“Dize ay cristal del TagoQue con murmurio entre arenasVais regando amenos sotosde Agradable primavera.
“Dize ay cristal del TagoQue con murmurio entre arenasVais regando amenos sotosde Agradable primavera.
“Dize ay cristal del TagoQue con murmurio entre arenasVais regando amenos sotosde Agradable primavera.
THE TAGUSTHE TAGUS
Hasto do bates los murosde aquella cuidad soberbio,tans alebrada en el mundoPor tu artífio y nobleza.Que entre peñas levantadade inexpugnable firmeza,Y de torres coronadacompitos con las estrellas.Y luego vañas los pradosde tu elana y ancha vega,Que de ninfas adornadaes nueva gloria en la tierra.”
Hasto do bates los murosde aquella cuidad soberbio,tans alebrada en el mundoPor tu artífio y nobleza.Que entre peñas levantadade inexpugnable firmeza,Y de torres coronadacompitos con las estrellas.Y luego vañas los pradosde tu elana y ancha vega,Que de ninfas adornadaes nueva gloria en la tierra.”
Hasto do bates los murosde aquella cuidad soberbio,tans alebrada en el mundoPor tu artífio y nobleza.Que entre peñas levantadade inexpugnable firmeza,Y de torres coronadacompitos con las estrellas.Y luego vañas los pradosde tu elana y ancha vega,Que de ninfas adornadaes nueva gloria en la tierra.”
The most witching element in the enchantment of this river is its stillness, its unfathomable, unbroken quietude. In the sixteenth century it was navigable as far as Toledo, but the mills upon its banks are now for ever silent; no traffic has deflowered its legendary charms; neither boat nor barge cuts a way along its inactive waters. In an age when every resource of nature is feverishly applied to the service of commerce or luxury, there is something majestic in such uselessness. When the wherry that plies sleepily from bank to bank floats into view, the sight is a positive shock to artistic sensibilities. It seems an idle desecration. Only the gold-seekers—symbol of eternal illusion, ever nourished and ever elusive to the grasp of man, who builds fresh illusions of the ashes of past deceptions—may continue to trouble its wild untamed depths. So from time to time these children of tradition, believing in the tale of its golden sands, go down to the reedy banks, after an inundation, with sifters, and industriously gather up the sand the river has flung from its bottom. They pour water over it, shake it well, and then hungrily examine the grains that remain in the vain hope of finding gold. Before Ponz’s time the dean of the Church of the Infantas was said to possess a piece of gold cast up by the Tagus, and the complaint then was that many another piece had been carelessly broken and scattered by the silversmiths. But Ponz doubts the golden legend even so early as the last century. To explain the undoubted fact that the river had at different times cast up treasure, he assumes that in each reversal and exodus of race brought about by the evolution ofToledo’s history, Roman, Gothic, Moorish, Hebrew, and Christian, the fugitives had the habit of burying near the river treasure in provision for the expected return. Even this is no supposition to be scorned, and adds to the romantic interest of the deserted Tagus.
MILL ON THE TAGUSMILL ON THE TAGUS
Garcilaso de la Vega has chanted the golden charms of the Tagus, and Cervantes writes of “the delicate works wrought by the four nymphs who, from their crystal dwelling, lifted their heads above the waves of the Tagus, and sat on the green meadow to work at those rich stuffs which the ingenious poet paints for us, and which were fashioned of gold and silk and pearls.” Now, as then, like Lope the Asturian, aquadores descend to the river-brink with their donkeys laden with water-jars, which they fill below, and bridge the upward rocky paths shouting:Agua fresca. The plays of Cervantes were acted at Toledo, which permittedLope de Vega, who lived then in the royal city, to make an ill-natured reference to the great biographer of the ingenious Hidalgo in his correspondence, and jeering at his plays, call him a “nescio.”[15]Lope little dreamed in his bitterness and jealousy that the “nescio” would forever stand before posterity as the sole representative of Castillian genius, and that the miserable little inn he dwelt in at Toledo would be forever a spot of pious pilgrimage.
A more substantial source of wealth than the gold of Tagus was the valuable lead and mineral mines of the Montes de Toledo, forty leagues distance. In the bright days of civic power they belonged to the municipality. King Fernando, the saint, sold them to the town for the sum of 400,000 golden ducats, but the city little by little disposed of a considerable part of this property to private individuals for exploitation, and, like everything else, here the mines to-day have lost in value.
In his few succinct pages on Toledo, Mr Street gives us a very excellent bit of sober impressionism, which merits quotation: “The road from the famous bridge of Alcántara, passing under the gateway which guards it into a small walled courtyard, turns sharply to the right under another archway, and then rises slowly below the walls until, with another sharp turn, it passes under the magnificent Moorish Puerta del Sol, and so on into the heart of the city.
