The lantern or cupola over the crossing, and the gorgeous reredos behind the High Altar, are quite out of keeping with the general aspect of the church. The chancel is enclosed by three very fine iron screens, quite Plateresque in character, though executed in 1733. The majority of the stalls in the choir were designed for the old cathedral, half a century at least before its destruction. The organ on the Epistle side, now enclosed in an eighteenth-century case, also came from the old church, and was the gift of Enrique III. The rich marble retablo at the west end of the choir was given by Carlos III., and enshrines in a silver reliquary the ashes of the local martyrs, Fruto and his brethren.
The chapels are not specially interesting. Those in the chevet are exactly alike, and furnished like those in the aisles, for the most part, with seventeenth-century retablos. In one (Nuestra Señora del Rosario) is buried Doña Maria Quintana, who ended a dissipated life in the odour of sanctity on August 16, 1734. Her epitaph runs: ‘Hic vespere et mane et meridie laudes Deo reddidit, et vitandi crimina zelo preces et lacrymas Juges effudit; hic quam intra chorum psallere secum prohibuit, extra chorum fructuose psallere Spiritus docuit; hic tertio ab obitu die nondum rigida membra, à juncturis suis jamdiu separata quiescunt ossa. An forsan post mortem etiam prophetabunt?’ The chapel of St. Hierotio was dedicated to that saint by Bishop Escalzo under the false impression that he was the founder of the see. The Capilla de la Piedad (fifth in the left aisle) is remarkable for a fine Descent from the Cross, a retablo with colossal and expressionful figures, painted by Juan de Juni in 1571. In the same chapel is a painting by Alonso Sánchez Coello, the Apparition of Christ to St. Thomas, spoilt by injudicious re-touching.
On the south side of the cathedral is the cloister, which belonged to the old church, and was reconstructed here in beautiful flamboyant style by Juan Campero in 1524. It is entered by a fine Gothic doorway, in the Consuelo chapel (wherein is the noble tomb of Bishop de Covarrubias). On the cross-vaulting of the cloister may be seen the arms of Bishop Arias Dávila. We notice the monuments of three of the architects—Rodrigo Gil de Hontañon (died 1577), and his successors, Campo Agüero and Viadero. In the chapel of Santa Catalina at the foot of the West Tower are contained the remains of little Prince Pedro, with his painted and gilded effigy. The superb monstrance preserved in this chapel was designed in 1656 by Rafael González. At the northern aisle of the cloister may be read this inscription: ‘Aquí está sepultada la devota Mari Saltos con quién Dios obré este milagro en la Fonzisla. Fizo su vida en la otra iglesia, acabó sus dias como Católica Cristiana, Año de 1237.’ (Here is buried the devout Maria Saltos, with whom God performed a miracle at Foncisla. She passed her life in the other church, and finished her days as a Catholic Christian in the year 1237.) ‘The other church’ was of the Hebrew persuasion, to which Maria belonged. Accused of adultery, and condemned to die by the elders of her community—which was a self-governing body in Spain within certain limits—she was cast from the Peña Grajera, the Tarpeian Rock of Segovia. At the supreme moment she was heard to invoke the Virgin of the Christians, and reached the ground unharmed. She was baptized, and died, as the epitaph testifies, a devout Catholic. The incident may be ranked with the remarkable, if not miraculous, escape of the Catholic secretaries at Prague, known as the Fensterstürz.
The chapter-house, adjacent to the Western Tower, is a very splendid apartment, paved with marble, upholstered with crimson velvet, and containing some good engravings, mostly Flemish. An elegant staircase leads to the library above.
At the back of the cathedral is the Plaza Mayor, one of the most picturesque squares in Spain. The Ayuntamiento with its Doric columns looks strangely out of place, surrounded as it is by old houses with projecting upper stories and wooden loggias of a Gothic, almost German character. The church of San Miguel may be attributed to Hontañon or one of his assistants. It replaces an earlier structure, in the porch of which the town council used to meet. In the north transept is an interesting triptych, where St. Michael is represented weighing souls. Hard by, at the corner of the Calle Ancha and Calle de los Huertos, is the old mansion of the Arias Dávila family, with a tall square turreted tower, adorned in its lower stages with diapered plaster. Near the church of San Martin are another fine tower belonging to the Marquis de Lozoya, and the house (now a book-shop) of Juan Bravo, one of the three leaders of the Comuneros.
The church of San Martin is approached by a flight of steps, and encircled on three sides by a cloister or portico, which was used in the twelfth century, at all events, as a burial-ground. The west porch is bold and original, with statuary in the jambs of the doorway, and capitals carved with birds in couples. The church was originally apsidal, but has been frequently restored. The Bravos and Rios, two prominent families of Segovia, are buried here; and the tomb of Gonzalo de Herrera and his wife in alabaster is in a chapel on the left-hand side. The church is surmounted by a modern cupola over the crossing, and by an ancient tower placed, oddly enough, over the middle of the nave.
Near the Puerta de San Martin is the Casa de los Picos, which was acquired and rebuilt in the fourteenth century by the family of Hoz. It seems once to have been known as the Jews’ House, till in the sixteenth century its façade was rebuilt with the extraordinary facetted stones from which it derives its present name. While in this neighbourhood, the few poor remains of the palace of Enrique III. should be inquired for.
Where the Calle Real opens into the Plaza Mayor is situated one of the most interesting churches in Segovia. Corpus Christi Church was till the year 1410 a Jewish synagogue. In that year a rabbi obtained from the sacristan of San Facundo a consecrated Host as a security, it is said, for a loan. The street where this impious transaction took place is still known as Mal Consejo. The Jews attempted to profane the Sacred Wafer in their synagogue, but were scared by awful portents, and confessed their crime. Their place of worship was forfeited, apparently at the suggestion of St. Vincent Ferrer, and consecrated as a Catholic church. It bears a strong likeness to Santa Maria la Blanca at Toledo. The nave and aisles are separated by horseshoe arches springing from fir-cone capitals, above which runs a series of blind windows. The ceiling is of wood. The transept and dome have been added since the adaptation to the purposes of Christian worship. The sacristan will point out the crack in the wall which occurred at the moment of the attempted sacrilege.
Santa Trinidad, on the north side of the Plaza Mayor, is a Romanesque church of the San Martin type. It is adjoined like the latter by a portico, also used once as a place of sepulture. The apse is lit by three windows, below which are others now only to be seen from the interior. A lane leads from this church to San Nicolás, close to the walls. Here the two apses are each lit by a single window, and over the smaller of the two is raised a low tower with two round-arched belfry windows. The secularised church of San Facundo exhibits similar characteristics. It contains a not very valuable museum.
Segovia is a Paradise for the ecclesiologist, but so many of the churches differ only in the smallest particulars from the San Martin and San Millán type that a description of each would be tedious. An exception must be made as regards San Esteban, opposite the Episcopal Palace, famous for its Romanesque tower, the finest work of the kind in Spain. The base of the tower is as high as the nave; the remaining five stages are adorned on each side with graceful arcaded windows. The angles are splayed off, and up the middle runs a shaft. The tower is surmounted by a pinnacle, evidently a later addition, and in very bad style. The external cloister of San Esteban is the most beautiful in the town.