Madrid: an historical description and handbook of the Spanish capital

by Albert Frederick Calvert

The main entrance is in the middle of the west front. The lower stage is in the Doric style, four columns flanking the doorway on each side. The door itself is 20 feet high and 12 feet wide, and painted white with huge copper-gilt studs and knockers. Above is the second stage of the entrance in the Ionic style. Over the door is the colossal statue of St. Lawrence in granite, but with the head, hands, and feet in white marble. The sculptor, Monegro, received 20,900 reales for the Spanish coat-of-arms carved below.

A vestibule opens upon the Patio de los Reyes, so called from the statues of the Kings of Judah in granite and marble, also by Monegro, which stand on pedestals above the cornice. Jehoshaphat is represented with an axe, Hezekiah with a ram, Manasseh with the compass and square, Josiah and Solomon with books, David with harp and sword. These kings were selected as having had most to do with the building of the Temple, to which the Escorial was often compared by Spanish writers. The Temple, as represented by the Mosque of Omar, is by far the more cheerful and ornate structure of the two.

The eastern front of this court is formed by the west front of the church and the Escorial—undoubtedly the noblest part of the pile. It is rightly considered Herrera’s masterpiece. The shape is said to be that of a Greek cross, but seemed to me to be square. The west front is flanked by square towers considerably over 200 feet high, and terminating like those of the enceinte in pinnacles. Over the crossing rises a stately dome, supporting a graceful pyramid, above which rises an iron cross. These towers are the most ornamental features of the whole vast pile.

The interior of the church, truly observes Mr Lomas, “conveys exactly the idea which English people attach to the word ‘temple,’ a place wherein the majesty of the invisible dwarfs everything human.” It is constructed on the model of the first plan of St Peter’s. The lantern is carried on four enormous piers, from which to eight pilasters in the walls spring twenty-four mighty arches, forming three naves. Giants would seem to have been at work here. On entering we find ourselves in the dark Lower Choir, which is separated from the rest of the church by three bronze railings and to which were confined the lay worshippers. Above it is the choir, which it is unusual to find in Spain raised in a gallery at the west end of the church, instead of blocking up the nave. Here Philip often joined the monks in their devotions, his seat being the one nearest the door in the south-east angle. He was absorbed in prayer when on November 8th, 1571, during Vespers, a messenger entered and announced to those assembled the glorious victory obtained by Don John of Austria over the Ottoman fleet. The King gave no sign that he was elated, or that he had even heard the intelligence, but at the conclusion of the office he ordered a Te Deum to be intoned. He was a man never elated by success or cast down by failure. The evil tidings of the Armada found him as unperturbed as the good news of Lepanto. From the same seat he assisted at the solemn requiem Mass chanted by night for the repose of the soul of Mary, Queen of Scots. It is not without a certain emotion that we gaze around in this gallery. The stalls are elegantly and chastely carved in precious woods, after the designs of Herrera. The lectern and crystal chandelier are hardly so good. The eye turns at once to the marble crucifix signed by Benvenuto Cellini, who placed it among his finest works. Philip, one day, covered the loins of the figure with his handkerchief, a precedent which we see still followed in many churches in Spain and in convent chapels in France.

In the adjoining chambers, called the Antecoros, may be seen a statue converted into the “likeness” of St. Lawrence, and two pictures by Navarrete “el mudo.” That artist is said to have fallen foul of certain ecclesiastics by representing angels with beards, and an additional rule was laid down that neither cats and dogs nor any unbecoming figures were to be introduced into religious pictures, but only such things as incited to devotion. The frescoes are by Luca Giordano, as are also those which decorate the eight vaults of the church itself. In the choir library you may see the splendid antiphoners, beautifully bound and illuminated, and over a yard high by two yards broad.

In the church is the simple tomb of Queen Mercedes, first wife of his late Majesty, Don Alfonso XII. The plain gold cross at her feet was the offering of the British community of Madrid, by whom, as indeed by the whole world, her untimely death was profoundly deplored. She is buried here and not in the mausoleum below, as she was not the mother of a king.

The dome of the Pantheon is covered by the steep flight of steps leading to the chancel, so that Mass is literally celebrated above the bodies of the kings. The altar, which cost about £(?)40,000, is isolated, and is made of marble and jasper, a single slab of the latter stone forming the table. According to the inscription on a bronze plate let into the back of the altar, it contains relics of Saints Peter and Paul, Lawrence and Vincent, and a multitude of other saints, and was consecrated in presence of Philip by the Papal Nuncio, Camillo Caietano, Patriarch of Alexandria, on August 30th, 1595. The beauty of the reredos or retablo is obscured by the dark hue of the stone employed, and by the sombre colour assumed by the paintings in course of the years. The light also is very bad. The three stages into which the retablo is divided correspond to the three Grecian orders of architecture. The columns are of dark red and green jasper, with capitals and pedestals of bronze gilt. The statues represent (looking upwards) the Four Doctors of the Church, the Four Evangelists, St James and St Andrew, St Peter and St Paul. The paintings depict the Nativity and Adoration of the Magi, the Saviour bearing the Cross, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, the Resurrection, the Descent of the Holy Ghost and the Assumption. The cross surmounting the whole was made from the wood of the Portuguese warship, “the Five Wounds.” The architect of this fine work was the Milanese Giacomo Trezzo, the painters Tibaldi and Zuccaro, the sculptors Leone and Pompeio Leoni. The sanctuary to the east contains the superb tabernacle, designed by Herrera and executed by Trezzo, with instruments invented by him for the purpose. It was restored in 1827 by “the pious and august” Ferdinand VII. after it had been rifled and damaged by the French. The reliquaries in the sanctuary contain ten entire bodies of saints, 144 heads, and 306 entire arms and legs. Among these relics is the thigh of Saint Lawrence, showing the roasted flesh and the holes made by the skewers.

The sceptical foreigner will probably be more interested by the statues above the oratorios or royal tribunes surrounding the altar. We see Charles V. with his wife, daughters and sisters, Philip II. with all his wives, except Mary Tudor, and his son, the miserable Infante Carlos. It was not altogether a happy idea to represent a Christian prince attended at the same time by his three wives. All these statues are faithful portraits. The oratorio on the Epistle side adjoins the bare, narrow chamber in which the devout king breathed his last, quitting without regret a world with which he had no sympathy and in which he moved as a melancholy exile.

The church contains forty-eight side chapels and altars, adorned by the paintings of Coello, Navarrete, and others of less note. The best pictures are to be seen in the Sacristia. Here there are several works of Titian, Tintoretto, El Greco, Zurbaran, and Ribera. The most interesting canvas is the “Santa Forma” by Claudio Coello. The heads are portraits of Charles II. and his ministers. The incident depicted is the ceremony of the Veneration of the Sacred Wafer, which being trodden upon and defiled by Protestants at Gorinchem in Holland, is said to have exuded blood. It is preserved behind the picture and exhibited twice a year.

Immediately under the high altar is the Pantheon, the last resting-place of the kings and queens of Spain. It is an octagonal chamber, lined with precious marbles, which also in the dreadfully sensible presence of death, seem to be decaying. No such rich chamber was desired by Philip. It dates from 1554.