“The Alcázar is the only important building seen on entering on this side; but from the other side of the city, where the bridge of San Martin crosses the Tagus, the cathedral is a feature in the view, though it never seems to be so prominent as might be expected with a church of itsgrand scale.[16]From both these points of view, indeed, it must be remembered that the effect is not produced by the beauty or grandeur of any one building; it is the desolate sublimity of the dark rocks that bound the river; the serried phalanx of wall, and town, and house that line the cliffs; the tropical colour of sky and earth, and masonry; and finally the forlorn, decaying and deserted aspect of the whole that makes the views so impressive and so unusual. Looking away from the city walls towards the north, the view is much moreriant, for there the Tagus, escaping from its rocky defile, meanders across a fertile vega, and long lines of trees, with here a ruined castle, and there the repose of the curious Church of the Cristo de la Vega, and there again the famous factory of arms, give colour and incident to a view which would anywhere be thought beautiful, but is doubly grateful by comparison with the sad dignity of the forlorn old city.”
Toledo’s finest hour is at sunset, especially in the month of October. Nowhere have I seen the setting sun cast such a rich and lovely flush over the earth. The brown visage of the town for one intense moment is made radiant by the deep crimson flames, and the red light sheds a glorious beauty upon empty hill-sides and river-washed plains. Magic enfolds city and land, and space is so abridged by the matchless purity of the atmosphere that the eye is tricked into the belief that distant objects are quite close. Painters complain of this singular deception, which makes it so difficult to seize and reproduce the features of town and landscape. But the mere observer will naturally rejoice in an attraction the more.
Sunset is the hour for a divine walk along the jagged and broken precipices above the river. You follow the steep Calle de la Barca behind the Cathedral down to the ferry, where a few lazy oar strokes take you across the narrow Tagus. The effect midway is surprising. Looking towards the bridge of Alcántara and San Servando, the waters seem to force their way between the immense brown rocks from the castle ruins, and lie steep and still like a mountain tarn. Little splashes of green and flowery bloom high up among the rocks give a pretty touch to the grim picture, and over the harsh remains of the city walls you will note a common but bright little suggestion of garden life. On the road above, rounding the superb curve of Antiquerela, a boy on mule-back is a slight silhouette of vanishing grace, and the evening bells in the upper air sound thin and ethereal above the sea-like roar of the water breaks below the silent Moorish mills. Not even the modern hint of existence and the squalid little galleries, with linen hanging out to dry over a broken bit of castellated wall, will disturb your feeling of reverie among the forgotten ages. Nor will the living light upon the trees, flashing rose and yellow through their branches and across the reeds along the river, nor the quaint figures moving lazily up the mule-path that cuts its crooked way over the naked rocks to the Valle, in the least disturb your bemused sensation of enchanted negation. The beauty of the hour and scene will trouble you less than its strangeness and quietude. Go further up, until you reach Nuestra Señora de la Valle, and from this point the old city will show you its most admirable grouping. At your feet, far down the precipitous shore line, a broken mirror of jade or muddy gold, zig-zagged by lines of foam along the breakwaters, and above the opposite bank, mapped upward, roof against roof, in
TOLEDO FROM LEFT BANK OF TAGUSTOLEDO FROM LEFT BANK OF TAGUS
pale brown, with spaces of green here and there where the gardens show, the town reveals itself in all its magnificent eccentricity. Here some notion of the Cathedral from outside may be gathered. The Gate of Lions directly fronts you, and the apse stands out from its crowd of buildings, while the bell tower dominates the scene in all its majestic isolation. From the flat roofs rise a mass of upper domes and mudejar towers that add an Arabian note to the great Gothic picture, and the immense square of the Alcázar with its three towers, bold, undecorated, and monotonous, is perched in odd supremacy above the girdling path that now runs under the mutilated wall. The hills lie backward, reddish-purple, silent, perfumed, and sombre, and the Vega with its broad bright smile of verdure and bloom travels beyond the famous bridge of San Martin. Between the rocky shore and the ruins of a Roman bridge are big sandy reaches, and every step you take among the brushwood scents the air with the strong aromatic odours of the herbs. About here Perez Bayen tells us,[17]the Roman Cañeria ran, carrying water from San Servando by the bridge of San Martin. The little tower,el horno del Vidro, near the monastery of La Sisla, he suggests, was a RomanCastellum Aquarium. The steep waterway of La Sisla, called the Valle de la Desgollada (in honour of the customary legend of a lover’s broken neck for love’s sake), was probably used for the aqueduct, as the ruins of the arches below, along the old road of La Plata, indicate. The water must have been conducted into the city by the gate of the twelve stones, where the bridge was high. Now, alas, the aqueduct, like the wonderful artifice of Juanelo Turriano of Cremona, in Charles V.’s reign, has vanished. The water-works of Toledo nowadaysare sadly deficient after the Roman, Moor, and even early Castillian, though the glory of this period belongs to Lombardy and not to Castille. Juanelo, as well as giving his name to his famous “artifice,” was the means of bestowing a quaint and striking name on a street below the cathedral, so-called to-day,Hombre de Palo(man of wood) where he lived. He fabricated a wooden statue that went from his house to the archbishop’s for bread and meat, bowing and nodding, first in gracious overtures and then in obsequious thanks, and carried back the offerings to Juanelo’s house. Few Toledanos, dawdling in and out of this little curved street, now remember why it is so oddly named, or bestow a thought upon the ingenious Italian who dwelt there in the sixteenth century, and whose fame drew admiring travellers even from remote Oxford.
