The cloister of San Cugat has afforded the Romanesque sculptors the opportunity of gratifying their most exuberant fancy in stone. The capitals reveal an extraordinary profusion and variety of designs—Biblical scenes being associated with fables, conventional designs, and animals’ heads. Examples of the quaint and more childlike conceptions of a rather later age (fourteenth century) may be found in some curious paintings, set in retablos, still adorning the church. They are specimens of a style peculiar to Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands, at the period “which analogies [says one authority] with the early Tuscan and old Cologne schools.”
GERONA
Gerona deserves to be, but through some freak of fortune is not, as famous as Saragossa. Its many sieges, especially those that took place in the Peninsular War, are among the many proofs of the Spaniard’s extraordinary tenacity in the defence of positions. Numantia, Saguntum, Saragossa, Gerona, and Cartagena—can any other country boast so many and such glorious instances of heroism and resistance to an overwhelming foe? These five names should be inscribed on the national escutcheon. They might even one day have more than a sentimental value, and cause potential invaders to think twice before violating Spanish soil.
Gerona, then, has covered itself with glory, not once, but repeatedly. The very paynim Moors were invigorated by the heroic atmosphere, for we read that as long ago as 785 they defied the arms of Louis the Pious, till the Christian townsfolk, thinking that enough had been done for the renown of Gerona, arose and expelled them. In the succeeding centuries the Geronese grew used to this business of sieges, and their assailants grew more wary. In 1285 the French King, Philippe le Hardi, sat down before the town and contentedly starved it into submission. Gerona yielded under protest, and took care to place it on record that she was not taken by force but by hunger, as the inscription not “per forsa, mes per fam” over the Puerta de la Cárcel to this day testifies. More than four centuries later came another Philippe from beyond the Pyrenees, welcomed by all Spaniards except Catalans. Gerona stubbornly held out for Austrian Charles, and her garrison of 2000 men bade defiance to Philippe’s 9000. The Bourbon won; and to punish the recalcitrant city abolished her University. But a hundred years after, Gerona recovered her laurels. Her garrison of three hundred men, commanded by Colonel O’Daly, withstood successfully the repeated assaults of 6000 French under Duhesme, and beheld in August 1808 the hurried and inglorious flight of the besiegers. Of the great siege of 1809 you may read in the pages of Napier. The commander and hero of the defence was Mariano Alvarez—a much finer fellow than Palafox; and had he not been stricken with fever and rendered unconscious, the town might not have surrendered, as it ultimately did after a seven months’ siege. It had cost Napoleon 15,000 men. Here, as at Saragossa, the women fought beside the men and worked the guns, under the banner of St. Barbara. Unconquerable Gerona! Well might the heirs to the crown of haughty Aragon have been proud to bear the title of your prince.
Towns with such stories invariably reflect them in their physiognomies. Gerona’s aspect is eloquent of history and legend. Her balconied houses—yellow and white—seem to rise out of the waters of the river Oñar, reminding one at moments of a Venetian canal. But to dispel such an illusion you have but to lift your eyes to the castled hill of Montjuich, in which the defensive power of the town resides and whose sides have borne the brunt of every battle that has raged round Gerona. Penetrating into the labyrinth of streets behind the river front, we find them dark, narrow, and silent enough to be haunts of the muse of history; but here and there—often, indeed—we find animated squares and thoroughfares that show us that Gerona is not outside the brisk Catalonian current.
The vast cathedral lifts its towers near the river’s marge. It was founded, after the expulsion of the Moors, by Louis the Pious, in 786, and was rebuilt in the year 1016. It was consecrated by the Archbishop of Narbonne, on the French side, assisted by bishops both Cispyrenean and Transpyrenean. Extensive alteration and restoration went on in the fourteenth century, among the architects being two from Narbonne. Perhaps I may be pardoned the digression when I remark that natural boundaries seem to have been of less importance in the Middle Ages than now; a fact which may, it seems to me, be partly attributed to the relative facility with which great mountain barriers could be passed by the usual means of conveyance in those days. If you travel only on horseback, a mountain pass presents little more difficulty than a high road. Street, who extracted these particulars of the cathedral’s history from various Spanish works, tells us of the deliberations as to the adoption of the architect Guillermo Boffy’s plan for a nave of a single span. Fortunately the twelve architects composing the jury (Pascasio de Xulbe, Juan de Xulbe, Pedro de Valfogona, Guillermo de la Mota, Bartolomé Gual, Antonio Canet, Guillermo Abiell, Arnaldo de Valleras, Antonio Antigoni, Guillermo Sagrera, Jehan de Guinguamps, and Boffy himself) pronounced in favour of the plan, and the work was put in hand that same year, 1417. The first stone of the campanile was not laid till 1581, and the west front was begun as lately as 1607.
This grand church consists, then, of a single nave 73 feet wide, four bays in length, and terminating in the usual semicircular east end. The west front, in the poor style of the seventeenth century, calls for no remark, and gives no promise of the grandeur of the interior. Street thinks the exterior could never have looked very well. Even the south door, executed in 1458, does not merit praise, though its terra-cotta statues are curious and well preserved.
The vast nave is blocked and greatly marred by the central choir, moved into this ill-chosen position long after the completion of Boffy’s work. Three arches separate the east end from the nave. Above them are three large round windows. Street praises this arrangement and says that it enhances this effect of vastness. “In short, had this nave been longer by one bay, I believe that scarcely any interior in Europe could have surpassed it in effect.”
The high altar is of alabaster with a silver frontal, and belonged to the old cathedral. It was the gift of Ermesindes, the wife of Count Ramon Borel (1038). The reredos is a very rich and interesting work plated with silver. It was completed in 1348. The subjects in the three tiers of niches relate respectively to the lives of the saints, the life of the Blessed Virgin, and the life of Our Lord. The work is crowned by the figures of Christ and His Mother, and the saints Narcissus and Feliu. Of the same period is the baldachin, the vault of which is covered with sacred subjects, while the shafts are adorned with heraldic achievements. Behind the reredos is the bishop’s throne, formed of a single piece of marble. “Here, when the bishop celebrated pontifically, he sat till the oblation and returned to it again to give the benediction to the people.”
In addition to the objects of interest to which the architect of our Law Courts calls attention—the wooden wheel of bells, &c.—the cathedral contains several tombs worthy of examination. In the choir is buried Count Ramon Berenguer, surnamed Cap d’Estopa; in the presbytery, on the gospel side, is the tomb of Bishop Berenguer de Anglesola; Doña Ermesindes lies between the chapels of Corpus and San Juan; Bishop Bernardo de Pau in the chapel of San Pablo.