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Read Ebook: Cathedrals of Spain by Gade John A John Allyne
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Ebook has 1237 lines and 73179 words, and 25 pages
BOOKS CONSULTED 267
INDEX 269
CATHEDRALS OF SALAMANCA: The towers of the old and new buildings 3
CATHEDRALS OF SALAMANCA: Plans 6
THRESHING OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF SALAMANCA 10
CATHEDRAL OF SALAMANCA: The Tower of the Cock 16
SALAMANCA: From the Vega 28
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: West front 33
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: Plan 36
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: View of the nave 40
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: Lantern over the crossing 46
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: The Golden Staircase 50
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: The Chapel of the Constable 54
CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS: The spires above the house-tops 58
CATHEDRAL OF AVILA 67
CATHEDRAL OF AVILA: Plan 68
CATHEDRAL OF AVILA: Exterior of the apse turret 72
AVILA: From outside the walls 80
CATHEDRAL OF AVILA: Main entrance 86
CATHEDRAL OF LEON: From the southwest 91
CATHEDRAL OF LEON: Plan 94
CATHEDRAL OF LEON: Looking up the nave 98
CATHEDRAL OF LEON: Rear of apse 104
CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO 121
CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO: Plan 124
CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO: The choir stalls 140
CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO: Chapel of Santiago, tombs of Alvaro de Luna and his spouse 158
CATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA 167
CATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA: Plan 170
CATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA: From the Plaza 176
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE: The Giralda, from the Orange Tree Court 191
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE: Plan 194
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE: Gateway of Perdon in the Orange Tree Court 210
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE AND THE GIRALDA 228
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: West front 239
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: Plan 242
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: The exterior cornices of the Royal Chapel 248
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: The reja enclosing the Royal Chapel and tombs of the Catholic Kings 256
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA: The tombs of the Catholic Kings, of Philip and of Queen Juana 262
SALAMANCA
CATHEDRALS OF SPAIN
SALAMANCA
In quella parte ove surge ad aprire Zeffiro dolce le novelle fronde, Di che si vede Europa rivestire.
Nowhere else in Spain, and certainly in few places outside her borders, can one take in the whole architectural development of successive styles and ages so comprehensively as in Salamanca. Byzantine and Romanesque, Gothic from its first fire to the last flicker and coldness of the ashes, and the triumphant domination of the reborn classicism,--all are massed together here.
Contrasts are eloquent to belittle or magnify. Here two cathedrals stand side by side, the older from the days of the Kingdom, a mere chapel in size compared to the larger and later expression of Imperial Spain. A David beside a Goliath, simple power by the side of ponderous self-assurance. Rude in its simplicity, seemingly unconscious of its great inheritance and the genius it embodies, the old church stands a monument of early virile effort, in strength and poetry akin to the wind-swept rocks round which still whisper mysterious Oriental legends. The huge bulk that overshadows it betrays exhausted vigor and a decadent form. Here is simplicity by complexity, majestic sobriety close to wanton magnificence, poise by restlessness; each speaks the language of the age that conceived and brought it forth. Proximity has compelled the odiousness of comparison, for you can never see the later Cathedral apart from the old. You are haunted by the salience of their divergency, the importance of their contrasts, until their meaning becomes so far clear to you that the solid blocks of the ancient temple seem to symbolize the Church Militant and Triumphant. That indomitable spirit did not meet you under the mighty arches of the newer church, but go into the hushed perfection of those abandoned walls and walk along the dismantled nave and you will repeat the old epithet coupled with the city, "Fortis Salamanca!"
This once famous town lay in a curious setting as seen from the cock-tower in the month of August. Here and there were rusty, copper-colored fields, where the plow had just furrowed the surface. There were vineyards in which the sandy, white mounds were tufted by the deep emerald of the grape-vines, but the prevailing color was the yellow straw of harvested fields. These were a busy scene,--laborers were driving their oxen harnessed to primitive carts and treading out the grain as in olden times. They made their rounds between the high yellow cones built up of grain-stalks and filled the hot air with golden dust.
This is Salamanca of to-day, seemingly robbed of all but her rich vowels. The whole city, like her two cathedrals, bears traces of the dynasties that have swept over her. Their footprints are everywhere. Hannibal's legions passed through Roman Salmantica on their victorious march to Rome, and the city soon afterwards became a military station in the province of Lusitania. Plutarch praises the valor of her women. Age after age generals have built her bridges and the towers and walls that surround the valley and the three hills, on one of which stands her supreme mediaeval creation.
From the eighth century Salamanca became an apple of discord between Moslem bands and the forces of early Castilian kings, Crescent and Cross constantly supplanting each other on her turrets. Not until the latter half of the eleventh century, in the days of King Alfonso VI, were the Moors driven south of Leon, and Salamanca could at last claim to be body and soul Christian. The safety of the city was finally assured by Alfonso's conquest of Toledo.
To-day solitude and intellectual stagnation reign in the halls and courts of this once renowned university. In a few half-empty lecture-rooms the rustic now receives an elementary education, as he listens to the cathedral chimes across the sunlit courtyard.
Within the crumbling crenelations of the ancient battlements twenty-four once large parishes are more or less abandoned or laid waste with their convents, monasteries, and palaces.
The history of Salamanca's ecclesiastical architecture is connected with the campaigns which were carried on in Castile and Leon at the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth centuries. These had established the dominion of King Alfonso VI, and the great influence of the distinguished immigrant prelates of the French orders. King Alfonso left Castile to his daughter Urraca, who, with her husband, Count Raymond of Burgundy, settled in Salamanca. The old city, which had suffered so long and terribly from the successive fortunes of war and its quickly shifting masters, was once more to feel the blessings of law and order. To replace its sad depopulation, Count Raymond allotted the various portions of the city to newcomers of the most different nationalities,--Castilians, Gallegos, Mozarabes, Basques, and Gascons. Among them were naturally pilgrims and monks, who played an important part in every colonizing enterprise of the day, introducing new ideas, arts, and craftsmen's skill. After his conquest of Toledo, Alfonso VIplaced on the various episcopal thrones of his new dominion Benedictine monks of Cluny,--men of unusual ability and energy. The great Bernard, who had been crowned Archbishop of Toledo, had brought with him many brethren from the mother house, whose patrimony was architecture. Among them was a young Frenchman from P?rigueux in Aquitaine, Jeronimo Visquio, whose ability as organizer and builder, up to the time of his death in 1120, left great results wherever he labored, and most especially in Salamanca. He was the personification of the Church Militant of his time,--fighting side by side with the most romantic hero of Spanish history and legend, confessing him on his death-bed, and finally consigning him to his tomb. Jeronimo was transferred from the See of Valencia to that of Zamora, to which Salamanca was subject, and shortly afterwards Salamanca was elevated to episcopal dignity by Pope Calixtus II, Count Raymond's brother. Even in the days of the Goths, we find mention of prelates of Salamanca who voiced their ideas in the Councils of Toledo, and later followed, for such scanty protection as it offered, the Court of the early Castilian kings. In calling Jeronimo to Salamanca, Raymond had, however, a very different purpose in mind from that of attaching to his court an already celebrated churchman. He understood the vital importance of building up within his city a powerful episcopal seat with a great church. Grants and other assistance were at once given the churchman and were in fact continued through successive reigns until, with indulgences, benefices, and privileges, it grew to be a feudal power. As late as the fifteenth century, the workmen of the Cathedral were exempted from tributes and duties by the Spanish kings. During the first years of Jeronimo's activity and the earliest work on the building, we find curious descriptions of how the Moorish prisoners were put to work on the walls, even to the number of "five hundred Moslem carpenters and masons."
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