FUENTE S. MARTINO OF BANO DE LA CAVAFUENTE S. MARTINO OF BANO DE LA CAVA
Entering the city by the striking bridge of San Martin, you pass the picturesque ruin of theBaño de la Cava, where the too charming Florinda is supposed to have bathed for the doom of Don Rodrigo and the ruin of Gothic Spain. Rodrigo’s castle, of which not a trace now remains, was built on the high rock above, and indiscreet eyeshot sent down upon this sacred spot is said to have revealed to him a seductive vision of a beautiful bare limb. The ruin is probably that of a towered bridge, suggested by the big grey stone on the opposite bank. The spot is, however, romantic enough for any legend, and those who prefer tradition to fact will say, if Florinda did not bathe there, she ought to have done so. The view on this side is more beautiful than even on the other. A Spanish friend, whose privilege it is to paint Toledo in all her wild and sad enchantment, in a big house above the Puerta del Cambron, overlooking the wavy water-line from the bridge of San Martin and the exquisite diversity of orchard and meadow-land, has offered me many delightful moments of contemplation of this unique view from his broad terrace. It combines in the rarest form a light and smiling charm with a superb and matchless melancholy. From this point of entrance you twist up and down through the most mysterious streets of the world. Who designed them, who fashioned them? How came any town to be so built? Streets so narrow that hand may touch hand from either side, and soft converse be held through opposite windows; so rounded that an enemy advancing might fall upon you unperceived. How many lovely façades, alas! eaten away, a sullen magnificent protest against modern times, with divine arches showing here and there through miserable plaster! Everywhere Moorish faience,and curious Toledan doors in Arabian or Gothic porches, for all the world like the doors of palaces in fairyland, ornamented with huge carved iron nails. And when the doors stand open, glimpses of bright clean patios, with their gleaming bands ofazulejos, their centre well and little stunted trees. All so dull, so still, so silent. Now and then you may chance to meet a woman following a mule laden with fruit and vegetable, which she sells from house to house, or a water-carrier, or an itinerant pedlar shouting the value and nature of his wares up to the balconies. Some of the street effects of grouping and colouring are of an indescribable witchery. Where will you match such a corner as that of the old palace of the Cardinal D. Pascual de Aragon, now a convent? Words are useless to convey an idea of its quaintness, the effect of pink and green, of iron balcony, of wrought stone, of broken façade and charming variety of line. These are things that even a painter can hardly hope to reproduce. And such corners abound in Toledo. The foot treads the very pavement of romance and legend, where everything is a gratification for the eye, and the dream of the mourner of departed centuries is remorselessly realised. Of commerce hardly a hint. Here and there an offer to supply daily wants of the simplest kind, and, in the Calle del Comercio, a few shop-fronts with belated appointments. The most interesting is that of Alvarez, the best maker of damascene. Murray’s guide-book recommends travellers to purchase this famous Toledo work at the Fabrica de Armas, the Government enterprise. This is wrong advice. The Fabrica produces inferior work, and charges twenty-five per cent. more than the private factories. Some of the work in Alvarez’s shop is exquisite, and, when you have entered his workshop behind, and watched the men slowly and carefully produce this minute art,
A STREET CORNER, TOLEDOA STREET CORNER, TOLEDO
the wonder is not that it should be so expensive, but that it should not cost more. The Fabrica outside the town is only interesting to the lovers of steel. It is quite a vulgar and modern institution, dating from the days of Charles III., the bourgeois monarch, whom a Spanish writer contemptuously described as “an excellent mayor.” In the middle ages, the armourers worked in their own houses, and each master had a band of apprentices. They formed a corporation, and were exempt from taxes and duties in the purchase of materials for this art. The sword-makers of Toledo were a company of European importance, and even the mere sellers of daggers and blades were privileged citizens, whom the very sovereigns and archbishops respected. Toledan steel was renowned in France and England, as well as in Italy. On his way to captivity in Madrid, Francis of France cried, seeing beardless boys with swords at their sides, “Oh! most happy Spain, that brings forth and brings up men already armed.” The steel used by theespaderosof Toledo came from the iron mines of Mondragon in the Basque provinces. Palomario explains its peculiar excellence by the virtues of the sand and water of the Tagus. When the metal was red-hot, it was covered with sand, and, the blade then formed, it was placed in a hollow of sixty centimetres, and red-hot, was plunged into a wooden tank full of Tagus water. The most celebratedespaderoof Toledo wasGuiliano el Moro, a native of Granada, in the fifteenth century. He became converted after the surrender of Boabdil, and King Ferdinand being his sponsor, was also called Guilianoel rey. Cervantes mentions his mark, which was a little dog. Other greatespaderoswere—Joannes de la Horta, Tomás de Ayala, Sagahun, Dionisio Corrientes, Miguel Cantera, whose motto wasopus laudat artificem, Tomás Ghya, Hortensio de Aguerre and Menchaca Sebastian Hernandez. The decline of Toledan steel is traced to the introduction of French costume; and though attempts have been made to revive it, the old art, in all its unrivalled beauty, has forever vanished.
