I like the story of its foundation better than the silly tales about Don Pedro, or about crucifixes helping jilted damsels. It has, moreover, the very unusual merit of being true. After the conquest by St. Ferdinand the old mosque of the Almohades was "purified," and served as the cathedral till, towards the end of the fourteenth century, it became practically ruined by earthquakes. The dean and chapter took counsel together, and at a conclave held in the Court of the Elms, on the south side of the mosque, it was resolved to build a new church forthwith. Then uprose a zealous prebendary and cried: "Let us build a church so great that those who come after us will think us mad to have attempted it!" The proposal was adopted with acclamation; and the great-hearted priests bound themselves to contribute from their own stipends as much money as might be necessary, should the revenue of the See prove unequal to the cost of the undertaking. They could never hope to see the fruit of their labours. I do not think the name of any one of them has been preserved. The architect alike has been forgotten. All concerned sought only the greater glorification of their faith. Such greatness of spirit deserved a noble monument.[*]
[*] Instances of this lofty spirit are frequent in the history of the Spanish peoples. When, after their first uprising against the mother country, the people of Honduras (Central America) met in Congress to frame a Constitution, a priest rose and proposed that before anything else was done, every slave in the country should be set free. And the measure was carried unanimously and enthusiastically by the Congress, which must have included many slaveholders. It took the United States forty years to follow this example.
The Cathedral took one hundred and seventeen years to build, the first stone having been laid in 1402 and the lantern having been finished by Juan Gil de Hontañon in 1519. Of the mosque certain portions were left: the Giralda, the Patio de los Naranjos, and the portal called the Puerta del Lagarto. The latter is named after the wooden model of an alligator which hangs from the roof. Three or four centuries ago the mummified form of a real alligator hung there. It was one of the gifts of an Egyptian khalifa to the daughter of a Castilian king, whom he sought in marriage. The saurian was accompanied from the banks of the Nile by various animals peculiar to that fertile region, but these interesting offerings failed to make any impression on the heart of the Infanta. Thus the forlorn-looking effigy of the reptile is in reality an affecting memorial of unrequited love.
Churches, it has been remarked, were considered in the Middle Ages very proper repositories for curiosities of all sorts. The cloister of the Lagarto contains also an elephant's tusk, weighing seventy pounds, and a horse's bit, said to be that of Babieca, the Cid's charger.
Very grateful is the sudden cool of the great church when you enter it from the sun-scorched plaza. Then there comes over you a feeling of profound reverence, followed very soon by an infinite restfulness. There is no place in Seville where you more willingly linger. A holy calm pervades the whole building, and you wonder that it should have suggested to Théophile Gautier such fantastic comparisons. If it were not the temple of Christ, I could believe it to be the temple of Silence.
The Puerta del Lagarto is the favourite entrance, but when the day comes for a painstaking examination, you would do well to begin at one of the entrances in the west front. Of these there are three: the Puerta Mayor, the Puerta del Bautismo, and the Puerta San Miguel. All are enriched with good statuary, the graceful and vigorous statues of the side doors being the work of Pedro Millán, a fifteenth-century sculptor of renown. Entering, we set foot on the fine marble floor and make out the stupendous church to be composed of a nave and of two aisles on either side. The nave, you are told, is one hundred feet high and fifty feet wide. The noble columns, almost free of adornment, which uphold the spacious vaults recede in the far distance like trees in an overarching avenue. The effect, fine as it is, might have been much finer if the centre of the nave had not been blocked up by the choir. The "Trascoro," or screen, facing the west entrance, is richly adorned with red columns. Over the altar is a fourteenth-century picture of the Madonna, and a painting by Pacheco, the Inquisitor, representing St. Ferdinand receiving the keys of Seville. Over one of the beautiful little side altars of the choir is one of the rare examples of good Spanish sculpture—a Virgin, by Juan Martinez Montañez. On the altar side the choir is shut off by a sixteenth-century railing, attributed to Sancho Muñoz. This protects from intrusion their reverences the canons, who sit in stalls, exquisitely carved between the years 1475 and 1538. The patterns and coloured inlaid work of the backs reveal Moorish influence. The lectern was the work of Bartolomé Morel. When the lantern collapsed in 1888, the choir was severely damaged. The architect who restored the fabric proposed to move it considerably nearer the high altar, but the proposal was stupidly rejected. A good opportunity for improving the appearance of the Cathedral was thus lost.
