aqueduct, some little distance from the city, is one of the finest in Europe; and, finally, there is a museum full of Roman antiquities, which seem well to deserve due examination. But I was obliged to neglect all these, giving them the most cursory inspection, as I found in the cathedral ample occupation for every minute of my time.
This is certainly one of the most noble and interesting churches I have seen in Spain. It is one of a class of which I have seen others upon a somewhat smaller scale (ase.g.the cathedrals at Lérida and Tudela), and which appears to me, after much study of old buildings in most parts of Europe, to afford one of the finest types, from every point of view, that it is possible to find. It produces in a very marked degree an extremely impressive internal effect, without being on an exaggerated scale, and combines in the happiest fashion the greatest solidity of construction with a lavish display of ornament in some parts, to which it is hard to find a parallel. Unfortunately the documentary evidence that I have been able to find as to the age of the various portions of this church is not so complete as I could wish. A very elaborate and painstaking history of the city is in course of publication; but when I was there[265]the first volume only of this had been published, and this was confined entirely to the Roman antiquities contained in the Museum and other collections. The volume of España Sagrada, which relates to Tarragona, contains but few documents of any value, and I have been unable to put my hands upon any other which contains any at all. Yet there cannot be much doubt that a see whose history is so important, and whose rank is so high,[266]must have inits archives a vast store of information, out of which might be gathered all the material facts as to the foundation of, and additions to, the church.
A few notices of the building of the cathedral have, however, come under my eye, and of these the most important are the following:—InA.D.1089[267]Pope Urban II. addressed an epistle to the faithful, recommending them to aid in every way in the restoration of the church, which had then just been recovered from the hands of the Moors. Not long after this, inA.D.1131, Pope Innocent II. issued a Bull, wherein he recommended the suffragan churches to contribute to the cost of rebuilding the cathedral.[268]More than a century after this, works were again in progress, for in the necrology of the cathedral, on 11th March, 1256, mention is made of “Frater Bernardus, magister operis hujus ecclesiæ;” whilst again, in 1298, Maestro Bartolomé is mentioned as the sculptor who wrought nine statues of the apostles for the western façade, the remainder having been executed by Maestro Jayme Castayls in 1375.
Comparing this cathedral with that of Lérida, of which the date is tolerably well ascertained, it is difficult to pronounce decidedly which is the oldest, except that the eastern apse here, which is very peculiar in its character, has every appearance of being a work of the middle of the twelfth century, at the latest, and earlier by far, therefore, than the foundation of the church of Lérida, which was not commenced untilA.D.1203, and which was finished and consecrated inA.D.1278. I believe, indeed, that the eastern part of this cathedral may most probably have been commenced aboutA.D.1131, in consequence of the Bull of Innocent II., though the greater portion of the fabric (including the nave and its aisles and the cloister) seems to me to have been executed at the end of the twelfth and during the first half of the thirteenth century; and it is very possible, therefore, that the Brother Bernardus, who died in 1256, may have been the architect of the larger part of the existing fabric, both of the church and its cloister.
The original plan of the cathedral was very simple. It had a nave and aisles, transepts, with apsidal chapels to the east of them, a raised lantern or Cimborio over the Crossing, and three parallel apses east of it. On the north-east side of the church—an unusual position, selected probably in obedience to somelocal necessity—is a large cloister of the same age as the church, with a Chapter-house on its southern side. The piers throughout are clustered in a very fine and massive style, and of a section which is often repeated in early Spanish Gothic; each arch being carried on two coupled half-columns, and the groining-shafts being placed in a nook in the angle between each of these pairs of columns. The nave piers are no less than 11 ft. 9 in. in diameter, the clear width of the nave being about 40 ft. 8 in., and the span of the arches east and west about 20 ft. The bases are finely moulded, and have foliage carved on the angle between their circular and square members. The capitals and abaci are carved generally with a most luxuriant exuberance of conventional foliage, whilst the broad solid unmoulded and unchamfered sections of the arches which rise above them seem to protest gravely against any forgetfulness of solidity and massiveness as the greatest elements at the disposal of the architect. The groining of the nave and its aisles is all quadripartite, as also is that of the transepts, save at the extreme end of the northern transept, which is covered with a pointed waggon-roof. The choir has two bays of cross-vaulting on its western portion and a semi-dome over the apse—a form of roofing which is repeated over the other early apses; that of the north transept having been rebuilt in the fourteenth century, and vaulted in the usual manner. It is probable that the cross-vaults in the choir were not originally contemplated, as they are carried on small shafts raised on the capitals of the main groining-shafts, which may perhaps have been intended to carry a waggon-vault. The roof of the apse is considerably lower than that of the choir, and a small rose window is pierced in the spandrel between the two. The arch in front of the semi-dome of the apse is—like all the other main arches—pointed, though those which open into the smaller apses are semi-circular. The latter, being in the lower part of the wall, were, no doubt, completed at an early date; whilst the former, being on the level of the groining, would not be finished until much later. The apse is lighted with three windows in the lower part of the wall, which are richly shafted inside, and by seven small and perfectly plain round-arched windows, pierced in the lower part of the semi-dome with very singular effect. On the exterior all these windows are remarkable for a very wide splay from the face of the wall to the glass—a feature of early work in England, and usually preceding the common use of glass. The walls are carried up a considerable height above the springing of the dome, in order to resist itsthrust, and are finished at the top with a rich projecting corbel-table, from which, at regular intervals, five divisions are brought still further forward, looking much like machicoulis, and yet evidently introduced only for the sake of effect, as there is no access to them. These projections are square in plan, carried on very large corbels, and the cornice under the eaves has a course of square stones set diagonally—a kind of enrichment very common in brickwork, and which I saw in the early church of San Pedro at Gerona. The great depth of this cornice is very imposing. The stone roof above it abuts against a gable-wall, carried by the arch on its western side; but owing to the destruction of the original finish of the staircase turrets, and the erection of a steeple in the angle between the choir and the transept, the general view has to some extent lost its original stern Romanesque character.
Apse of Choir.Apse of Choir.