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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Cathedrals of Northern Spain Author: Charles Rudy Release Date: April 12, 2010 [EBook #31965] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CATHEDRALS OF NORTHERN SPAIN *** Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This ebook was produced from scanned images of public domain material at Internet Archive.) image of book's cover image of inside the book's cover THE CATHEDRALS OF NORTHERN SPAIN Preface Contents List of Illustrations Appendices Bibliography Index The Cathedral Series The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely illustrated. $2.50 The Cathedrals of Northern France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN The Cathedrals of Southern France BY FRANCIS MILTOUN L The Cathedrals of England BY MARY J. TABER The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely illustrated. Net, $2.00 The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine BY FRANCIS MILTOUN The Cathedrals of Northern Spain BY CHARLES RUDY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY New England Building, Boston, Mass. EON CATHEDRAL (See page 154) LEON CATHEDRAL T Copyright, 1905 BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) —— All rights reserved Published October, 1905 COLONIAL PRESS Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, U. S. A. O ALL TRUE LOVERS OF SPAIN, OTHERWISE CALLED HISPANÓFILOS PREFACE IT is à la mode to write prefaces. Some of us write good ones, others bad, and most of us write neither good nor bad ones. The chapter entitled "General Remarks" is the real introduction to the book, so in these lines I shall pen a few words of self-introduction to such readers as belong to the class to whom I have dedicated this volume. {2} {3} My love for Spain is unbounded. As great as is my love for the people, so great also is my depreciation for those who have wronged her, being her sons. Who are they? They know that best themselves. Spain's architecture is both agreeable and disagreeable, but it is all of it peculiarly Spanish. A foreigner, dropping as by accident across the Pyrenees from France, can do nothing better than criticize all architectural monuments he meets with in a five days' journey across Spain with a Cook's ticket in his pocketbook. It is natural he should do so. Everything is so totally different from the pure (sic) styles he has learned to admire in France! But we who have lived years in Spain grow to like and admire just such complex compositions as the cathedrals of Toledo, of Santiago, and La Seo in Saragosse; we lose our narrow-mindedness, and fail to see why a pure Gothic or an Italian Renaissance should be better than an Iberian cathedral. As long as harmony exists between the different parts, all is well. The moment this harmony does not exist, our sense of the artistically beautiful is shocked—and the building is a bad one. Personality is consequently ever uppermost in all art criticism or admiration. But it should not be influenced by the words pure, flawless, etc. Were such to be the case, there would be but one good cathedral in Spain, namely, that of Leon, a French temple built by foreigners on Spanish soil. Yet nothing is less Spanish than the cathedral of Leon. Under the circumstances, it is necessary, upon visiting Spain, to discard foreignisms and turn a Spaniard, if but for a few days. Otherwise the tourist will not understand the country's art monuments, and will be inclined to leave the peninsula as he entered it, not a whit the wiser for having come. To help the traveller to understand the whys and wherefores of Spanish architecture, I have written the "Introductory Studies." I hope they will enable him to become a Spaniard, or, at least, to join the enthusiastic army of Hispanófilos. C. RUDY. MADRID, July, 1905 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PART I. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES I. General Remarks 13 II. Historical Arabesques 18 III. Architectural Arabesques 35 IV. Conclusion 66 PART II. GALICIA I. Santiago de Campostela 75 II. Corunna 89 III. Mondoñedo 95 IV. Lugo 102 V. Orense 110 VI. Tuy 120 VII. Bayona and Vigo 131 PART III. THE NORTH I. Oviedo 137 II. Covadonga 145 III. Leon 150 IV. Astorga 167 V. Burgos 174 VI. Santander 188 {4} {5} {7} VII. Vitoria 192 VIII. Upper Rioja 196 IX. Soria 209 PART IV. WESTERN CASTILE I. Palencia 219 II. Zamora 230 III. Toro 244 IV. Salamanca 251 V. Ciudad Rodrigo 269 VI. Coria 278 VII. Plasencia 284 PART V. EASTERN CASTILE I. Valladolid 293 II. Avila 302 III. Segovia 312 IV. Madrid-Alcalá 321 V. Sigüenza 335 VI. Cuenca 342 VII. Toledo 349 Appendices 369 Bibliography 385 Index 387 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Leon Cathedral (See page 154) Frontispiece Cloister Stalls in a Monastic Church at Leon 48 Typical Retablo (Palencia) 50 Mudejar Architecture (Sahagun) 64 Santiago and Its Cathedral 82 Church of Santiago, Corunna 92 General View of Mondoñedo 96 Mondoñedo Cathedral 98 Northern Portal of Orense Cathedral 116 Tuy Cathedral 128 Oviedo Cathedral 140 Cloister of Oviedo Cathedral 144 Apse of San Isidoro, Leon 164 Burgos Cathedral 180 Crypt of Santander Cathedral 190 Cloister of Nájera Cathedral 202 Santa Maria la Redonda, Logroño 204 Western Front of Calahorra Cathedral 207 {8} Cloister of Soria Cathedral 212 Palencia Cathedral 226 Zamora Cathedral 238 Toro Cathedral 248 Old Salamanca Cathedral 260 New Salamanca Cathedral 266 Cuidad Rodrigo Cathedral 272 Façade of Plasencia Cathedral 288 Western Front of Valladolid Cathedral 300 Tower of Avila Cathedral 310 Segovia Cathedral 316 San Isidro, Madrid 326 Alcalá de Henares Cathedral 332 Toledo Cathedral 360 PART I Introductory Studies The