The retablo of the high altar is the quintessence of late Gothic sculpture. It is a marvellous work of extraordinary delicacy and elaboration. Each of the forty-five compartments into which it is divided contains a subject from the Bible or from the lives of the saints, carved, painted, or gilded with the rarest skill. Begun by the Fleming Dancart, in 1479, this wonderful triumph of the carver's art was completed by Spanish artists in 1526. The earlier work is in the middle. Crowning it is a gilt crucifix and the statues of Our Lady and St. John.
There are some very interesting objects in the Sacristy, as it is called, between the reredos and the hind wall of the chancel. The sacristan will show you the reliquary, shaped like a triptych, which came from Constantinople and was presented to the old cathedral by Alfonso the Learned. The double folding door is also said to have come from the Moorish temple. With a glance at the fine terra-cotta statues by Miguel Florentin, Juan Marin, and others, we pass behind the chancel wall, and see before us the plateresque Royal Chapel, built by Charles V. over the remains of certain of his ancestors. Beneath the altar lies the body of St. Ferdinand in crown and royal robes. He lies here in the heart of his fairest conquest, even as his descendants, Ferdinand and Isabella, sleep in the heart of Granada. You may see his sword, the handle of which was denuded of gems by Pedro the Cruel, lest they should excite the cupidity of others. That royal humorist also lies here, near his saintly ancestor and the one woman whom he ever loved, the gentle Maria de Padilla. Then there is to be seen the Vírgen de los Reyes, an image presented by St. Louis of France to St. Ferdinand of Castile. (Strange that when saints filled the thrones of Europe, things went on no better than they do now!) Another relic highly prized is the Vírgen de las Batallas, an ivory statuette which St. Ferdinand used to carry at his saddle-bow. These memorials of the heroic past give you little time or inclination for an examination of the chapel itself, which has a lofty dome, and is flanked at the entrance by twelve good statues by Peter Kempener—whom Spaniards call Campaña. At least (so I read) he drew them on the wall with charcoal for a ducat each, and they were executed by Lorenzo del Vao and Campos in 1553.
This chapel and the reredos of the chancel must be called, I suppose, the great sights of the Cathedral, though to some its chief treasures will be the numerous works of Murillo enshrined in its chapels and dependencies. For myself, I like the building for its own sake, or, to use a very hard-worked word, for its atmosphere. As you cross the nave, looking upwards, where the light streams through the tall clerestory windows, you will be tempted to neglect the dark chapels in the aisles, and to revel for a while in these exquisite symphonies in coloured glass. Few of them are of Spanish workmanship. Master Christopher the German (Micer Cristobal Aleman) began the first—the first stained-glass window in Seville—in 1504, the work being afterwards carried on by the German Heinrich, the Flemings Beernaert of Zeeland and Jan Beernaert, Carel of Bruges, and Arnulf of Flanders. The best windows are those adorned with the Ascension, St. Mary Magdalen, Lazarus, and the Entry into Jerusalem, by Arnulf and his brother, and the Resurrection, by Carel of Bruges.
In the south transept is a monument, striking in itself and of very recent erection, which will in the course of time attract more pilgrims than the soldier saint's shrine. For here are contained the remains of a man who added not a Moorish city but a continent to the realm of Leon and Castile. The ashes of Christopher Columbus repose in a coffin which is borne on the shoulders of four figures of bronze, representing the kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Navarre.