Valladolid, Oviedo, Segovia, Zamora, Avila & Zaragoza / An Historical & Descriptive Account

by Albert Frederick Calvert

A great many of the fine old mansions (solares) of the aristocracy and merchants of Zaragoza disappeared in the siege, or to permit of modern improvements. Those which remain date mostly from the sixteenth century. The finest, on the whole, is the Casa de la Infanta, so-called as having been the residence of La Vallabriga, a lady banished from Madrid for marrying the Infante Don Luis. The house was built by a rich merchant named Gabriel Zaporta in the middle of the sixteenth century. A square entrance admits to a court, round which runs a gallery, upheld by columns on fluted pedestals, and formed of caryatide figures interlocked. On these rest the capitals, elaborately carved with masks, and on these again is borne the gallery, the arches and parapet of which are enriched with medallions, masks, grotesques, and foliage. The decoration is a fine specimen of the plateresque style. The staircase, in the same style, is worthy of note.

The fine old Casa de Comercio, described in several guide-books of recent date, no longer exists. The noble mansion of the Counts of Sastago housed Philip III. in 1599; and the Audiencia occupies the site of the ancestral home of the De Luna family, to which belonged the anti-pope Benedict XIII. and the wicked Count in Verdi’s opera.

We have left almost to the last that ambitious but meretricious memorial of the decadence, the new cathedral, or Iglesia del Pilar. The Apostle James (Santiago), according to tradition, visited the city forty years after the birth of Christ. He was favoured by a vision of the Blessed Virgin, poised on a pillar of jasper, and attended by angels. He built a modest chapel on the spot, which soon became a great resort of pilgrims. This was replaced in the thirteenth century by a large church, which was demolished to make room for the present building, erected in 1686 by Don Francisco Herrera. The design, bad enough in itself, was made worse by Ventura Rodriguez seventy years later. The exterior hardly merits description, though the domes or cupolas with their brilliant green, yellow, and white tiling are not without a certain bizarre beauty.

Spanish writers are as severe as others in their condemnation of this spacious edifice: ‘The baroque style’ (says Don J. M. Quadrado), ‘as timid and clumsy in the general proportion of the work as it was audacious and presumptuous in detail, gave space not repose to the Pilar—size without grandeur. The eye measures vainly this square of 1500 feet, and observes the nave and aisles equal in dimensions; it rests on the twelve square piers—enormous masses which might serve for the bases of towers, recoils from the bare vault, from the thick cornice, from the ridiculous foliage of the capitals, the arches, etc. This disagreeable impression is intensified by the strange and confused disposition of the temple, which, divided into two by the Shrine and the High Altar, presents two centres of attraction, and obstructs the nave with objects masking each other.’

The only objects of particular interest in this vast edifice are those just named, which stand back to back. The Shrine or Capilla Santa constitutes a chapel within a chapel, the exterior being rectangular, the interior elliptical. Overhead is an oval dome borne on four Corinthian columns, with capitals richly gilded, and over this again another cupola or lantern painted by a namesake (not a relative) of Velazquez. There are four smaller domes painted by Goya and Bayeu. The profusion of rich marbles, the elaboration of the architecture, the brilliancy of the frescoes, and the multitude of statues give this chapel a sumptuous and not inartistic appearance. Around are hung banners taken from the infidels. The Sacred Pillar is almost entirely concealed, but there is a hole in the casing through which the devout may kiss it. On each side of the chapel imposing staircases lead to the crypt, in which lie several archbishops and canons, and the heart of Don Juan José of Austria, brother of Carlos II.

The High Altar of the cathedral is of alabaster and in the Gothic style, the work of one Damian Forment, an early sixteenth-century artist. The lower reliefs, separated by slender pilasters, represent the Espousals of the Virgin, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. Above, in canopied niches, are the Assumption, the Nativity, and the Presentation. The canopies are richly adorned with the figures of saints. At the sides are two large statues of St. James and St. Braulio—objects of special devotion—and at the apex of the altar-screen are two angels supporting Our Lady of the Pillar. The whole is undoubtedly the finest work of art in the cathedral.

The choir stalls merit attention. They were designed by the Navarrese Estebán de Obray, and carved by the Florentine Giovanni Moreto and Nicolás de Jobato between 1542 and 1548. The infinite number and variety of the designs, the delicacy and intricacy of the work, suggest that it was accomplished in two or more generations rather than in six years. Equally admirable is the bronze reja by Juan Tomás Celina (1574) on a marble base, sculptured by the Majorcan artist, Guillermo Salvá.

The sacristy contains an immense variety of offerings to the shrine by pilgrims from all parts of the world. These had been accumulating for centuries, and the Chapter were able some years ago to raise a sum of £20,000 by disposing of only a portion of them. Without profanity we might perhaps say that the Virgen del Pilar is to Zaragoza what Diana was to the Ephesians. Hundreds make a living by selling pictures and models of the shrine, and a surprising number of silversmiths do a roaring trade in images and medals. Yet it is not quite wise or safe for the traveller to scoff at a devotion which largely inspired the heroic defence of 1808, and supplied the place of arms, strategy, and able leadership.

Close by, the yellow Ebro is spanned by the seven arches of the Puente de Piedra. Its origin is of unknown antiquity. It was here in 1435, when one of the arches collapsed—presaging the destruction by the Genoese of the Aragonese fleet which sailed that day; and the inscription mentioning Alfonso V., and the date 1437, can only refer to its reconstruction. And across this bridge we pass into the stern, desert country of Aragon, and so on to the distant, gleaming Pyrenees.