Cathedrals of Northern Spain I GENERAL REMARKS HISTORY and architecture go hand in hand; the former is not complete if it does not mention the latter, and the latter is incomprehensible if the former is entirely ignored. The following chapters are therefore historical and architectural; they are based on evolutionary principles and seek to demonstrate the motives of certain artistic phenomena. Many of the ideas superficially mentioned in the following essays will be severely discussed, for they are original; others are based on two excellent modern historical works, namely, "The History of the Spanish People," by Major Martin Hume, and "Historia de España," by Señor Rafael Altamira. These two works can be regarded as the dernier mot concerning the evolution of Spanish history. Unluckily, however, the author has been unable to consult any work on architecture which might have given him a concise idea of the story of its gradual evolution and development, and of the different art-waves which flowed across the peninsula during the stormy period of the middle ages, which, properly speaking, begins with the Arab invasion of the eighth century and ends with the fall of Granada, in the fifteenth. Several works on Spanish architecture have been written (the reader will find them mentioned elsewhere), but none treats the matter from an evolutionary standpoint. On the contrary, most of them are limited to the study of a period, of a style or of a locality; hence they cannot claim to be a dernier mot. Such a work has still to be written. Be it understood, nevertheless, that the author does not pretend—Dios me libre!—to have supplied the lack in the following pages. In a couple of thousand words it would be utterly impossible to do so. No; a complete, evolutionary {10} {12} {13} {14} {15} study of Spanish architecture would imply years of labour, of travel, and of study. For so much on the peninsula is hybrid and exotic, and yet again, so much is peculiar to Spain alone. Thus it is often most difficult to determine which art phenomena are natural—that is, which are the logical results of a well-defined art movement—and which are artificial or the casual product of elements utterly foreign to Spanish soil. Willingly the author leaves to other and wiser heads the solving of the above riddle. He hopes, nevertheless, that they (those who care to undertake the mentioned task) will find some remarks or some observations in the following chapters to help them discover the real truth concerning the Spaniard's love, or his insensibility for architectural monuments, as well as his share in the erection of cathedrals, palaces, and castles. Spanish architecture—better still, architecture in Spain—is peculiarly strange and foreign to us Northerners. We admire many edifices in Iberia, but are unable to say wherefore; we are overawed at the magnificence displayed in the interior of cathedral churches and at a loss to explain the reason. As regards the former, it can be attributed to the Oriental spirit still throbbing in the country; not in vain did the Moor inhabit Iberia for nearly eight hundred years! The powerful influence of the Church on the inhabitants, an influence that has lasted from the middle ages to the present day, explains the other phenomenon. Even to-day, in Spain, the Pope is supreme and the princes of the Church are the rulers. Does the country gain thereby? Not at all. Andalusia is in a miserable state of poverty, so are Extremadura, La Mancha, and Castile. Not a penny do the rich, or even royalty, give to better the country people's piteous lot; neither does the Church. It is nevertheless necessary to be just. In studying the evolutionary history of architecture in Spain, we must praise the tyranny of the Church which spent the millions of dollars of the poor in erecting such marvels as the cathedral of Toledo, etc., and we must ignore the sweating farmer, the terror-stricken Jew, the accused heretic, the disgraced courtier, the seafaring conquistador, who gave up their all to buy a few months' life, the respite of an hour. And the author has striven to be impartial in the following pages. Once in awhile his bitterness has escaped the pen, but be it plainly understood that not one of his remarks is aimed against Spain, a country and a people to be admired,— above all to be pitied, for they, the people, are slaves to an arrogant Church, to a self-amusing royalty, and to a grasping horde of second-rate politicians. II HISTORICAL ARABESQUES THE history of Spain is, perhaps, more than that of any other nation, one long series of thrilling, contradictory, and frequently incomprehensible events. This is not only due to the country's past importance as a powerful factor in the evolution of our modern civilization, but to the unforeseen doings of fate. Fate enchained and enslaved its people, moulded its greatness and wrought its ruin. Of no other country can it so truthfully be said that it was the unwitting tool of some higher destiny. Most of the phenomena of its history took place in spite of the people's wishes or votes; neither did the different art questions, styles, periods, or movements emanate from the people. This must be borne in mind. The Romans were the first to come to Spain with a view to conquering the land, and to organizing the half-savage clans or tribes who roamed through the thickets and across the plains. But nowhere did the great rulers of the world encounter such fierce resistance. The clans were extremely warlike and, besides, intensely individual. They did not only oppose the foreigner's conquest of the land, but also his system of organization, which consisted in the submission of the individual to the state. The clans or tribes recognized no other law than their own sweet will; they