Gone forever, too, all traces of the great Toledanpalaces, except a wall, a doorway here and there, or maybe the degraded remains of a beautiful chamber or courtyard, or, as in the case of the house of the great family of the Toledos (to-day, the Dukes of Alba), just an impressive façade. But of the Villena palace nothing, of the Fuensalida nothing to give us to-day a definite notion of its former splendour. Nothing of the great houses of the Montemayors, the Ayalas, the Silvas, Maqueda, Cifuentes, Count Orgaz, and so many others who rivalled the mighty archbishops in power, and whose followers clashed steel so noisily once in these dim, deserted streets. Sadder still, beyond what remains of the Palacios de Galiana, in the king’s garden, little of Moorish beauty, nothing of their sway but floating, vaporous impressions and cherished suggestions, never absent, though ever vague and full of the mystery and charm of the uncertain and the elusive.
THE monument which dominates Toledo, and which is not only the most prominent feature in a town whose every feature is so marked and significant, so unlike all the travelled eye is most familiar with, but is the centre of its changes and vicissitudes, of its triumphs and humiliations, is the Cathedral. Writing of the high terrace on which it stands, M. Maurice Barrès says: “c’était toujours le même sublime qui jamais ne rassasie les âmes, car en même temps qu’elles s’en remplissent il les dilate à l’infini.” Who is to seize and express with any adequacy or even coherence the first swift and stupefying impression of this superb edifice? There are many things in this world more beautiful—no one for instance would dream of speaking of it in the same breath as the Parthenon—but nothing more sumptuous; nothing in all the treasures of Spain to match its magnificence. It is simpler and more majestic than that of Burgos, and before heeding the instinct of examination, or noting its mass of detail, the first imperious command is to yield in charmed surrender to its spirit. We are silenced and held by the general effect long before we come to admire the exquisite sculpture of Berruguete and of Philip of Burgundy, and the splendours of chapels and treasury. And should time be short for detailed inspection, it is this general effect of immense naves, of a forest of columns and of jewelled windows that we carry away, feeling too smallamidst such greatness of form and incomparable loveliness of lights for the mere expression of admiration. At sunset, should you have the fortune to be alone among its pillars and stained-glass windows, you will find nothing on earth to compare with the mysterious eloquence of its silence; you will feel it a place not for prayer but for a salutary conception of man’s insignificance.
Castillian genius has nowhere imprinted a haughtier effigy of its invincible pride and fanaticism, insusceptible to the humiliations of decay and defeat, impervious to the encroachments of progress and enlightenment. It is the vast monumental note of Spanish character and Spanish history. It tells the eternal tale of ecclesiastical domination and triumph, and is the fitting home of portraits of warlike cardinals and armoured bishops, of princes of the Church who wore the purple and ruled with the sword. It is a superb and majestic harmony of marvellous stone-work and painted glass.
The foundation of this most gorgeous temple is attributed to Saint Eugenius, the first bishop of Toledo, and on the conversion of Recaredo from Arianism, was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, April 12th, 587. When the Moors took Toledo, the Cathedral was converted into a mosque, which it remained for nearly three centuries. Then when Alfonso VI. won back the town from the Moors, one of the conditions we know in the treaty for surrender was that the Cathedral should continue as a mosque, and remain in the hands of the conquered, upon which stipulation, solemnly ratified, the Moors gave up the Alcázar, the city gates and bridges. Alfonso intended that this condition should be fulfilled, but the queen and the French archbishop, sorely troubled by the monstrous continuance of heretical service in the consecrated temple of St Eugenius, decided to cast out the Saracen, whichinjustice furnishes us with a pretty evidence of Moorish magnanimity. Alfonso’s was an exceedingly grim interpretation of the chivalrous sentiment, “I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more.” However, the Moors gallantly tore up the treaty and resigned all right to the Cathedral. The least they might have expected from their enemies is a full and fine recognition of their generosity, first in pleading for those who had insulted them, and then in foregoing their own advantage in order to procure the pardon of their insulters. But no. The Moors, in this matter, are regarded as having simply done their duty. One would hesitate to credit their conquerors with a like behaviour in similar circumstances. The Alfaqui’s statue in the Capilla Major is regarded as adequate thanks, and perhaps it is.
