In the disused church of San Juan de los Caballeros are buried the founders of the two great houses of Segovia, Fernán Garcia and Dia Sanz, averred by tradition to have been the conquerors of Madrid.
The finest specimen of these early Romanesque churches is to be seen outside the south wall. San Millán is said to have been founded by the Counts of Castile in the tenth century, but the present fabric dates from the twelfth. The church consists of a nave, aisles, and external cloisters on each side, all ending in eastern apses. There is a low, square lantern over the crossing, and a modern square tower at the east end of the north cloister. The west front is very simple and pierced with a round-arched door and four windows. The arches of the cloister spring from finely sculptured capitals on double shafts. Street calls attention to a local peculiarity in the design of the north and south doors. ‘Their jambs consist of shafts set within very bold, square recesses; and the number of orders in the arch is double that of those in the jamb, they being alternately carried on the capitals of the shafts, and upon the square order of the jambs. The effect is good....’ The interior is well preserved, but daubed all over with whitewash and plaster. The church is barrel-vaulted, but may once have had a flat timber roof. The capitals of the massive columns are carved with very large and striking figures of men and animals. The corbels are adorned with masks and caprices, very skilfully chiselled.
Two other exceedingly interesting churches are also outside the city wall, in the valley of the Eresma. Descending by a very steep path from the Alcazar to the junction of the two streams, and passing an arch in the baroque style, we reach Fuencisla—the bubbling rock, from which water filters. Here a cypress marks the spot where Maria del Salto alighted uninjured from the crag above. The neighbouring church, built in 1613, contains the shrine of the wonder-working Virgin of the Fuencisla. It possesses a fine reredos and iron pulpit. In the convent of the Discalced Carmelites are preserved the head and body of the famous St. John of the Cross, the spiritual guide of St. Teresa, and one of the world’s greatest mystics. You may also see the pictured Christ which, it is alleged, spoke to the saint, bidding him ask a favour; John asked, as a devout Spaniard of that time might have been expected to do, for more suffering and humiliation. The cave in which he retired to pray may also be visited.
Proceeding up the valley of the Eresma, we notice the old Casa de Moneda, or Mint, built in 1586, which down to 1730 coined all the money of Spain. Above it lies the curious little church of Vera Cruz, built in 1204 by the Knights Templars, more or less on the model of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. It would be difficult to convey a clearer idea of the peculiar conformation of this structure than by Street’s description: ‘The nave is dodecagonal, and has a small central chamber enclosed with solid walls, round which the vaulted nave forms a kind of aisle. This central chamber is of two stories in height, the lower entered by archways in the cardinal sides, and the upper by a double flight of steps leading to a door in its western side. The upper room is vaulted with a domical roof which has below it four ribs, two parallel north and south, and two parallel east and west, and it retains the original stone altar arcaded on its sides with a delicately wrought chevron enrichment and chevroned shafts. The upper chapel is lighted by seven little windows opening into the aisle around it. A slab indicates the position of the supposed sepulchre. The room below the chapel has also a dome, with ribs on its under side. On the east side of the building are the chancel and two chapels, forming parallel apses, to the south of which is a low steeple, the bottom stage of which is also converted into a chapel. The chapel in the centre of the nave is carried up and finished externally with a pointed roof, whilst the aisle is roofed with a lean-to abutting against its walls. There are pilasters at the angles outside, small windows high up in the walls, and a fine round-arched doorway on the western side.’ The sepulchre is placed on the upper story, as at Jerusalem, where the hill of Calvary has been included within the church. Note the red crosses recalling the original owners, and the fast disappearing paintings on the retablo in the chancel. The portion of the True Cross formerly preserved here was removed to Zamarramala in 1663, when the old Templars’ Church was abandoned so far as religious rites were concerned.
Not far off, in a desolate spot once described as a terrestrial paradise, stands the church of El Parral, the chapel of a suppressed monastery of the Hermits of St. Jerome. It was founded in 1447 by the famous Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, on the ground where he had defeated three antagonists in a protracted duel. The architects were Juan Gallego and the brothers Guas of Toledo. The plan of the church is unusual. The transept is very broad from east to west, and projects but little beyond the nave. The chancel is shallow, and its lateral walls run slant-wise to the eastern angles of the transept. Most churches of the Order of St. Jerome, according to a Spanish writer, were built this way. The effect is good. The nave is practically covered by a western gallery, and has but few windows; whereas the transept and chancel are flooded with light through six tall lancet windows with statues of the Twelve Apostles in their jambs. The contrast of light and shadow is very striking and beautiful. The choir or western gallery is carried on graceful arches and is handsomely panelled. Over the north-western chapel of the transept is the organ loft. The reredos behind the High Altar, in five stages separated by columns, was painted in 1553 by Diego de Urbina. The tombs of the founder and his wife lie on either side of the chancel. Their kneeling effigies, though sadly damaged and defaced, remain among the most beautiful examples of Spanish sculpture. Equally deserving of praise is the tomb of the Marquis’s natural daughter, the Countess de Medellin, in the south transept. The exterior of this church is not remarkable. The west front is pierced by a good double door, and ‘adorned’ with two huge square coats-of-arms; it is flanked by a square tower pierced by rounded windows in the belfry story.
Near to a cave where St. Dominic was accustomed to mortify the flesh, the Catholic Sovereigns built the church and convent of Santa Cruz, on the site of the first monastery of the order. The church has been truly described as a debased copy of El Parral. The western doorway is elaborate. Over the door, enclosed within a trefoil arch, is a Deposition from the Cross, with Ferdinand and Isabel kneeling on either side. Above, their escutcheons are displayed on either side of the crucifix. The retablo by Herrera, with which Philip II. endowed the church, was burnt in 1809, the fire irretrievably damaging the whole interior. Santa Cruz has now been converted into a charitable asylum.
Following the line of the city wall, we pass the church of San Lorenzo—a good example of the local style—once surrounded by thriving looms, and re-enter the town by the Plaza del Azoguejo, a picturesque space where the citizens love to forgather in the shadow of the mighty aqueduct.
IV
ZAMORA
Zamora on the Duero is one of the most picturesque towns in Spain, and one of the most celebrated in its annals. It is not well known to foreigners, probably on account of it being so difficult of approach. Few places bring back so vividly the stirring past of Castile.
The town stands above the Duero on a rocky ridge, the castle and cathedral occupying the western extremity. The river is spanned by a bridge of seventeen arches, defended near either end by a high gate-tower. If the approach is quaint and mediæval, the view from this point is even more so. Towards sundown, the spirit of the Middle Ages seems to inform the town—all is sombre, fierce, strong, and venerable. The country round seems little better than a desert. From the walls above eyes seem to be scanning the horizon for the first gleam of hostile lances. Zamora belongs to the days when towns, like men, always wore armour. To-day she is broken and war-worn and old; but if her sword is rusted and her shield broken, she may well boast it was in the service of Spain.