acted independently of each other, and only on rare occasions did they fight in groups. They were local patriots who recognized no fatherland beyond their natal vale or village. This primary characteristic of the Spanish people is the clue to many of the subsequent events of the country's history. Against it the Romans fought, but fought in vain, for they were not able to overcome it. Christianity dawned in the East and was introduced into Spain, some say by St. James in the north, others by St. Peter or St. Paul in the south. The result was astonishing: what Roman swords, laws, and highroads had been unable to accomplish (as regards the organization of the savage tribes) Christianity brought about in a comparatively short lapse of time. {16} {17} {18} {19} {20} The reason is twofold. In the first place, the new form of religion taught that all men were equal; consequently it was more to the taste of the individualistic Spaniard than the state doctrines of the Roman Empire. Secondly, it permitted him to worship his deity in as many forms (saints) as there were days in the year; consequently each village or town could boast of its own saint, prophet, or martyr, who, in the minds of the citizens, was greater than all other saints, and really the god of their fervent adoration. Hence Christianity was able to introduce into the Roman province of Hispania a social organization which was to exert a lasting influence on the country and to acquire an unheard-of degree of wealth and power. When the temporal domination of Rome in Spain had dwindled away to nothing, other foreigners, the Visigoths, usurped the fictitious rule. Their state was civil in name, military in organization, and ecclesiastical in reality. They formed no nation, however, though they preserved the broken fragments of the West Roman Empire. The same spirit of individualism characterized the tribes or people, and they swore allegiance to their local saint (God) and to the priest who was his representative on earth (Church)—but to no one else. Consequently it can be assumed that the Spanish nation had not as yet been born; the controlling power had passed from the hands of one foreigner to those of another: only one institution—the Church—could claim to possess a national character; around it, or upon its foundations, the nation was to be built up, stone by stone, and turret by turret. The third foreigner appeared on the scene. He was doubtless the most important factor in the formation of the Spanish nation. It is probable that the Church called him over the Straits of Gibraltar as an aid against Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king, who lost his throne and his life because too deeply in love with his beautiful Tolesian mistress. Legends explain the Moor's landing differently. Sohail, as powerfully narrated by Mr. Cunninghame-Graham, is one of these legends, beautifully fatalistic and exceptionally interesting. According to it, the destiny of the Moors is ruled by a star named Sohail. Whither it goes they must follow it. In the eighth century it happened that Sohail, in her irregular course across the heavens, was to be seen, a brilliant star, from Gibraltar. Obeying the stellar call, Tarik landed in Spain and moved northwards at the head of his irresistible, fanatic hordes. The star continued its northerly movement, visible one fine night from the Arab tents pitched on the plains between Poitiers and Tours. The next night, however, it was no longer visible, and Charles Martel drove the invading Moors back to the south. Centuries went by and Sohail appeared ever lower down on the southern horizon. One night it was only visible from Granada, and then Spain saw it no more. That same day—'twas in the fifteenth century—Boabdil el Chico surrendered the keys of Granada, and the Arabs fled, obeying the retreating star's call. To-day they are waiting in the north of Africa for Sohail to move once again to the north: when she does so, they will rise again as a single man, and regain their passionately loved Alhambra, their beautiful kingdom of Andalusia. Tradition is fond of showing us a nucleus of fervent Christian patriots obliged by the invading Arab hordes to retire to the north-western corner of the Iberian peninsula. Here they made a stand, a last glorious stand, and, gradually increasing in strength, they were at last able to drive back the invader inch by inch until he fled across the straits to trouble Iberia no more. Nothing is, however, less true. The noblemen and monarchs of Galicia, Leon, and Oviedo—later of Castile, Navarra, and Aragon—were so many petty lords who, fighting continually among themselves, ruled over fragments of the defeated Visigothic kingdom. At times they called in the Arab enemy—to whom in the early centuries they paid a yearly tribute—to help them against the encroachments of their brother Christians. Consequently they lacked that spirit of patriotism and of national ambition which might have justified their claims to be called monarchs or rulers of Spain. The Church was no better. Its bishops were independent princes who ruled in their dioceses like sovereigns in their palaces; they recognized no supreme master, not even the Pope, whose advice was ignored, and whose orders were disobeyed. It was not until the twelfth or thirteenth century that the Christian incursions into Moorish territory took the form of patriotic crusades, in which fervent Christians burnt with the holy desire of weeding out of the peninsula the Saracen infidel. This holy crusade was due to the coming from France and Italy of the Cluny monks. Foreigners,—like the Romans, the Church, the Visigoths, and the Moors,—they created a situation which facilitated the union of the different monarchs, prelates, and