In the thirteenth century, Ferdinand III. and the Archbishop Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada, decided to rebuild the Cathedral and efface all remembrance of Saracen occupation. Pedro Perez was chosen for the immense work, which he continued for forty-nine years, beginning in 1227. The names of his successors have not reached us. It took two and a half centuries to conclude, and as the building went on, naturally gathered into its entire expression more than one mood of Spanish history and art. One needs only to contrast the rudeness of thePuerta de la Feria, built in the thirteenth century, with the finish and grace of thePuerta de los Leones, one of the most beautiful specimens of Gothic architecture, the work of the fifteenth century. Egas, Fernandez and Juan Aleman wrought it, and in 1776 Salvatierra restored part of it. The temple stands upon eighty-eight pillars, each one composed of sixteen light columns, and seventy-two vaults above the five wide naves, forming a cross over the centre nave which is higher than the rest. The side aisles rise gradually to
INTERIOR OF CATHEDRALINTERIOR OF CATHEDRAL
the height of 160 feet, the height of the central nave. Its length is 404 feet, its width 204. The whole is lit up by 750 glorious stained windows, whose effect is best seized just before sunset. Broad patches of ruby, amethyst, emerald, topaz, and sapphire lie upon the pillars and flags, and above the light seems to strike through irridescent flashes of jewels. How fresh and full imagination must have been in those grand ages of art to have devised such permanent triumphs of colours, such witchery of hue upon such majesty of form, the greatness of the one tempered by the delightful loveliness of the other. The patient uplifted glance will at length be rewarded by learning to decipher from such a distance the legend of these matchless windows, which are wonderfully vivid scenes from the New Testament. A Spanish painter, who has devoted his life to the study of his beloved Toledo, tells me that when you penetrate up to these far-off heights, you will find the scenes in finish and detail and drawing as perfect as paintings, some of the German and Flemish school, some of the richer and suaver Italian. The principal artists were Dolfin, Alberto de Holanda, Maestro Christobal, Juan de Campos, Luis, Pedro Francès, and Vasco Troya. Dolfin’s work, begun in 1418, was continued after his death by Nicolás de Vergara, assisted by his two sons.
The principal façade on the west side is composed of three doors, diversely nameddel Infiernoorde la Torre;del Perdon, andde Escribanosordel Juicio. The middle door is the Pardon, the largest and richest of the three. It forms a magnificent arch, covered with Gothic ornaments and figures, and is divided in two smaller arches by a column on which rests the figure of Christ, while above are twelve statues of the apostles. In the centre of the arch a fine bas-relief represents the Virgin in the act of bestowing the chasuble on StIldefonso, who is kneeling at her feet. It is an imposing specimen of Renaissance work. Amador de los Rios complains that there is too much of the stiffness of Dürer in the studied attitudes, while Antonio Ponz remarks that the statues and the folds have that excellence and largeness of treatment so often lacking even in the best Renaissance work. The two other doors on either side are smaller and of equal size. They are formed of a single, undivided arch, delicately sculptured, rich in figures of angels and patriarchs in mediæval costume, which belong to a later date than the principal work. Seven steps lead down to the church, and above the arch of theTorreis a painting of the Resurrection of some merit, and above theEscribanosis a long inscription commemorating the taking of Granada by the Catholic sovereigns, Cardinal Mendoza being then archbishop of the Cathedral, and the expulsion of the Jews from the kingdoms of Castille, Aragon, and Sicily. Over thePardonis a splendid rose window, with glazed arcade beneath. The façade was restored, and not too well, by Durango, a Toledan artist, during the last century. The little square towers that separate the doors are chiselled like jewels, but the effect of the whole is perhaps effaced by the more insistent beauty of the great tower.
The south door,Los Leones, is a particularly beautiful piece of Gothic work, of finished elegance and profusion of detail. Ponz describes the statues and ornaments as the most perfect of their kind. The portal forms a deep recess richly sculptured, full of delicate fancy in figure and leafage. The Assumption is by Salvatierra of the last century, inferior to the rest of the façade, and below it are two bas-reliefs with charming little figures representing scenes from the Old Testament. The six columns of the atrium, on which are seated six carved lions, give its name to the door.Each lion holds a shield. On the centre shields are repeated in bas-relief the eternal legend of Our Lady and St Ildefonso, while the four others show sculptural crosses and eagles. The bronze doors, attributed by Ponz to Berreguete, because they recall the work of his master, Michael Angelo, were wrought by Francisco Villalpando and Ruy Diaz del Corral in 1559, the carving having been done by the famous sculptor, Aleas Copin. Their great artistic work is sufficiently indicated by Ponz’s error in attributing them to the magnificent genius of Berreguete. As a fact, many masters were engaged upon these bronze gates: Velasco, Troyas, Lebin, Cantala, the two Copins as well as Villalpando, and Diaz del Corral, the payment divided between all being 68,672 maravedis. It would seem that the supreme excellence of artistic achievement in those days was due to the modesty of remuneration, if we are to judge by the results of exorbitant payment to-day.
