The seminary, built in 1617 by Gómez de Mora for the Society of Jesus, is a building of the type more commonly admired by Spaniards than other peoples. It is vast and heavy, commanding respect by its bulk rather than its proportions. Over the façade, with its six gigantic columns, rise two lofty steeples, flanking an acroterium with very bad statuary. The cupola or lantern is not ungracefully constructed, but spoilt with indifferent ornamentation. The interior is cold and monotonous, though free from the extravagant decoration of the epoch of its construction. The sacristy, which contains four copies of paintings by Rubens, is vast even for this vast church, the richest Jesuit establishment in Spain.
Another great but much less admirable pile is the church of the Recollect Augustine nuns, the convent having been founded in 1626 by the favourite of Felipe IV., the Count of Monterey, as a retreat for his sister, Doña Catilina. The architect was Juan Fontana. The church is in the usual shape of a Latin cross, and is richly adorned with coloured marbles, jasper, and lapis lazuli. The architecture was spoilt by injudicious repairs effected on the collapse of the dome in 1680. The tombs of the founder and his wife are in indifferent taste, but the statues are good. The church is rich in paintings. Ribera’s Conception hangs over the high altar, and the handsome retablo is adorned by his Virgin de la Piedad. In the transept are two other works of the same master—Our Lady of the Rosary and the Nativity. These paintings were bought in Naples by Monterey, then viceroy, at the time of the papal pronouncement on the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. According to Ford, it is believed that better pictures are preserved in the convent itself, which is not open to visitors.
San Benito is an interesting church, originally founded by the Galician settlers in 1104, and rebuilt in the late Gothic style by the Maldonado family in the fifteenth century. The tombs of several members of that family are within. The statues of Arias Perez Maldonado and his wife lie to the right and left of the chancel. The knight wears armour, and a page rests at his feet; the lady wears the costume of the age of Isabel the Catholic. Here also sleeps that haughty lord of Monleón, whose wife was so reluctant to save his life at the expense of his castle. From this church the Maldonado faction took the name of San Benito; the opposite faction, descended from Maria la Brava, affected the church of Santo Tomé de los Caballeros. There are some good tombs of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries in the church of San Isidoro, founded by the French settlers of Count Raymond. The Portuguese built the little church dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, which still preserves a triple apse and windows in the Romanesque style. The doorway is Gothic, and the tomb of Bishop de Velasco, supported by lions, obviously of the Renaissance. San Martin, built by settlers from Toro, though injured by a fire in 1854, preserves many ancient features. Some of the columns of the nave are Byzantine, and the doorway, with its triple-pointed arch, belongs to the best Gothic period. The south front is Renaissance. This is the burial-place of the Santisteban family. An architectural curiosity to which Street calls attention, is the little circular church of San Marcos, close to the wall at the north end of the city, with its three apses vaulted with semi-domes, while the rest of the edifice is roofed with wood. This odd little church was built as a chapel royal by Alfonso IX. in 1202.
The only church of interest besides those enumerated above is the Sancti Spiritus, built about 1190, and granted to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in 1222. Afterwards, with the adjacent convent, it passed into the possession of an aristocratic sisterhood. Rebuilt in 1541 by Leonor de Acevedo, the portal is in the Renaissance style, and the interior in late Gothic. The lower choir has fine artesonado work and well-carved stalls. The retablo, which dates from 1659, displays fine reliefs of the life of St. James, and good statues of the apostles. Near the entrance are the tombs of the great benefactors of the convent, Martin Alfonso, natural son of Alfonso IX., and his wife, Maria Mendez, a Portuguese lady (1270). Another tomb is that of Pedro Vidal, an ecclesiastic, who died in 1363.
Domestic and Municipal Buildings
Salamanca contains several old mansions of the nobility, which might well have delighted Prout. However remote may have been the date of their foundation, later restoration has given them for the most part a plateresque or Renaissance aspect. The Casa de las Salinas was built for the Fonseca family in 1538, and was afterwards used as a place of storage for salt. It is considered to be the best example of the plateresque style in the city. The four arches of the principal façade spring from granite columns with very well chiselled capitals. Good also are the busts in medallions between the arches. The second story is pierced by three square windows, supported by splendid masculine figures, emblematic of the victories of Charles V., and in the best style of the period. Hardly inferior to these are the cherubs and grotesques on the columns of the jambs. Angels’ heads appear over the arches of the gallery which crowns the edifice. The beautiful patio is adorned by arches similar to those of the façade. Round the court runs a mean wooden gallery carried on sixteen brackets superbly carved with terminal figures in every sort of posture, and supporting delightfully fantastic monsters. These figures are among the best sculptures in Salamanca, and merit close examination.
We find the five lilies of the Maldonados, those old Capulets of the city, displayed over the entrance of the Casa de las Conchas, built for the family in 1512. The house derives its name from the thirteen rows of shells decorating its front. The most interesting features of the building are the windows, each divided by a slender central shaft, and with delicate traceries in the early plateresque style. Quadrado states that the Jesuits, wishing to acquire the site, offered an ounce of gold for each of the shells, but the owners declined to give up the property at any price.
The unfinished palace of the counts of Monterey dates from the same epoch (1530). It is a massive building of three low stories, the upper pierced with an elegant gallery, and surmounted by a beautiful balustrade composed of figures and foliage intertwined. Above the general level rise square towers with open galleries, exhibiting some good decorative details. The lower stories of the mansion are devoid of interest.
Very suggestive of Salamanca’s fiery, flourishing days is the device over the doorway of an old house in the little Plaza de San Cebrian—‘Quod tibi non vis, alteri non facias.’ Close by in an underground cellar the famous Enrique de Villena is said to have studied magic under a sacristan from a neighbouring church. Not far away, we believe, is a house which we failed to find, called the Casa de las Batallas, where a temporary peace was patched up between the rival factions of the city in 1478—a peace commemorated by a text sculptured above the arch, ‘Ira odium generat, concordia nutrit amorem.’
Close to the Casa de las Salinas stands another memorial of that stormy time—the battered Torre del Clavero, built in 1470 by a knight of the Order of Alcantara, Francisco de Sotomayor. Its eight faces are strengthened by projecting bartizan turrets, not placed as is usual at the angles, and adorned with rude sculpture. It forms an interesting example of Castilian military architecture. Close by were formerly the headquarters of the Templars, and not far away is the street called after the ‘Yellow Well,’ from which St. Juan of Sahagun miraculously rescued a drowning child.