The church took one hundred and twenty years to build. Pity it was that the noble-hearted priests who decreed the raising of the fane should never have gazed upon much more than its skeleton! First of all, the mosque-cathedral of Yakub was demolished, only the Giralda and the Patio de los Naranjos, with the northern, eastern, and western gates, being spared. The Royal Chapel was pulled down in 1432, by permission of Juan II. The first stone had been laid in 1402; but, strangely and sadly enough, the name of the architect who traced the plan has not been preserved. Some believe him to have been Alonso Martinez; others, Pero García. Fame, we may well believe, was a prize which the pious builder esteemed but lightly. His reward lay in the greater glorification of his faith.
In 1462, we find Juan Normán directing the works; in 1488, he had passed from the scene and was succeeded by Juan de Hoz. Then came Alonso Ruiz and Alonso Rodriguez. The building was practically finished when, in 1511, the cupola collapsed. In 1519, Juan Gil de Hontañon, the architect of Salamanca Cathedral, completed the reconstruction, and the cathedral may be considered as having been finished, though restorations and remodelling of various parts of the edifice have been going on ever since, and masons are to this day engaged upon the dome.
This magnificent church is pre-eminent for size among the cathedrals of Spain, and ranks third in this respect among the sacred edifices of the world. St Peter’s covers 230,000 square feet, the Mezquita at Cordova 160,000, and the Cathedral of Seville 125,000. Our St Paul’s covers only 84,000 square feet. It follows that this cathedral is the largest of Gothic temples.
So stupendous a monument has naturally attracted comment from distinguished travellers and critics. All have come under the spell of its majesty and massive nobility. Théophile Gautier expressed himself as follows: “The most extravagant and most monstrously prodigious Hindoo pagodas are not to be mentioned in the same century as the Cathedral of Seville. It is a mountain scooped out, a valley turned topsy-turvy; Notre Dame de Paris might walk erect in the middle nave, which is of frightful height; pillars with the girth of towers, and which appear so slender that they make you shudder, rise out of the ground or descend from the vaulted roof, like stalactites in a giant’s grotto.”
The Italian, De Amicis, is less fantastical in his rhapsodies. “At your first entrance, you are bewildered, you feel as if you are wandering in an abyss, and for several moments you can only glance around in this vast spaciousness, to assure yourself that your eyes do not deceive you, that your fancy is playing you no trick; you approach one of the pillars, measure it, and look at those in the distance; though large as towers, they appear so slender that you tremble to think the building is resting upon them. You traverse them with a glance from floor to ceiling, and it seems that you could almost count the moments it would take for the eye to climb them.... In the central aisle, another cathedral, with its cupola and bell-tower, could easily stand.”
Lomas, who is no great admirer of the building, admits that “the first view of the interior is one of the supreme moments of a lifetime. The glory and majesty of it are almost terrible. No other building, surely, is so fortunate as this in what may be called its presence.”
The Cathedral is oblong in shape, and is 414 feet long by 271 feet wide. The nave is 100 feet and the dome 121 feet high.
The principal façade looks west. Here is the principal entrance (Puerta Mayor), and two side doors, the Puertas de San Miguel and del Bautismo. Over the central door is a fine relief, representing the Assumption, by Ricardo Bellver, placed here in 1885. This entrance is elaborately decorated, and adorned with thirty-two statues in niches.
The Puertas San Miguel and del Bautismo are decorated with terra-cotta statues of saints and prelates, the work of Pedro Millan, a fifteenth-century sculptor. Herr Schmidt thinks very highly of these fine performances. Each figure has life and distinct personality, and the treatment of the drapery harmonises wonderfully with the gestures and physiognomy of the wearers. The upper part of the façade is poor, and dates only from 1827.
The southern façade is flanked by sacristies, offices, and courts, above which appear the graceful flying buttresses, gargoyles, and windows, and the majestic dome of the main building. In the middle of this side is a modern entrance, the Puerta de San Cristóbal, added by Casanova in 1887. In the eastern façade are two entrances—the Puertas de las Campanillas and de los Palos—both enriched with fine sculpture by Pedro Millan; the Puerta de los Palos has also a fine Adoration of the Magi by Miguel Florentin (1520).