[A] Street, “Gothic Architecture in Spain.”
Standing on the sinister spot where, twelve years ago, twelve people were killed and fifty others injured by a miscreant’s bomb, we survey the fine west front. This is flanked by two octagonal towers, of the telescope kind, and has a magnificent rose-window, above which I rather felt that an attic or story gable was wanted. The portal is richly moulded, and adorned with sculpture. The doors are faced with iron.
The churches of Santa Maria del Pino and of Santos Justo and Pastor are on the same plan, with slight modifications. Adjoining the former is a tall detached belfry, producing a fine effect. The church was consecrated in 1453, and derived its name according to one account from an image of the Virgin found in the trunk of a pine. The west front, Street considers to have been designed by the architect of the north transept door of the cathedral. Unlike Santa Maria del Mar, there are no chapels in the apse, though they are found between the buttresses of the nave. There is no aisle. In this church Villadomat is buried.
Santos Justo-y-Pastor is another single-nave church, founded in 1345, on the oldest church site in the city. It has been modernised inside and out. In the days of the ordeal by combat the parties, fully armed, made oath in this church, on the altar of San Felio, as to the justice of their cause and to use no “constellated or enchanted weapons.” We read that James I. declared null and void the issue of an encounter between Arnuldo de Cabrera and Bernardo de Cantellas on the ground that the one had worn certain jewels believed to be enchanted, and that the other had been invested with a shirt rendered impenetrable by a spell. To-day, I understand, an oath taken in this church as to the last wishes of a citizen who has died intestate, will be sufficient grounds for the issue of letters of administration accordingly. Here also Jews were sworn with both hands placed on the Decalogue, and according to a long and terrific formula. This is given at length by Don Pablo Piferrer in the original Catalan, and is calculated to appal the most hardened perjurer.
Barcelona, it will have been seen, abounds in ancient and interesting churches. San Pablo del Campo was founded in the first decades of the tenth century by Count Wilfred II., who was buried in it, as his epitaph on a Roman tablet attests. Destroyed by Al Mansûr, the church was rebuilt on the same plan in 1117 by Jinbert Jintardo and his wife Rotlandis. The west front has retained much of its primitive Romanesque character. The symbolical sculpture is crude and curious. The interval is very striking in its simplicity. The cloister is more ornate and the decoration is considered by some to mark the transition from the Romanesque to the Moorish style. More eastern in character is the venerable church of San Pere de las Puellas, believed to date from the tenth century. It is so called from the nuns who formerly inhabited the adjoining convent and who, at the time of Al Mansûr’s invasion, cut off their lips and noses to avoid the amorous attentions of the Moors.
There remain to be visited the old chapel royal of Santa Agueda, now converted into an archæological museum, where Alfonso el Casto was baptized, where the order of Montesa was established, and where the claims of the candidates to the crown of Aragon were discussed in 1410.
Santa Ana, built in 1146 in imitation of the church of the Holy Sepulchre (as it was then), with a curious fourteenth-century cloister placed at an angle to the main building, and the simple graceful arches of the chapel of Montesion, where are hung the Turkish ensigns won by Spanish valour at Lepanto.
One instinctively searches at Barcelona for monuments of civic state befitting a city of such antiquity and dignity. Happily such are not lacking and have been preserved to us. The noble Gothic façade of the Town Hall (Casa Consistorial), erected in 1373, has been recently restored, fortunately with good taste. The Council Chamber (Salon de Ciento), formed of two bays which support an artesonado roof, is lined by a collection of portraits of Catalan worthies, among whom we distinguish Capmany, Villadomat and Montaner. A finer building and preserving more of its primitive character is the Diputacion, the old Parliament House of Catalonia, and now the seat of the Provincial Court. This monument, declares Piferrer, “is the admiration of foreigners and the honour of Barcelona. He who seeks for originality of style, let him examine all its parts and be convinced that many are of a character entirely new.” Built in the early fifteenth century, it underwent frequent restorations and enlargements, and was rebuilt in great part in 1609 by Maestre Pere Blai, who spared the best portions of the old work. The principal façade is cold and devoid of interest, except for the figure of St. George above the entrance. To that saint is dedicated the chapel, with its fine ogival portal, and the adjoining wall damascened (to quote Piferrer) with reliefs. The chapel is the repository of an exquisite altar frontal, worked with the design of St. George and the Dragon, and designed by Antonio Sadarni, in 1458. The pillars sustaining the galleries of the patio, at one time much admired for their daring and ingenious execution, were bending and giving way under the strain till restored and strengthened a few years ago by Don Miguel Garriga y Roca, a local architect.
The halls breathe the dignity and gravity of a great corporation. The majestic Salon del Tribunal with its dome and hangings is adorned with portraits of the Kings of Spain, and paintings by Fortuny, one representing the victory of Marshal Prim over the Moors at Tetuan. Catalonia keeps ever green the memory of her heroes.
The rapid extension of the most populous city of Spain has fortunately spared several noble monuments of bygone ages and beliefs. About an hour’s walk from the Tibidabo brings one to the Romanesque monastery of San Cucufat (or Cugat) del Valles, founded by Charlemagne on the site of a Roman camp, and rebuilt between 1009 and 1014. The exterior is fortified with battlements and flanking towers, the main entrance being pierced through a tall square gatehouse, and having been defended by a drawbridge. The Abbey Church is in the finest Romanesque style, with an octagonal lantern, apse, nave, and aisles. The interior is plain and sombre, despite the abominable baroque chapels which have been added to the right aisle. The church contains but one tomb of importance—that of the builder or founder, the Abbot Otho, who was also Bishop of Gerona, and flourished at the dawn of the eleventh century.