In his accurate (if for the general reader perhaps somewhat technical) pages on the interior, Street says: “The original scheme of the church is only to be seen now in the choir and its aisles. These are arranged in three gradations of height—the choir being upwards of a hundred feet, the aisle round it about sixty feet, and the outer aisle about thirty-five feet in height. The outer wall of the aisle is pierced with arches for the small chapels between the buttresses. The intermediate aisle has in its outer wall a triforium, formed by an arcade of cusped arches, and above this quite close to the point of the vault, a rose window in each bay. It is in this triforium that the first evidence of any knowledge on the part of the architect of Moorish architecture strikes the eye. The cusping of the arcade is not enclosed within an arch, and takes a distinctly horse-shoe outline, the lowest cusp near to the cap spreading inwards at the base. Now it would be impossible to imagine anycircumstances which could afford better evidence of the foreign origin of the first design than this slight concession to the customs of the place in a slightly later portion of the works. An architect who came from France, bent on designing nothing but a French church, would be very likely, after a few years’ residence in Toledo, somewhat to change in his views, and to attempt something in which the Moorish work, which he was in the habit of seeing, would have its influence. The detail of this triforium is, notwithstanding, all pure and good. The foliage of the capitals is partly conventional, and in part a stiff imitation of natural foliage, somewhat after the fashion of the work in the Chapter House at Southwell; the abaci are all square; there is a profusion of nail-head used in the labels; and well-carved heads are placed in each of the spandrels of the arcade. The circular windows above the triforium are filled in with cusping of various patterns. The main arches of the innermost arcade (between the choir and its aisle) are of course much higher than the others. The space above them is occupied by an arcaded triforium reaching to the springing of the main vault. This arcade consists of a series of trefoil-headed arches on detached shafts, with sculptured figures, more than life-size, standing in each division; in the spandrels above the arches are heads looking out from moulded circular openings, and above these again, small pointed arches are pierced, which have labels enriched with the nail-head ornament. The effect of the whole of this upper part of the design is unlike that of northern work, though the detail is all pure and good. The clerestory occupies the height of the vault and consists of a row of lancets (there are five in the widest bay, and three in each of the five bays of the apse) rising gradually to the centre, with a small circular opening above them. The vaulting-ribs in the central division of the apse arechevroned and increased in number, this being the only portion of the early work in which any, beyond transverse and diagonal ribs, are introduced. There is a weakness and want of purpose about the treatment of this highest portion of the wall that seems to make it probable that the work, when it reached this height, had passed out of the hands of the original architect. In the nave the original design (if it was ever completed) has been altered. There is now no trace of the original clerestory and triforium which are still seen in the choir, and in their place the outer aisle has fourteenth century windows of six lights with geometrical tracery, and the clerestory of the nave and transepts great windows, also of six lights, with very elaborate traceries. They have transomes (which in some degree preserve the recollection of the old structural divisions) at the level of the springing of the groining. The groining throughout the greater part of the church seems to be of the original thirteenth century work, with ribs finely moulded, and vaulting cells slightly domical in section. The capitals of the columns are all set in the direction of the arches and ribs they carry, and their abaci and bases are all square in plan.”
Street is of the opinion, based upon the singular purity of this vigorous specimen of Gothic of the thirteenth century, that the architect must have been French, or at least a Spaniard who had lived for years in France, and studied the best French churches. The architect, we learn, was Pedro Perez, whose name we gather from the Latin epitaph:
Aqui: jacet: Petrus Petri: magisterEclesia: Sete: Marie: Toletani: fama:Per exemplum: pro more: huic: bona:Crescit: qui presens: templem: construxit:Et hic quies cit: quod: quia: tan: mire:Fecit: vili: sentiat: ire: ante: Dei:Vultum: pro: quo: nil: restat: inultum:Et sibi: sis: merce: qui solus: cuncta:Coherce: obiit: X dias de Novembris:Era: de m: et CCCXXVIII.(A.D. 1290).
Aqui: jacet: Petrus Petri: magisterEclesia: Sete: Marie: Toletani: fama:Per exemplum: pro more: huic: bona:Crescit: qui presens: templem: construxit:Et hic quies cit: quod: quia: tan: mire:Fecit: vili: sentiat: ire: ante: Dei:Vultum: pro: quo: nil: restat: inultum:Et sibi: sis: merce: qui solus: cuncta:Coherce: obiit: X dias de Novembris:Era: de m: et CCCXXVIII.(A.D. 1290).
