Street was also much struck with the windows above the double entrance of this façade, and he wrote: “Their shafts and archivolts are richly twisted and carved, and the cusping of the inner arch is of a rare kind. It consists of five complete foils, so that the points of the lower cusp rest on the capital, and, to a certain extent, the effect of a horseshoe arch is produced. This might be hastily assumed to be a feature borrowed from the Moors; but the curious fact is that this very rare form of cusping is seen in many, if not most, of the churches of the Auvergnal type ... and it must be regarded here, therefore, as another proof of the foreign origin of most of the work of Santiago rather than of any Moorish influence.” This allusion to the horseshoe arch is of particular interest in connection with the remarks we have already made upon that form of architecture in a previous chapter. Fernandez Casanova and Lopez Ferreiro would describe the form of the arches of this façade as Byzantine, and argue that such a form has existed in Spain since the sixth century.
The statues of this façade—the birds, the flowers, and the beasts—are all part of a mystic and profound symbolism. Ferreiro calls them a compendium in stone of Divine Revelation,[138] remarking that they offer sufficient material to fill a book; he then quotes a different text of Scripture to explain each figure. In the space between the figures of Christ and St. James are sculptured vertically the letters—
ANF REX
meaning King Alfonso VI., in whose reign this portico was constructed.
In this portico, as Ferreiro rightly observes, we must distinguish the sculpture from the statuary. The former is rich and varied and its execution and composition are above praise, especially as seen in the sculpture of the capitals. But the age of iconography was only just dawning, and the statues show a sad want of proportion and are too monotonously alike to be really lifelike. The dramatic sentiment is here interpreted by means of contortions of the limbs and exaggerated facial movement. Yet among these hundred figures there are at least two statues that stand out as far superior and more lifelike than any of the others—namely, those of Christ and of Abraham, whose faces are very beautiful, and might take their place even beside those of the Pórtico de Gloria, with which we shall occupy ourselves later on.
The tympana of this façade exhibit certain peculiarities which may be said to be specialities of Gallegan architecture. In other schools the tympanum is divided into two parts, but here it is not divided.[139] The tympanum of each gate rests upon the heads of monsters sculptured with remarkable energy.
Standing with our backs to this façade, we have to our right the offices of the cathedral chapter and the treasury with its plateresque or filigree stone-work of the Renaissance style, and in the corner where the treasury runs into or joins the façade is the gigantic and much-talked-of Shell of St. James, which supports almost the entire weight of the wide treasury staircase, and is considered a marvel of engineering skill. Above the southern end of the treasury building rises one of the original towers, still in good preservation. It reminds one somewhat of a Japanese tower, and contrasts strangely with the more modern ones. There is a tradition among the townspeople that a lady left a large sum of money to be spent in honour of this tower. Priests in gorgeous mitres purchased with this money were to make annual processions beneath its shadow scattering the fumes of incense and chanting. There is a couplet composed by some local wag, which alludes to the mitres and incense somewhat mockingly.
On the other side of the Puerta de las Platerias rises the beautiful clock tower which was begun in the Gothic style in 1463. “We cannot understand,” writes Sanchez, “how the architects of the seventeenth century could possibly prefer those great pointed windows (which they added) to the beautifully shaped Gothic ones of the lower part with their elegant columns and pilastres!” Here were formerly hung the two great bells whose metal was presented by Louis XI. of France, and which were cast in Santiago in 1483. This was one of the first cathedrals to possess a clock tower, and its example was soon followed by Milan and Padua. The original clock was the work of a clever mechanic named Guillen. In 1522 he put up the first one, and ten years later he replaced it by one of better make. The machinery was most complicated and curious. This remarkable clock,