noblemen, by showing them a common cause to fight for. Besides, anxious to establish the supreme power of the Pope in a land where his authority was a dead letter, they crossed the Pyrenees and broke the absolute power of the arrogant prelates. The result was obvious: the Church became uniform throughout the country, and its influence waxed to the detriment of that of the noblemen. Once again the kings learnt to rely upon the former, thus putting an end to the power of the {21} {22} {23} {24} {25} latter. Once more the Church grew to be an ecclesiastical organization in which the role of the prelates became more important as time went on. In short, if the coming of the Moors retarded for nearly six hundred years the birth of the Spanish nation, this birth was directly brought about by the political ability of the Cluny monks; the Moors, on the other hand, exerted a direct and lasting influence on the shaping and moulding of the future nation. Christian Spain, at the time of the death of the pious warrior-king San Fernando, was roughly divided into an eastern and a western half, into the kingdom of Castile (and Leon) and that of Aragon. The fusion of these two halves by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel, two hundred years later, marks the date of the birth of Spain as a nation. It is true, nevertheless, that the people had little or no voice in the arrangement of matters. They were indifferent to what their crowned rulers were doing, and ignorant of the growing power, wealth, and learning of the prelates. All they asked for was individual liberty and permission to pray to the God of their choice. Neither had as yet the spirit of patriotism burned in their breasts, and they were utterly insensible to any and all politics which concerned the peninsula as a unity. But the Church-state had successfully evolutionized, and Catholic kings sat on the only available throne. The last Moor had been driven from the peninsula, the Jews had been expelled from the Catholic kingdom, and the Inquisition— now that the Church could no longer direct its energy against the infidel—strengthened the Pope's hold on the land and increased the importance and magnificence of the prelates themselves. A word as to heresy (the Reformation) and the Inquisition. The latter was not directed against the former, for it would have been impossible for the people to accept the reformed faith in the fifteenth century. For the Spaniard the charm of the Christian religion was that it placed him on an equal footing with all men; hence, it flattered his love of personal liberty and his self-consciousness or pride. The charm of Catholicism was that it enabled him to adore a local deity in the shape of a martyred saint; thus, it flattered his vanity as a clansman, and his spirit of individualism. It was not so much the God of Christianity he worshipped as Our Lady of the Pillar, Our Lady of Sorrows, of the Camino, etc., and he obeyed less readily the archbishop than the custodian priest of his particular saint, of whom he declared "that he could humiliate all other saints." Consequently Protestantism, which tended to kill this local worship by upholding that of a collective deity, could never have taken a serious hold of the country, and it is doubtful if it ever will. On the other hand—as previously remarked—the Spanish Inquisition helped to centralize the Church's power and obliged the people to accept its decisions as final. The effect of Torquemada's policy is still to be felt in Spain—could it be otherwise? Had successive events in this stage of Spain's history followed a normal course, and had the education of the people been fostered by the state instead of being cursed by the Church, it is more than probable that the map of Europe would have been different to-day from what it is. For the Spanish people would have learnt to think as patriots, as a nation; they would have developed their country's rich soil and thickly populated the vast vegas; they would have taken the offensive against foreign nations, and would have chased and battled the Moor beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. It was not to be, however. An abnormal event was to take place—and did take place—which repeated in fair Iberia the retrograde movement initiated by the Arab invasion 750 years earlier. A foreigner was again the cause of this new phenomenon, a harebrained Genoese navigator whom the world calls a genius because he was successful, but who was an evil genius for the new-born Spanish nation, one who was to load his adopted country with unparalleled fame and glory before causing her rapid and clashing downfall. Christopher Columbus came to Spain from the east; he sailed westwards from Spain and discovered—for Spain!— two vast continents. The importance of this event for Spain is apt to be overlooked by those who are blinded by the unexpected realization of Columbus's daring dreams. It was as though a volcanic eruption had taken place in a virgin soil, tossing earth and grass, layers and strata of stone, hither and thither in utter confusion, impeding the further growth of young plantlets and forbidding the building up of a solid national edifice. Instead of devoting their energies to the interior organization of the country, Spaniards turned their eyes to the New World. In exchange for the gold and precious stones which poured into the land, they gave that which left the country poor and weak indeed: their blood and their lives. The bravest and most intrepid leaders crossed the seas with their followers, and behind them sailed thousands upon thousands of hardy adventurers and soldiers. But the Spaniards could not colonize. They lacked those qualities of collectivity which characterized Rome and England. The individualistic