Aqui: jacet: Petrus Petri: magisterEclesia: Sete: Marie: Toletani: fama:Per exemplum: pro more: huic: bona:Crescit: qui presens: templem: construxit:Et hic quies cit: quod: quia: tan: mire:Fecit: vili: sentiat: ire: ante: Dei:Vultum: pro: quo: nil: restat: inultum:Et sibi: sis: merce: qui solus: cuncta:Coherce: obiit: X dias de Novembris:Era: de m: et CCCXXVIII.(A.D. 1290).
Street suggests that Petrus Petro may more probably have meant the French Pierre, son of Pierre, than the Spanish translation of Pedro Perez, but putting one uncertainty against another, the Toledans are perfectly right to hold out for their dubious compatriot, Pedro Perez.
NORTH TRANSEPT DOOR OF CATHEDRALNORTH TRANSEPT DOOR OF CATHEDRAL
In spite of the enormous height of the Cathedral, the spectator is not at first impressed with this fact, owing to the immensity of its dimensions and the vastness of the columns that support the vaults. But the impression of spaciousness is, on the contrary, insistent, and this by the beautiful simplicity and classical uniformity of the whole. When you have recovered the first stupendous shock of admiration, you will wonder where to begin in your exploration. If you enter by the north door, which is the first you will meet coming from the Zocodover, you will at once be confronted with the wonderfully wrought screen of the Coro. Inside and out this choir is rich in interest. First there is the railed entrance to examine. Before the Napoleonic war, this railing, as well as theRejaof the Capilla Major, opposite, was silver-plated and heavily gilt, but at the time of the French invasion, it was designed to save it from ruthless hands by concealing its value under an iron coating. The inventor of this stain succeeded so well that never since has anyone been able to clean the railings, which now only show here and there a gleam of the covered plate. Domingo de Céspedes, aided by Fernando Bravo, designed this handsome work. Nothing finer than the ornamentation could be imagined. The arms of Cardinal Siliceo and those of Diego Lopez de Ayala, one of the great Toledan families of the Middle Ages, are worked into the design, along with the inscriptions:Pro cul esto prophaniandPsale et psile. To attempt anything like a detailed description of so much elaborate work as the impressive screen round the choir, or the interior multiplied creations of Berruguete and Philip of Burgundy, of Vergara and Rodrigo, would demand an entire book upon the Cathedral alone. The sculptures of the screen are most varied and beautiful, and repay careful study. The subjects are separated by light arches and supported on jasper columns. Above are fifty-eight reliefs of biblical scenes, and the whole forms an admirable combination of decorative richness and delicacy, unfortunately spoiled by later and incongruous additions and improvements. Of the famous choir seats everybody has heard. The thirty-five upper seats on the gospel side are the work of Philip of Burgundy,the seats on the epistle side are Berruguete’s work. It is a matter of taste which of the two is the better. Some foreign critics prefer Vigarny’s sculpture as more delicate and more finished; while all Spaniards give their preference to Berruguete, one of the national idols, and delight in his more exuberant genius. Writing of the three ranks of stalls of this truly marvellous choir, Théophile Gautier says: “l’art Gothique, sur les confins de la Renaissance, n’a rien produit de plus parfait ni de mieux dessiné.” Antonio Ponz in the last century wrote of it: “The sculpture of the choir has been and always will be the great admiration of the intelligent and those who understand this noble art, as much for the quantities of figures and adornments, which seem innumerable, as for the elegance, taste, and greatness of the style with which Alonzo Berruguete and Philip of Burgundy have executed them.” In hisToledo Pintoresca, Amador de los Rios thus begins his description of the stalls: “Portent of Spanish art, in which two great geniuses of our golden century competed, the victory to our own times, remaining undecided; and astounded the judges who have endeavoured to give their opinion on this matter.”
