The High Altar and chancel are in the Gothic style, and owe their construction to the absentee bishop Diego Meléndez Valdés, who ruled the See between 1496 and 1506. His arms, five fleurs-de-lys, may be seen on the railings. The retablo, with its jasper columns and gilded capitals, is modern. The subject is the Transfiguration. In the precinct of the High Altar is buried Count Ponce de Cabrera, one of the Emperor Alfonso’s most distinguished lieutenants. The Altar is in the late Gothic style, and must have been erected three centuries after the Count’s death. There are good wrought-iron pulpits on each side of the chancel.
The choir was also the work of Bishop Valdés. It occupies the bays west of the crossing as usual in Spanish churches, but the bad effect of that position is here greatly relieved by the piercing of the western screen or trascoro with two elliptical doorways, between which is a painting representing Christ surrounded by the Blessed. The fittings of the choir are very interesting, and of the same age as the screens. The backs of the lower range of stalls are carved with low reliefs of thirty-eight personages of the Old Dispensation, from Abel to Nebuchadnezzar, Caiaphas, and the Centurion. In their hands are scrolls containing texts, very cleverly chosen, of which a list is given in Neal’s Ecclesiologist, and reprinted in Street’s Gothic Architecture in Spain. The execution is rude, but expressive and painstaking. The upper stalls are adorned with full-length reliefs of saints, confessors, and martyrs of the New Dispensation, which are more delicately designed and finished. Above runs a canopy, sculptured with animal forms. The enormous metal lectern and the Bishop’s Throne, with its tapering spire, are fine examples of Gothic work.
The chapels are not of special interest. That on the middle of the western wall is dedicated to San Ildefonso, but is more generally known as the Capilla del Cardenal, after its founder, Don Juan de Mella, who died in 1467. This prelate’s brother, Alonso de Mella, was the founder of a sect which seems to have resembled the Anabaptists of Westphalia; he was expelled from Castile, and took refuge at Granada, where he was put to death by the Moors. The retablo, by Gallegos, is in six divisions, the subjects being: San Ildefonso receiving at Toledo the chasuble from the hands of the Blessed Virgin, the Discovery of the Relics of St. Leocadia, the Veneration of the Relics, and (above) the Crucifixion, the Baptism of Christ, and the death of John the Baptist. This chapel contains the tombs of the Romero family. In the adjoining sacristy are some interesting battle-scenes from Old Testament history.
The chapel of San Juan Evangelista was built with funds bequeathed by Canon Juan de Grado (1507), whose fine alabaster tomb is surmounted by his recumbent effigy, accompanied by a priest and an angel. Above the canopy is an exquisitely chiselled composition representing the Crucifixion, with expressive statues of the Apostles Peter and Paul; within is a curious but admirable genealogy of the Blessed Virgin, at the base of which is the recumbent figure of an old man, wearing a crown, and representing possibly one of the early patriarchs. The Capilla de San Miguel is of less interest. It contains the sixteenth-century tombs of the canons de Balbas. Of the side-chapels, the most notable is that of San Bernardo, rebuilt in the sixteenth century.
In the sacristy is preserved a remarkable silver monstrance, six feet high, attributed by Ford to Enrique de Arfe. The stand is of later construction, and dates from 1598. On the upper part the local saint, Atilanus, may be seen, seated with the Saviour and the Virgin.
The original cloisters were burnt in 1591, and rebuilt in the present Doric style in 1621 by Juan de Mora.
Under the town walls, close to the cathedral, is the little Romanesque church of San Isidoro, noticeable for its extremely narrow windows, some mere slits in the masonry.
We pass down the long lane-like street which leads into the town, and which in the sixteenth century was the scene of desperate conflicts between the Mazariegos and Monsalves, the Montagues and Capulets of Zamora. The first church passed is that of San Pedro, rebuilt by Bishop Meléndez Valdés, and containing the revered ashes of St. Ildefonso, which were discovered here under miraculous circumstances in the year 1260. The relics of St. Atilanus are also preserved here. Nothing remains of the primitive Romanesque structure, except a little apse on the Epistle side, and a closed-up doorway in the left wall. The originally-distinct nave and aisles were thrown into one at the restoration, and form overhead one immense span. The sacristy contains some interesting objects—sacred vessels and altarpieces of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Presently we reach the second most interesting church in the town, La Magdalena, a small Romanesque work, said on rather doubtful authority to have been built by the Templars about 1312. The southern doorway is very large in comparison with the edifice. It is deeply recessed between massive buttresses, and formed by a rounded arch with shafts curiously moulded and twisted. Street speaks of this as a very grand example of the latest and most ornate Romanesque work. The carving on the arches is very rich. Above is a large rose window, resembling those in our own Temple church. The interior of the church is architecturally but not æsthetically more interesting than the exterior. The nave has a flat wooden ceiling. The apse is groined, and the chancel has a waggon-vault. The stone pulpit against the north wall is a notable piece of work, but attention at once becomes riveted on the large canopied tombs at the entrance to the chancel. Both are square-topped, with round arches and capitals very purely and vigorously carved. They are generally asserted to date from the thirteenth century, but an inscription over one describes it as the sepulchre of one Acuña and his wife, who died in the fifteenth century. ‘The effect of this monument,’ says Street, ‘filling in as it does the angle at the end of the nave, is extremely good; its rather large detail and general proportions giving it the effect of being an integral part of the fabric rather than, as monuments usually are, a subsequent addition.’
Another canopied tomb against the north wall undoubtedly dates from the earlier period. The capitals of the three twisted shafts are carved with the forms of wyverns fighting. The tomb is closed by a stone on which is a large cross. The occupant—believed by some to have been a Templar—is shown on his deathbed, while above him his soul—represented by a winged head—is borne away by angels. This interesting work may be attributed to a native sculptor acquainted with the art of France and Italy.