spirit of the people caused them to go and to come as they chose without possessing any ambition of establishing in the newly acquired territories a home and a family; neither did the women folk emigrate—and hence the failure of Spain as a colonizing power. {25} {26} {27} {28} {29} On the other hand, those who had sailed the seas to the Spanish main, and had hoarded up a significant treasure, invariably returned, not to Spain exactly, but to their native town or village. Upon arriving home, their first act was to bequeath a considerable sum to the Church, so as to ease their conscience and to assure themselves homage, respect, and unrestrained liberty. The effects produced by this phenomenon of individualism were manifold. They exist even to-day, so lasting were they. A new nobility was created—wealthy, powerful, and generally arrogant and unscrupulous, which replaced the feudal aristocracy of the middle ages. Secondly, oligarchy—or better still, caciquismo, an individualistic form of oligarchy—sprung up into existence, and rapidly became the bane of modern Spain; that is, ever since the Bourbon dynasty ruled the country's fate. As can easily be understood, this caciquismo can only flourish there where individualism is the leading characteristic of the people. Thirdly, all hopes of the country's possessing a well-to-do middle class—stamina of a wealthy nation, and without which no people can attain a national standard of wealth—vanished completely away. Lastly the Church, which had become wealthy beyond the dreams of the Cluny monks, retained its iron grip on the country, and retarded the liberal education of the masses. To repay the fidelity of servile Catholics, it canonized legions of local prophets and martyrs, and organized hundreds of gay annual fiestas to honour their memory. The ignorant people, flattered at the tribute of admiration paid to their deities, looked no further ahead into the growing chaos of misery and poverty, and were happy. The crash came—could it be otherwise? Beyond the seas an immense territory, hundreds of times larger than the natal solar, or mother country, stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific; at home, a stillborn nation lay in an arid meadow beside a solemn church, a frivolous, selfish throne, and a mute and gloomy brick-built convent. The Spanish Armada sailed to England never to return, and Philip II. built the Escorial, a melancholy pantheon for the kings of the Iberian peninsula. One by one the colonies dropped off, fragments of an illusory empire, and at last the mother country stood once more stark naked as in the days before Columbus left Palos harbour. But the mother's face was no longer young and fresh like an infant's: wrinkles of age and of suffering creased the brow and the chin, for not in vain was she, during centuries, the toy of unmerciful fate. Such is, in gigantic strides, the history of Spain. The volcanic eruption in the fifteenth century has left, it is true, indelible traces in the country's soil. Nevertheless, on the very day when the treaty of Paris was signed and the last of the Spanish colonies de ultramar were lost for ever, that day a Spanish nation was born again on the disturbed foundations of the old. There is no denying it: when Ferdinand and Isabel united their kingdoms a nation was born; it fell to pieces (though apparently not until a later date) when Columbus landed in America. Anarchy, misrule, and oppression, ignorance and poverty, now frivolity and now austerity at court, fill the succeeding centuries until the coronation of Alfonso XII. During all those years, but once did Spain—no longer a nation—shine forth in history with an even greater brilliancy than when she claimed to be mistress of the world. But, on this occasion, when she opposed, in brave but disbanded groups, the invasion of the French legions, she gave another proof of the individualistic instincts of the race, as opposed to all social and compact organization of the masses. The Carlist wars need but a passing remark. They were not national; they were caused by the ambitions of rulers and noblemen, and fought out by the inhabitants of Navarra and the Basque Provinces who upheld their fueros, by paid soldiery, and by aldeanos whose houses and families were threatened. New Spain was born a few years ago, but so far she has given no proof of vitality. As it is, she is cumbered by traditions and harassed by memories. She must fight a sharp battle with existing evil institutions handed down to her as a questionable legacy from the past. If she emerge victorious from the struggle, universal history will hear her name again, for the country is not gastado or degenerate, as many would have us believe. If she fail to throw overboard the worthless and superfluous ballast, it is possible that the ship of state will founder— and then, who knows? In the meantime, let us not misjudge the Spaniard nor throw stones at his broken glass mansion. To help us in this, let us remember that unexpected vicissitudes, entirely foreign to his country, were the cause of his illusory grandeur in the sixteenth century. Besides, no more ardent a lover of individual (not social) freedom than the Spaniard breathes in this wide world of ours—excepting it be the Moor. {30} {31} {32} {33} {34} Under the circumstances he is to be admired—even pitied. III ARCHITECTURAL ARABESQUES Preliminaries THE different periods mentioned in the preceding chapter are characterized by a corresponding art-movement. The germs of these movements came invariably from abroad. In Spain they lingered, were localized and grew up, a species of hybrid plants in which the foreign element was still visible, though it had undergone a series of changes, due either to the addition of other elements, to