The crypt has been modernised. On it may be seen the rock on which the tutelary saints suffered martyrdom, and a miraculous image, called Nuestra Señora de la Sotteraña, which is obviously far from possessing the antiquity its devotees claim for it.
Characteristics very similar to San Vicente are exhibited by the church of San Pedro in the picturesque Mercado Grande. Dating from the latter part of the twelfth century, we find here also the apsidal east end, the square lantern, and the entrances at the west end and beside the transepts. The western porch is very fine, and above it is a very beautiful wheel-window. The north doorway is more richly sculptured, and is later than the rest of the fabric. There are a few points of difference between this church and that previously described. There is no triforium, and the clerestory windows are of a single light, and much larger than those of the nave. As at San Vicente, the apsidal chapels have been spoilt by injudicious painting. In the transept are the tombs of the rival families of Blasco Jimeno and Esteban Domingo, distinguished by shields of six and thirteen bezants respectively. The church is in every respect a noble edifice, but loses interest after you have visited the almost identical basilica of San Vicente. Nor will your attention be long engaged by the modern monument to the illustrious natives of Avila in the centre of the market-place, crowned by the statue of Santa Teresa. Here took place in 1491 the auto da fé of the Jew, Benito Garcia, found guilty of murdering a Christian child, and stealing a consecrated Host for the purpose of sacrilegious rites. It should be added that no particular child could be put forward by the prosecution as having been murdered, and the suppositious victim went down to posterity simply as the Niño de la Guardia—la Guardia being the village where the crime was supposed to have taken place. The body was conveniently assumed to have been taken up to heaven. Its disappearance did not benefit the luckless Hebrews, two of whom, before the execution of Garcia, were torn to pieces by red-hot pincers.
The town proper having always been regarded as an acropolis, the greater number of churches are situated outside the walls. Several of these, like those already described, are of considerable interest. The doughty Nalvillos is said to lie beneath the flags of the church of Santiago. San Andrés is an interesting Romanesque structure, spoilt, however, by the addition of an incongruous sacristy. To the north-west of the town, near the river (Adaja), is the curious little sanctuary of San Segundo, with a wooden roof, and rather suggestive of Norman architecture. It marks the spot whereon fell an unfortunate Saracen, who was pushed over the turret above by the sainted Secundus. Some of the ashes of that muscular Christian are preserved here, beneath the fine alabaster statue which represents him kneeling with an open book before him. The sanctuary is believed to occupy the site of the earliest Christian church of Avila. The actual edifice is not nearly so old as the ruined and abandoned church of San Isidore, now fast crumbling away.
One of the most important monuments of the city is the church of the Dominican monastery of Santo Tomás (now used as a missionary college). It was founded in 1478 by Doña Maria Davila, wife of a Viceroy of Sicily, and completed in 1493. Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, interested the Catholic sovereigns in the work, and the cost was met by the confiscated property of Jews and heretics. The cloisters and conventual buildings are devoid of interest. The west front is in a poor late Gothic style, and distinguished by richness rather than beauty. The two massive flanking buttresses are outlined with a ball ornament, and end in eaves, corbel tables, and paltry pinnacles. Beneath the gable is a huge escutcheon, and beneath this again a round window. The doorway is within a deep porch; the archivolt is pointed and elaborately fluted and carved; on either side of the doorway are statues of saints of the Dominican order beneath canopies. The interior is more interesting. The chancel is almost square, the transept short; and, curious to relate, not only is the choir placed in a gallery in the western nave, but the altar is correspondingly elevated at the eastern end. Street thought the effect of this arrangement very fine, an opinion which all are not likely to share. The reredos is tastefully carved and painted. The choir stalls are good, as usual in Spain, particularly the royal chairs, which have splendid canopies, and bear the device of the yoke and sheaf of arrows.
Interest here, however, centres mainly in the superb Renaissance monument to the Infante Juan, eldest son of Ferdinand and Isabel, who died at Salamanca in 1497, aged nineteen. Ferdinand, to soften the blow, caused his wife to be informed that he and not the prince had perished; and such, in Isabel’s temperament, was the excess of conjugal over maternal affection, that her relief when the real state of things was revealed to her enabled her to bear the loss of her son with comparative composure. The tomb was the work of Domenico Alessandro the Florentine, specimens of whose skill we have seen in the cathedral. At the corners of the sarcophagus are eagles; the sides are covered with reliefs of the Virgin and the Baptist, and of the Cardinal and Theological Virtues. On the edge of the upper slab are carved escutcheons, angels, trophies, and garlands. The recumbent effigy of the prince, crowned, and with sword and mantle, is marvellously well done. The sculptor has expressed adolescence in stone. This rightly ranks among the finest works of art in Spain. Hardly inferior is the tomb of Juan Davila and his wife, Joana Velazquez de la Torre, the prince’s attendants, also by the Florentine. Don Juan is shown clad in somewhat fantastic armour; a page kneeling at his feet holds his helmet. Sphynxes are placed at the corners of the sarcophagus, the sides of which bear medallions representing St. James destroying infidels, and St. John the Divine in a cauldron of boiling oil.
In the sacristy is a tomb more impressive than either of these, but in a very different sense. A plain slab covers the body of Tomás de Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of Spain. He lies here in the temple reared on the fortunes of the men and women he had plundered and burned. There is no inscription to tell us who rests here; but Torquemada is as little likely to be forgotten as Attila or Nero. Few things in Avila create a deeper, sadder impression than the tomb of this strange, sinister priest.
His was one phase of the religious temperament, not perhaps more difficult of comprehension to us modern northerners than Teresa’s. We execrate the one and revere the other, and understand neither. Still, we know enough to see that the Inquisitor and the Nun stand respectively for what is worst and best in the Spanish character. And, happily, the woman’s fame has far outshone the man’s.
We may assume that no one who visits Avila is ignorant of the leading events in her career, or needs to be told what manner of woman she was. What we have to do is to follow her footsteps through her native city. The house in which she was born on March 28, 1515, has been converted into an ugly church (Nuestra Seráfica Madre Santa Teresa de Jesus). The exterior is in the baroque style. The room in which she first saw the light is now a chapel in the worst taste, and contains her rosary, sandals, and even one of her fingers. It was from this house that she stole away with her brother Lorenzo, determined to seek martyrdom at the hands of the Moors. Here she indulged in those ‘worldly conversations’ and that light reading which to her carefully polished conscience in after years appeared fraught with such dire peril. Here her vocation was born; and to this house she returned from the cloister in after years to watch by the deathbed of her father, Alonso de Cepeda.
It was in the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation, north of the city, that Teresa took the veil on All Souls’ Day 1533. Nothing remains of the structure as it was in her day. More interesting is the convent of ‘Las Madres,’ which occupies the site of the first foundation of the reformed order. The poor chapel of St. Joseph gave way in 1608 to the present handsome church designed by Francisco de Mora, who spared the tomb and chapel of Teresa’s brother, Lorenzo. Other fine monuments are those of Bishop Alvaro de Mendoza, and of Francisco Velazquez and his wife. In the garden of the convent is shown an apple-tree planted by the saint. Her body does not rest here, but at Alba de Tormes, where she expired on October 15, 1582.
You may also visit, for her sake, the church of San Juan in the Mercado Chico, where she was baptized on April 7, 1515.