Leon, Burgos and Salamanca: a historical and descriptive account

by Albert Frederick Calvert

San Isidoro,

after the Roman walls the most ancient building in Leon, occupies the site of a chapel and nunnery consecrated in 966 and rebuilt by Alfonso V. Fernando I., who reigned over Leon and Castile from 1033 to 1065, obtained from the Amir of Seville the body of the doctor, San Isidoro. To receive this venerated relic a new church was built, and solemnly dedicated on December 21, 1063. Two years later the bones of the martyr San Vicente were transported hither from Avila. In the next century the church was greatly enlarged and richly endowed by Alfonso VII., who attributed his victory at Baeza to the miraculous intervention of the Doctor of Seville. To provide for the service of the church, the regular canons were transferred here from Carvajal, and exchanged quarters with the nuns who had continued to occupy the old tenth-century convent.

The church is in the Romanesque style, the oldest portion being the chapel of Santa Catalina, which Street thinks was the original fabric of Fernando I. The chapel was intended as a mausoleum for the royal family of Leon, but twelve tombs only remain out of thirty. The only inscriptions are on the resting-places of Alfonso V. and Sancha, the sister of Alfonso VII. Here were buried Alfonso IV., Ramiro II., Ordoño III. and his queen, Sancho I., Ramiro III. and his queen Urraca, Fernando I. and Queen Sancha, Sancho the Great of Navarre, and the murdered Count Garcia. Here, before the Pantheon was despoiled by the French in 1808, might have been seen the marble and porphyry sepulchre of the brave princess Urraca of Zamora, and the urns of the Moorish and French wives of Alfonso VII. Now, the inscriptions having been wantonly defaced, it is impossible to identify the few remaining sarcophagi.

The arches of this gloomy Pantheon are decorated with curious frescoes, probably of the twelfth century. The crude drawing and tints rather add to the impressive effect of these solemn paintings. Among the subjects are the ‘Massacre of the Innocents,’ the ‘Last Supper’ (painted, as Street points out, without the least regard to the angles formed by the groining, and as if the vault were a flat surface), scenes from the Passion, and the Visions of the Apocalypse—terrible conceptions. One of the designs represents the Supreme Judge with two swords issuing from His mouth; another shows a hand, inscribed Dextra Dei. The compositions are surrounded by foliage, rich and conventional. On the altar is an interesting ivory cross, the gift of Fernando I. and Sancha, whose names are engraved upon the reverse. While the figure of Christ is rude in the extreme, the foliage and figures of the four evangelists at the back are exquisitely chiselled.

Leaving this place consecrated to wrath and tears, we re-enter the church. The plan is roughly cruciform, an apsidal chapel projecting to the east of each arm of the transept, on either side of the Capilla Mayor. We are now in that part of the fabric which was built by order of Alfonso VII., evidently on the model of St. Sernin at Toulouse. The name of the architect is given on an inscription in the flooring as Petrus de Deo—Peter of God. The most interesting features in the church are the very ancient mural paintings in the Byzantine style, with the same profusion of foliage and richly moulded capitals to be noticed in the Pantheon. The dentated and horse-shoe arches reveal traces of Moorish influence, showing that even in the far north of Spain architects could not have closed their eyes and ears altogether to the doings of the detested infidels.

Among the treasures of the church might fairly be included the font, with its Byzantine reliefs, while objects of special veneration are the relics of San Isidoro contained in an ancient silver urn, supported by four lions, and the hand of San Martino, holding a pen, and encased in a rich reliquary. Here also you may see a chalice of agate, the donation of the Infanta Urraca, and (in the Sacristy) the standard embroidered by order of Alfonso VII. with the image of San Isidoro as he appeared at Baeza, and last displayed at the taking of Antequera in the fifteenth century. Many other priceless treasures and relics were lost when the church was plundered by the French; while in 1811 the building was struck by lightning, and—as if that were not enough—white-washed throughout!

The exterior is interesting. A doorway admits to the middle of the nave on the south side. The arch is semicircular and triple, the tympanum and spandrils being filled with sculpture, representing the Offering of Isaac, the Lamb of God, figures of Saints, and the signs of the Zodiac. ‘The whole detail of this sculpture,’ says Street, ‘is very unlike that of most of the early work I have seen in Spain; the figures are round and flabby, and very free from any of the usual conventionality. All this made me feel much inclined to think that the execution of this work was at an early date, and soon after the first consecration of the church.’ The appearance of the whole front was not improved by the Renaissance work above this gateway—the elaborate cornice, the imperial shield of Charles V., and the colossal equestrian statue of San Isidoro. The Romanesque portal of the southern transept, now closed, is adorned with a relief representing the Descent from the Cross, the statues of Saints Peter and Paul, and other sculptures. Detached from the church is a square tower or steeple built between two bastions in the adjoining city wall. Generally speaking, the eastern façade is strictly Gothic, much of it having been added to the Romanesque framework in the sixteenth century.

The adjoining cloister is mainly of the same period and style. The decorations are in the plateresque style, and the staircase, leading to the council chamber of the Provincial Deputation, is a daring and admirable example of Renaissance work. The library contains the beautiful Bible written in 960 by the priest Sancho, ‘whose illuminations and vignettes’ (says a native writer) ‘with their sinister figures with black faces, curious dresses, and gloomy fancies, display the artistic tendencies of that age of turmoil.’

In the Plaza del Conde de Luna is the mean little church of San Salvador del Palaz del Rey, built by Ramiro II. as a convent for his daughter Elvira—she who ruled as regent during the minority of her brother, Ramiro III. Nothing of the original structure remains; but the site is that of one of the oldest royal residences in Leon, and of the first burying-place of her kings, before their ashes were transported to San Isidoro.