the inventive genius of the artist-architect, or else peculiar to the locality in which the building was erected. Other conclusive remarks arrived at in the foregoing study help to explain the evolution of church architecture. Five were the conclusions: (1) The power and wealth of the Church, (2) the influence exerted by foreigners on the country's fate, (3) the individualistic spirit of the clanspeople, (4) the short duration of a Spanish nation, nipped in the bud before it could bloom, and (5) the formation of an oligarchy (caciquismo) which hindered the establishment of an educated bourgeoisie. The first of the above conclusive observations needs no further remarks, considering that we are studying church architecture. It suffices to indicate the great number of cathedrals, churches, hermitages, monasteries, convents, cloisters, and episcopal palaces to be convinced of the Church's influence on the country and on the purses of the inhabitants. The Spaniard, psychologically speaking, is no artist; it is doubtful if illiterate and uneducated people are, and the average inhabitant of Spain forms no exception to this rule. His artistic talents are exclusively limited to music, for which he has an excessively fine ear. But beauty in the plastic arts and architecture leave him cold and indifferent; he is influenced by mass, weight, and quantity rather than by elegance or lightness, and consequently it is the same to him whether a cathedral be Gothic or Romanesque, as long as it be dedicated to the deity of his choice. The difference between Italian and Iberian is therefore very marked. Even the landscapes in each country prove it beyond a doubt. In Italy they are composed of soft rolling lines; the colours are varied,—green, red, and blue; the soil is damp and fruitful. In Spain, on the contrary, everything is dry, arid, and savage; blue is the sky, red the brick houses, and grayish golden the soil; the inhabitants are as savage as the country, and the proverbial "ma é piu bello" of the Italian does not bother the former in the slightest. All of which goes to explain the Spaniard's insensibility to the plastic arts, as well as (for instance) the universal use of huge retablos or altar-pieces, in which size and bright colours are all that is required and the greater the size, the more clashing the colours, the better. Neither is it surprising that the Spaniard created no architectural school of his own. All he possesses is borrowed from abroad. His love of Byzantine grotesqueness and of Moorish geometrical arabesques is inherited, the one from the Visigoths, and the other directly from the Moors. The remaining styles are northern and Italian, and were introduced into the country by such foreigners—monks and artists—as crowded to Spain in search of Spanish gold. These artists (it is true that some, and perhaps the best of them, were Spaniards) did not work for the people, for there was no bourgeoisie. They worked for the wealthy prelates, for the aristocracy, and for the caciques. These latter had sumptuous chapels decorated, dedicated an altar to such and such a deity, and erected a magnificent sepulchre or series of sepulchres for themselves and their families. This peculiar phenomenon explains the wealth of Spanish churches in lateral chapels. Not a cathedral but has about twenty of them; not a church but possesses its half a dozen. Moreover, some of the very finest examples of sepulchral art are not to be found in cathedrals, but in out-of-the-way village churches, where some cacique or other laid his bones to rest and had his effigy carved on a gorgeous marble tomb. These chapels are built in all possible styles and in all degrees of splendour and magnificence, according to the generosity of the donor. Here they bulge out, deforming the regular plan of the church, or else they take up an important part of the interior of the building. There they are Renaissance jewels in a Gothic temple, or else ogival marvels in a Romanesque building. They are, as it were, small churches—or important annexes like that of the Condestable in Burgos, possessing a dome of its own—absolutely independent of the cathedral itself, rich in decorative details, luxurious in the use of polished stone and metal, of agate and golden accessories, of gilded friezes, low reliefs, and painted retablos. They constitute one of the most characteristic features of Spanish religious architecture and art in {35} {36} {37} {38} {39} general, and it is above all due to them that Iberia's cathedrals are museums rather than solemn places of worship. But the Spanish people did not erect them; they were commanded by vain and death-fearing caciques, and erected by artists—generally foreigners, though often natives. The people did not care nor take any interest in the matter; so long as the village saint was not insulted, nor their individual liberty (fuero) infringed upon, the world, its artists and caciques, could do as it liked. This insensibility helped to hinder the formation of a national style. Besides, as the duration of the Spanish nation was so exceedingly short, there was no time at hand to develop a national art school. In certain localities, as in Galicia, a prevailing type or style was in common use, and was slowly evolving into something strictly local and excellent. These types, together with Moorish art, and above all Mudejar work, might have evolved still further and produced a national style. But the nation fell to pieces like a dried-up barrel whose hoops are broken, and the nation's style was never formed. Besides, contemporary with the birth of the nation was the advent of the Renaissance movement. This was the coup de grâce, the final blow to any germs of a Spanish style, of a style composed of Christian and