Until quite recently the glass case containing the consecrated bread of the Eucharist stood upon a curious altar stone—an Obsidian stone said to have been brought from South America; the stone is now kept in the sacristy. On examination of it, I found that it had the appearance of a small block of black marble, but was in reality a block of volcanic glass; it reflected my face like a mirror.
In 1772 the Archbishop of Saragossa presented Lugo with an exquisitely worked casket studded with precious stones, and in this the Sacrament was manifested until a thief got into the Cathedral and stole it on 8th December 1854. Another casket was thereupon provided by public subscription; it was the work of the famous artist Ramirez de Arellano, and has been in use since 3rd May 1859. It is a very beautiful piece of work in the plateresque style, representing Faith triumphant over Heresy, containing a chalice covered with diamonds, emeralds, and other precious stones, amongst which there are no less than fifteen hundred specimens of the topaz.
Molina mentions a possible connection between the continual exposition of the Sacrament at Lugo and the suppression of Arianism, but he adds that he has heard of a more likely explanation, namely, that at one time all the cathedrals in Spain shared the privilege of Lugo, but that after the invasion of the Moors Lugo was the only privileged cathedral, because she alone had not been desecrated by the common enemy. In another place Molina describes the arms of Galicia as “a chalice containing the Host, because Galicia alone was not conquered by the Moors.”
Lugo Cathedral was begun in 1129 in accordance with a plan prepared by Raimundo de Monforte, whose son succeeded him in the superintendence of the work. According to the best authorities, the Cathedral is, in the main, a copy of that of Santiago de Compostela, but a copy on a much simpler scale. As Lamperez points out, its low naves do not run into the naves of the transept, and the latter has barrel vaultings. The whole architecture of this edifice shows a vacillation, a wavering of conception which has produced a strange mixture of style,—bordering on originality; this very result is in itself a curious study. Here we see all the changes of style that occurred between the beginning of the twelfth and the middle of the nineteenth century. Villa-Amil calls it a compendium of the history of architecture.[284] In the arms of the transept we have the Romanesque style, and it is also seen in the vaulting of the lateral naves: in the rest of the naves we have a fine example of the Transition, and in the head of the church we have an important example of the Gothic style as it was interpreted in Galicia—the Gallegan Gothic. The Capilla del Pilar and the lateral portico furnish us with good examples of the plateresque style, so also do the two large retablos at the ends of the transept. The upper portion of the lower is Græco-Roman, of the earliest period of its restoration; while the sacristy and the wood-carving of the choir stalls are in the decadent taste of Philip IV.’s day. The Chapel of Our Lady of the Large Eyes is a sumptuous example of the Borrominesque, and the principal façade exhibits an interesting example of the bad taste of the second period of the Restoration. The whole is a remarkably harmonious mixture of all the mediæval styles, but the transept is too narrow and too dark. Although that part of the town which is within the walls is mostly on the same level, the Cathedral stands in a slight hollow, so that its domination of the eminence on which the town is built is less complete than it should have been. Instead of standing out like our York Cathedral, it seems to be oppressed and choked by the surrounding streets and houses.
The lateral façade possesses considerable architectural interest; it has a Gothic portico, the vaulting of which is richly ribbed. The double doors are within a Romanesque archway, over which there hangs, like a medallion, an archaic statue of Christ, quite Byzantine in the position of the feet, and with a stone halo veseca piscis, and a crown and a cruciform nimbus. This statue reminds me strongly of the figure of King David to be seen in the Puerta de las Platerias at Santiago. The lintel of the door is composed of two semicircular arches, with a Latin inscription on the pendant.
The beautiful wood-carving of the choir stalls is by Francisco Moure of Orense, the artist of the famous reredos in the Jesuit College at Monforte. Risco speaks of these stalls in “España Sagrada” as the most beautifully carved stalls in the kingdom; they are famous for the good taste displayed in their design, as well as for the actual beauty of their execution. Cean Bermúdez was another who praised them exceedingly. Villa-Amil tells us that their cost was five thousand ducats.
Until the fourteenth century none but bishops were interred within this Cathedral; even the greatest nobles had to lie in the cemetery. The most interesting bit of sculpture within the edifice is the marble sarcophagus of Froila, which was moved from its original place in the Capilla del Pilar about thirty years ago; it has a prismatic cover with a triangular base, and its ornamentation is funicular. On its front is a curious piece of bas-relief, representing a naked corpse suspended in a grave-cloth held by two angels, while the Eternal Father is represented in the clouds above touching the body with His right hand and giving it His blessing. At the head of the sarcophagus, on the cover, there is a quaint figure of a seated monk engaged in reading.
In the lateral naves there are some elegant Romanesque windows (now closed up), and the capitals beneath the arches are adorned with interesting sculpture; here the chess pattern ornamentation is very much in evidence.
In a handsome eighteenth-century chapel adorned with stone arabesques and crowned with a cupola, built in the year 1726, is to be seen the curious stone statue known as “the Virgin with the Large Eyes”—Virgen de los Ojos Grandes—which St. James is said to have left at Lugo when he founded the original Cathedral. It is supposed to be the oldest image in Spain after that of the Virgen del Pilar, at Saragossa. The Virgin holds a Child in her arms. I did not think her eyes unnaturally large. Villa-Amil says that it takes fourteen men to move this statue: it now stands upon an elaborate Churrigueresque throne. The Virgin’s crown sparkles with precious stones; it is a comparatively new one, and was placed upon her head by the Bishop of Lugo about three years ago.
The Convent of San Francisco, at Lugo, is said to have been founded by St. Francis of Assisi when he was returning home after his pilgrimage to the sepulchre of St. James. The cloister of the present building bears the date 1452, and an inscription on the arch which separates the central nave from the right arm of the transept tells us that the church was not completed earlier than 1510. The plan of the church is a Latin cross, or, as Villa-Amil calls it, a tau, for the cross has practically no head, only a poligonal apse with two smaller apses, one on either side. This kind of apse is rather rare. Street compared them to those of the Frari in Venice, and wrote of them as follows: “These apses are remarkable for having an angle in the centre, whilst their windows have a bar of tracery across them, transom fashion, at mid height. It is certainly a very curious coincidence that in both these particulars it resembles closely the fine church of the Frari at Venice.” Villa-Amil reminds us, however, that the apses of Santo Domingo at Ribadavia have the same angle. All three apses are covered with fan-shaped vaulting, the ribs of which rest upon side columns. The interior of this church was originally decorated with frescoes, and the remains of them are still to be seen: as frescoes are very rare in Spain, they are rather noteworthy. In each of the apses there are two curious sepulchral arches; these are both Gothic. The statues of several of them have been destroyed, but there are still three effigies of knights in full armour.