Catalonia & the Balearic Islands: an historical and desciptive account

by Albert Frederick Calvert

At the south side of the chancel, at its junction with the apse, is a very remarkable stone turret stair, leading up to a square tower which rises over the end of the south aisle. There was probably at one time a corresponding steeple on the north side.

The chapels, though they have undergone considerable restoration, are interesting and possess much architectural interest. In the beautiful north transept is the fourteenth-century chapel of the Tailors (de los Sastres). Close by is the Capilla del Sacramento, formerly a Roman work, and incorporated with the cathedral by Archbishop Augustin (1561-1586) whose fine tomb, by Pere Blay, it contains. The chapel was at one time the canon’s refectory. Several ancient tombs from the other parts of the cathedral have been placed in this transept. On the opposite side of the church is the gorgeous eighteenth-century chapel of St. Thecla.

The cloister adjoins the north-east angle of the cathedral—a most unusual position. The door communicating with it is the finest in the building. It is a round-arched doorway richly and curiously sculptured in the Romanesque style. This cloister is considered one of the best of the many beautiful works of the kind in Spain. “Each bay has three round-arched openings divided by coupled shafts, and above these two large circles pierced in the wall. The arches and circular windows are richly moulded and adorned largely with delicate dog-tooth enrichments. Some of the circular windows above the arcade still retain their filling-in, which was of a very delicate interlacing work, pierced in a thin slab of stone, and evidently Moorish in its origin, though at the same time probably the work of Christian hands, as in some of them the figure of Christ is very beautifully introduced.” The sculptors have adorned the capitals with all sorts of quaint conceits, notably in one case with a pictorial rendering of the story of the rats who went to bury the cat without first tying her limbs. On another capital there is shown a spirited gladiatorial combat; on another, a cock-fight. These purely secular subjects where the sculptor seems to have indulged his humour and fancy absolutely without restraint, remind us of the “topical” carvings at Oviedo. Their humour has not escaped O’Shea, who, speaking of the Adoration of the Magi, carved on one of the pillars of the doorway from the church, says: “The three kings of the east are economically sleeping three in the same bed, and wakened early by a winged valet de chambre, that they may rise and proceed on their journey to Bethlehem.” The words “6th Company,” &c., to which this writer and others call attention, to be seen on the walls, are reminders of the passage of British troops here.

The chapter-house, the scene of many important councils, opens out of the south gallery of the cloister. The door is Norman. The exterior, like that of the cloister and cathedral generally, is most striking. The apse and the Tailors’ chapel are particularly fine seen from the outside.

Contented with their magnificent cathedral the people of Tarragona have done little to adorn their city with smaller churches. Adjacent to the seminary there stands the graceful little chapel of San Pablo, the origin of which is still a matter of conjecture. Its architectural features suggest the first half of the thirteenth century, with the exception of its west porch, which belongs to no recognised style. The chapel is first mentioned in a document of the year 1234.

These edifices apart, the Middle Ages have done little for Tarraco togata. Its remaining monuments belong to its infancy and prime. The Cyclopean walls, now declared a national monument, extend from near the Puerta del Rosario to the crest of the hill on which the city stands, and thence to the eastern angle of the ancient prætorium, now converted into a prison. The base of this wall is formed by huge blocks of unhewn stones, uncemented, and with their interstices filled by smaller stones. The character of the work bespeaks the primitive nature of the builders. On this rude foundation rests the more regular work of the Roman conquerors. The enceinte formed by these walls is of the shape of an irregular polygon, measuring three-quarters of a mile across, and open on one side. The angles are defended by square towers, and the curtains are pierced by gates, to some of which the name “Puerta ciclopea” is given. The Puerta del Rosario, called in the Middle Ages “Portal de Predicadors,” is about eight yards thick and is roofed by an enormous block of stone about 36,000 kilogrammes in weight. On the stones composing the Roman part of the wall, Iberian letters are traced. These were merely masons’ marks for the guidance of the native workmen, and form no words. The Torre del Arzobispo was raised in Christian times on the old Roman tower. The wall extending to the Torre del Capiscol is attributed to the Scipios, and dates in any case from their time. The principal Roman gate, called the Puerta del Socarro, is a noble work formed by three concentric arches. Passing through this we obtain a fine view of the strip of wall built by order of Hadrian, and may re-enter the city by the eighteenth-century gate of San Antonio, which pierced a wall built or restored by Norman adventurers in the twelfth century.

Within the city itself not much remains from Roman times. The sites of the forum, the prætorium, and the great temples may be traced easily enough, and stones hewn by Roman hands and commemorating often enough Roman dead, are embedded in the walls of houses and churches all over the town. The local museum contains a few of the spoils of antiquity. There is a beautiful statue of Dionysus in Parian marble, and a great variety of votive inscriptions. For more substantial memorials of the Roman era we must leave the city and follow the Barcelona road some four or five miles. Here we reach the celebrated monument known as the Tomb of the Scipios, consisting of a rectangular base and an upper body, on one face of which are sculptured in high relief the figures of two warriors. The cornice is engraved with a legend in which the words “perpetuo remane” are alone decipherable. There is no ground whatever for supposing that the figures represent the brothers Scipio or that this monument marks their resting-place. It is more probably the sepulchre of some wealthy Roman settler.

The Arco de Bara is one of the best preserved monuments in Spain. The arch itself is flanked on each side by two fluted columns of the Corinthian order, supporting an entablature. It is simple and majestic, like all the Roman works of the kind. An inscription records its restoration in commemoration of the pacification of Spain during the regency of Maria Christina and by order of Don Juan van Halen, the Spanish general who in 1830 assisted at the defence of Brussels against the Dutch.

The noblest handiwork bequeathed to Cataluña by the conquerors of the world is, however, the Aqueduct, which may be compared favourably as regards preservation and solidity with the more famous work of the same kind at Segovia. Where it spans a valley it is composed of two series of arches, eleven below and twenty-five above, and rising to a height of 217 metres. The stone of which it is built was Obtained from the caves of Monte Loreto, where the quarries may still be seen.