Islam principles and ideals: "Es wär zu schön gewesen, Es hätt' nicht sollen sein!" Under the circumstances, the art student in Spain, however enthusiastic or one-sided he may be, cannot claim to discover a national school. He must necessarily limit his studies to the analysis of the foreign art waves which inundated the land; he must observe how they became localized and were modified, how they were united both wisely and ridiculously, and he must point out the reasons or causes of these medleys and transformations. There his task ends. One peculiarity will strike him: the peninsula possesses no pure Gothic, Romanesque, or Renaissance building. The same might almost be stated as regards Moorish art. The capitals of the pillars in the mezquita of Cordoba are Latin- Romanesque, torn from a previous building by the invading Arab to adorn his own temple. The Alhambra, likewise, shows animal arabesques which are Byzantine and not Moorish. Nevertheless, Arab art is, on the whole, purer in style than Christian art. This transformation of foreign styles proves: (1) That though the Spanish artist lacked creative genius, he was no base imitator, but sought to combine; he sought to give the temple he had to construct that heavy, massive, strong, and sombre aspect so well in harmony with the religious and warlike spirit of the different clanspeople; and (2) that the same artist failed completely to understand the ideal of soaring ogival, of simple Renaissance, or of pure Romanesque (this latter he understood better than either of the others). For him, they—as well as Islam art—were but elements to be made use of. Apart from their constructive use, they were superfluous, and the artist-architect was blind to their ethical object or æsthetical value. With their aid he built architectural wonders, but hybrid marvels, complex, grand, luxurious, and magnificent. Be it plainly understood, nevertheless, that in the above paragraphs no contempt for Spanish cathedrals is either felt or implied. Facts are stated, but no personal opinion is emitted as to which is better, a pure Gothic or a complicated Spanish Gothic. In art there is really no better; besides, comparisons are odious and here they are utterly superfluous. Cathedral Churches Before accompanying the art student in his task of determining the different foreign styles, we will do well to examine certain general characteristics common to all Spanish cathedrals. We will then be able to understand with greater ease the causes of the changes introduced into pure styles. The exterior aspect of all cathedrals is severe and massive, even naked and solemn. Neither windows nor flying buttresses are used in such profusion as in French cathedrals, and the height of the aisles is greater. The object is doubtless to impart an idea of strength to the exterior walls by raising them in a compact mass. An even greater effect is obtained by square, heavy towers instead of elegant spires. (Compare, however, chapters on Leon, Oviedo, Burgos, etc.) The use of domes (cimborios, lanterns, and cupolas) is also frequent, most of them being decidedly Oriental in appearance. The apse is prominent and generally five-sided, warlike in its severe outline. Stone is invariably used as the principal constructive element,—granite, berroqueña (a soft white stone turning deep gray with age and exposure), and sillar or silleria (a red sandstone cut into similar slabs of the size and aspect of brick). Where red sandstone is used, the weaker parts of the buildings are very often constructed in brick, and it is these last-named cathedrals that are most Oriental in appearance, especially when the brick surface is carved into Mudejar reliefs. Taken all in all, the whole building often resembles a castle or fortress rather than a temple, in harmony with the austere, arid landscape, and the fierce, passionate, and idolatrous character of the clanspeople or inhabitants of the different regions. The principal entrance is usually small in comparison to the height and great mass of the building. The pointed arch— or series of arches—which crowns the portal, is timid in its structure, or, in other words, is but slightly pointed or not at all. {40} {41} {42} {43} {44} The interior aspect of the church is totally different. As bare and naked as was the outside, so luxurious and magnificent is the inside. Involuntarily mediæval Spanish palaces come to our mind: their gloomy appearance from the outside, and the gay patio or courtyard behind the heavy, uninviting panels of the doors. The Moors even to this day employ this system of architecture; its origin, even in the case of Christian churches, is Oriental. Leaving aside all architectural considerations, which will be referred to in the chapters dedicated to the description of the various cathedrals, let us examine the general disposition of some of the most interesting parts of the Spanish church. The aisles are, as a rule, high and dark, buried in perpetual shadow. The lightest and airiest part of the building is beneath the croisée (intersection of nave and transept), which is often crowned by a handsome cimborio. The nave is the most important member of the church, and the most impressive view is obtained by the visitor standing beneath the croisée. To the east of him, the nave terminates in a semicircular chapel, the farther end of which boasts of an immense retablo; to the west, the choir, with its stalls and organs, interrupts likewise the continuity of the nave. Both choir and altar are rich in decorative details. Behind the high altar runs the ambulatory, joining the aisles and separating the former from the apse and its chapels. The rear wall of the high altar (in the ambulatory) is called the trasaltar, where a small altar is generally situated