Leon, Burgos and Salamanca: a historical and descriptive account

by Albert Frederick Calvert

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.

The Cathedral

of Leon marks the second period of the city’s history and of the architecture of northern Spain. San Isidoro stands for the infant monarchy, with its Byzantine traditions handed down from the Visigothic kings; the cathedral, for the strong, ever-expanding realm of Leon and Castile, in close touch and sympathy with the great Catholic world of the west. San Isidoro is Romanesque; the cathedral is not only Gothic, but purely French, closely resembling Amiens and Rheims. It is a magnificent exotic. It symbolised the reunion of Spain with Western Christendom, after its long night of isolation, the infusion into its art and its people of the European spirit.

This beautiful cathedral—pulchra Leonina—occupies the site of the basilica of Ordoño II. (of which no trace remains). Planned about the first years of the reign of San Fernando, it was not completed in 1258, when an episcopal congress was held at Madrid to discuss the progress of the works and to grant an indulgence of forty days to the faithful who should assist with alms. In 1303 the Bishop Gonzalez proclaimed that the work was done, ‘thanks be to God.’

The beauty of this wonderful church consists largely in its lightness. Its supports are so slender, its walls so freely pierced with windows at every stage, its details everywhere so delicate, that the term ‘frozen music’ applied to architecture seems here indeed no mere hyperbole. ‘A mere lantern,’ Street calls the church, and blames the architect for his extreme daring and for his excessive use of windows. Though the vaults had been filled in with very light stone or concrete, the fabric was ever trembling on its fragile foundations. In 1631 the vault above the crossing collapsed, and was replaced by a dome. A hundred years later many of the arches of the aisles succumbed. Meanwhile Renaissance and Churrigueresque additions were made; but the whole was restored between the years 1850 and 1901, and now the cathedral exists in almost pristine symmetry and airiness.

The eastern end, or chevet, projects beyond the city wall, which forms the eastern boundary of the adjacent cloister. The transept, if that term may be applied to the whole space between the Capilla Mayor and Coro, is of unusual breadth, and may be said to include a nave, two aisles to the east and one to the west. North and south it projects but slightly beyond the nave. The west front is flanked by two steeples, which stand on each side of, and do not terminate, the aisles. They are heavier than the rest of the structure, and of different heights and ages. Ugly, too, is the empty space left between their side walls and those of the clerestory over the main entrance. The northern steeple is the older, lower, and simpler; it is surmounted by a spire with a vane. The other tower is more ornate, and contains the belfry. Its traceries are in a debased Gothic style.

The façade between these steeples is very beautiful. It is surmounted by a pediment with ‘acroteria’ or pedestals to receive statues. Beneath this is a very large wheel-window above a row of windows corresponding to the triforium. The three magnificently sculptured doorways extend from steeple to steeple. The arches are pointed and triple. Byzantine influence is visible in the statuary and foliage. The figures, forty in number, are rather more than life-size, and represent saints and apostles, martyrs and confessors, kings and queens. On the north-west doorway is seen the half-defaced figure of Justice, bearing a sword inscribed with the words ‘Justitia est unicuique dare quod suum est.’ Beneath this portal cases of appeal were tried in the thirteenth century. A small column between this and the central doorway is engraved with the words locus appellationis and the arms of Leon and Castile. The tympanum of the arch is adorned with reliefs, illustrating the earlier episodes in the life of Jesus. The doors themselves show scenes from the Passion and Risen Life.

The central shaft of the middle door is disfigured with a dressed-up image of the Virgin enclosed in glass. The sculpture of the tympanum is spirited and elaborate. In a composition depicting the Last Judgment devils are seen stirring their fires and plunging the reprobate into seething cauldrons. On the side of the blessed a young man extracts cheering music from what is perhaps a harmonium. The attitudes of the just express the liveliest satisfaction, whereas a crowned personage, striding boldly into Paradise, is met and warned off by a celestial Janitor. The naïve and fantastically horrible are curiously blended in this skilful work. The southern doorway is the least interesting of the three; the subjects of the reliefs are the death and coronation of the Virgin.