The stalls are of two ranks, upper and lower, both of different periods, fifty years lying between the work of each rank. The upper stalls are unquestionably more beautiful and of a purer style. The rich and splendid influence of Italian art is visible in all Berruguete’s work, who himself was a disciple of Michael Angelo. He has something of the large and virile touch of his master, something of his nervous strength, of his intensity. But he lacks the exquisite grace and soft, subtle finish of Philip Vigarny. So that in the eternal rivalry of these great artists, hand-in-hand, as it were before posterity, with the unsolved question
INTERIOR OF CATHEDRAL CORO FROM S. AISLEINTERIOR OF CATHEDRALCORO FROM S. AISLE
of superiority upon their combined production of the best wood sculpture of Spain, it will always be in the spectators’ choice a matter of temperament and tendency. The more delicate art of Vigarny will appeal to one, while another will unhesitatingly pronounce for the sweep and force of Berruguete’s touch. The reliefs represent scenes from the Old and New Testament, and the single statues are prophets and saints. The stalls are of walnut, separated by jasper and alabaster pillars. In the middle is the arch-episcopal throne. The lower portion is formed of seventy-one arches, supported by seventy-two columns of red jasper, with white marble capitals; within each arch is a vault of red jasper with gilt decorations. In the panels above are sixty-eight superbly sculptured figures. The lower stalls are fifty years earlier and less beautiful work. They were wrought under the direction of Maese Rodrígo in the time of Cardinal Mendoza. They are composed of fifty stalls, with three stairs, two of which are used by the canons and the third only by the archbishop, the dean of the chapter, and the high priest. The reliefs are none the less remarkable and interesting because of their inferiority to those of the upper stalls. They tell with delightful and seizing brevity the romantic, if deplorable, tale of the Conquest of Granada, from the taking of Alhama by Rodrigo Ponce de Leon to the surrender of the Moorish citadel. They belong to a less finished school; reveal an imagination more simple and limited, with a certain naïve stiffness and monotony of line that provoke contrast with the finer work above. Battles, assaults, armed knights, Moors, horses, fortresses and fanciful introductions of inappropriate animals are repeated in each relief. Street prefers them to Berruguete’s work, which he abhors, but in thishe is alone. It is a prejudice with him. The reading-desks are most lovely, the work of the two Vergaras, father and son, who finished them in 1570. The ornamented friezes of gilt bronze are things to marvel at. Each desk possesses three bas-relief exquisitely wrought. On the epistle side are the stories of David and Saul, the Virgin bestowing the chasuble on St Ildefonso, and the Seven Seals and Lake of Fire of the Apocalypse; on the Gospel side, St Ildefonso, the Holy Ark carried by the priests behind David, and other figures dancing and playing various instruments, and the crossing of the Red Sea. There is not anything among the extraordinary splendours of this Cathedral more perfect and remarkable than these two masterpieces of the Vergaras. The great eagle on its pinnacled pedestal is truly a magnificent work. The Gothic pedestal was wrought in 1425, and the eagle and desk in 1646 by Vicente Salinas. When you leave the Cora, you naturally cross the space in front to the Capilla Major. Portion of this chapel was originally thecapilla de los reyes viejos, and the rest was added by the great Cardinal, Cisneros. The railing, one of the best specimens of Spanish wrought iron, is the work of Francisco Villalpando. Gorgeous is the adjective that best describes it. Exquisite chiselling, capricious and varied designs, gilt and plated portions here and there showing out from the more sombre whole, make thisgrillaone of the striking objects among massed treasures. To Villalpando also are due the rich gilt pulpits beside it, made from the bronze tomb the Constable of Castille, Alvazo de Luna, had fashioned for himself and his wife before his death. In a less sumptuous setting, these pulpits would excite enthusiastic admiration, but the whole here is so great that it takes days for the blunted senses to realise the full value of details. The reliefs are admirable, and give a
DETAIL OF REJA, CATHEDRAL, TOLEDODETAIL OF REJA, CATHEDRAL, TOLEDO
brilliant note to the resplendent face of the chapel. All inside maintains the same insistent look of artistic wealth. The marble altar shines like a gigantic agathe, the highly-wrought tabernacle, the bronze candlesticks, the jasper and the marvellousretabloare, to my poor thinking, excessive claims upon attention. So many masters co-operated in the production of all this accumulated art that the effect of excess is not surprising: Philip and John of Burgundy, Maestre Petit Jean, Egas, Pedro Gumiel, Copin of Holland, Sebastian de Almonacid, all sculptors and artists of renown; Francisco of Antwerp and Fernando del Rincòn, famous painters and gilders. The details are innumerable, and elsewhere would merit separate and full attention. The scenes are mostly taken from the New Testament, terminating with a colossal Calvary. The fine tombs on either side are the work of Copin of Holland (1507), and the gilding and painting were done by Juan de Arevalo. They were erected by order of Cisneros for the kings buried in the old chapel. They are highly decorated and imposing monuments, worthy of the great man who commanded them and of the great artists who wrought them under his inspiration, worthy of century and temple that created and shelter them. Classical elegance and Gothic fancy, exuberant imagination and austere repose, are the complex qualities of these superb tombs. There are two figures among those of the lateral pillars that divide the vaults it is customary to bestow extra attention upon: the Alfaqui, who went out to meet Alfonso VI. on his furious return to Toledo to burn his wife and the French archbishop, to intercede on behalf of those who had so grievously injured his people, and who, in order to obtain their pardon, resigned Moorish rights to the Cathedral; and thePastor de las Navas, a legendary shepherd who issupposed to have indicated to Alfonso VIII. the way of winning the battle of Navas de Tolosa. The sculpture is coarse and heavy, and indicates an earlier period than the rest of the work, Alfonso himself supposed to have been the designer of his shepherd assistant in war. The Cardinal of Spain, as Mendoza was called, won the distinction of a place in the royal chapel by order of Isabel, his friend and sovereign. To make room for his tomb, she had the wall between the two pillars near it knocked down. Ponz calls this tomb amaquina suntuosa, but where there is so much to admire, it may be passed by with merely a nod.