in a recess and dedicated to the patron saint, that is, if the cathedral itself be dedicated to the Virgin, as generally happens. Sometimes an oval window pierces the wall of the trasaltar and lets the light from the apsidal windows enter the high altar; this arrangement is called a transparente. The choir, as wide as the nave and often as high, is rectangular; an altar-table generally stands in the western extremity, which is closed off by a wall. The rear of this wall (facing the western entrance to the temple) is called the trascoro, and contains the altar or a chapel; the lateral walls are also pierced by low rooms or niches which serve either as chapels or as altar-frames. The placing of the choir in the very centre of the church, its width and height, and its enclosure on the western end by a wall, render impossible a view of the whole building such as occurs in Northern cathedrals, and upon which the impression of architectural grandeur and majesty largely depends. It was as though Spanish architects were utterly foreign to the latter impression, or wilfully murdered it by substituting another more to their taste, namely, that of magnificence and sumptuousness. Nowhere—to the author's knowledge—is this impression more acutely felt than in a Spanish cathedral, viewed from beneath the croisée. Glittering brilliancy, dazzling gold, silver, or gilt, polished marble, agate, and jasper, and a luxuriance of vivid colours meet the visitor's eyes when standing there. The effect is theatrical, doubtless, but it impresses the humble true believer as Oriental splendour; and what, in other countries, might be considered as grotesque and unhealthy art, must in Spain be regarded as the very essence of the country's worship, the very raison d'être of the cathedral. Neither can it be considered as unhealthy: with us in the North, our religious awe is produced by the solemn majesty of rising shafts and long, high, and narrow aisles; this fails to impress the Iberian of to-day; and yet, the same sentiment of religious awe, of the terrible unknown, be it saint, Saviour, Virgin, or God, is imparted to him by this brilliant display of incalculable wealth. To produce this magnificence in choir and high altar, decorative and industrial art were given a free hand, and together wrought those wonders of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries which placed Spain in a prominent position in the history of art. Goldsmiths and silversmiths, masters of ironcraft, sculptors in stone and wood, painters and estofadores, together with a legion of other artists and artisans of all classes and nationalities, worked together in unison to create both choir and high altar. Therefore, from an artistic point of view, the Spanish cathedral is for the foreigner a museum, a collection of art objects, pertaining, most of them, to the country's industrial arts, for which Iberia was first among all nations. CHOIR STALLS.—Space cannot allow us to classify this most important accessory of Spanish cathedrals. Carved in walnut or oak, now simple and severe, now rich and florid, this branch of graphic art in low relief constitutes one of Spain's most legitimate glories. It is strange that no illustrated work dedicated exclusively to choir stalls should have been published in any language. The tourist's attention must nevertheless be drawn to this part of religious buildings; it must not escape his observation when visiting cathedral and parish churches, and above all, monastical churches. {45} {46} {47} {48} {49} C CLOISTER STALLS IN A MONASTIC CHURCH AT LEON LOISTER STALLS IN A MONASTIC CHURCH AT LEON RETABLO.—The above remarks hold good here as well, when speaking about the huge and imposing altar-pieces so universally characteristic of Spain. The eastern wall of the holy chapel in a cathedral is entirely hidden from top to bottom by the retablo, a painted wooden structure resembling a huge honeycomb. It consists of niches flanked by gilded columns. According to the construction of these columns, now Gothic shafts, now Greek or composite, now simple and severe, the period to which the retablo belongs is determined. Generally pyramidically superimposed, these niches, of the height, breadth, and depth of an average man, contain life- size statues of apostle or saint, painted and decorated by the estofadores in brilliant colours (of course, as they are intended to be seen from a distance!), in which red and blue are predominant, and which produce a gorgeous effect rehaussé by the gilt columns of the niches. (Compare with the Oriental taste of Mudejar work in ceilings or artesonados.) The whole retablo, in the low reliefs which form the base, and in the statues or groups in the niches, represents graphically the life of the Saviour or the Virgin, of the patron saint or an apostle; some of them are of exquisite execution and of great variety and movement; in others, greater attention has been paid to the decoration of the columns or shafts by original floral garlands, etc. Foment, Juni, and Berruguete are among the most noted retablo sculptors, but space will not permit of a more prolific classification or analysis. GOLD AND SILVERSMITHS.—The vessels used on the altar-table, effigies of saints, processional crosses, etc., in beaten gold and silver, are well worth examination. So is also the cathedral treasure, in some cases of an immense value, both artistic and intrinsic. Cloths, woven in coloured silks, gold, and precious stones, are beautiful enough to make any art lover envious. The central niche of the retablo, immediately above the altar-table, is generally occupied by a massive beaten silver effigy, the artistic value of which is unluckily partially concealed beneath a heap of valuable cloths and jewels. {50} {51}