THE TREASURY, SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL
PUERTA DE LAS PLATERIAS, SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL | PUERTA SANTA, SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL |
PHOTOS. BY AUTHOR | |
according to Lopez Ferreiro, struck not only the hours, but also the days, the months, the movable feast days, the course of the sun, and even the changes of the moon! The last was at the special command of Cardinal Maldonado. Guillen was also a skilled artist in ornamental metal work; several specimens of his work are still preserved in the cathedral, including a candelabra, and the railings of the Capilla Mayor, which he made in conjunction with Pedro Flamenco between 1535 and 1540. The authorities granted him and his wife Constance a house in the town in 1467. Guillen’s clock having been destroyed, another, manufactured in London, was put up in its place. The present clock was paid for by Archbishop Velez and constructed by Andreo Antelo, a skilled artist of Ferrol, in 1831. There is a long Latin inscription round the pedestal.[140] The bell which strikes the hours is said to be one of the best in the world. It was hung towards the close of the eighteenth century; Villa-Amil gives the date as 1779. Such is the richness and body of its tone that on calm days it can be heard in the surrounding valleys at a distance of seven miles. For three months I resided within a stone’s throw of the cathedral, and never did I listen to the mellow and sonorous tones of that bell without experiencing a thrill of pleasure. Galicia’s poetess, Rosalia de Castro, loved to hear it, and mentions it in one of her poems.
As we have seen, the only one of the seven minor entrances to the cathedral is the Puerta Santa, or, as it is sometimes called, la Puerta de los Perdones; it opens upon the Plaza de los Literarios, to the west of the cathedral. This is the Jubilee door, and is only opened once in every seven years, on the occasions when the feast of Santiago falls upon a Sunday; the archbishop himself performs the ceremony. The Jubilee is celebrated in accordance with the privilege conceded by Calixtus II. in the year 1122. The Puerta Santa, of which the original sculpture has disappeared, is now adorned with twenty-four Byzantine statues, whose inscriptions have gone: there are twelve of these in twelve niches on either side, which have been utilised from the débris of the older parts. Above the door is a large statue of St. James in pilgrim’s garb with staff in hand; and on either side of him, also in niches but some three sizes smaller, are the two disciples who were buried with him. On the tympanum of the inner door are inscribed the words: “Haec est Domus Dei et porta Coeli.” Every Jubilee year for many a century a choir of blind peasants has stood by this door and sung to those who entered the simple folk-songs of their native land.
Another entrance on the same side of the cathedral, and the one by which pilgrims have been wont to enter the sacred precincts from time immemorial, is called la Façade y Puerta del Reloj, or the façade and door of the clock. It is also called the Quintana; because the square upon which it opens was once the Quintana de los Muertos, or the cemetery of the canons. This square is one of the finest in the town: its name was changed in honour of those brave students of the University who formed themselves into a battalion at the time of Napoleon’s invasion, and fell fighting for the deliverance of their country. A white marble tablet on the fortress-like wall of the convent of San Payo, which forms the side of the square opposite to the cathedral, bears an inscription to their memory. Another side of the square is formed by a huge monastic pile—the convent of Antealtares—and on the south the handsome granite building with Doric columns now used as post and telegraph offices. Many a time have I stood in front of the post office, sometimes to take a photo of the cathedral, and sometimes to admire the winding granite balustrades upon the battlement-like towers and cupola which rise majestically behind the western front. This façade, with its four stout Doric columns, replaced the original Romanesque entrance towards the end of the seventeenth century. The heads of many of the statues on either side of the entrance have long since disappeared.
We now turn our steps northwards that we may examine the Façade of the Azabacheria, which faces to the north, and is so called because the street of the jet-workers[141] leads up to it. Fernandez Sanchez describes this façade as “without a doubt the best of the modern works which surround the cathedral.” It was planned by the celebrated Spanish architect Ventura Rodriguez, and finished under the supervision of a local genius, Domingo Antonio Luis Montenegro, in 1758. It consists of two storeys: the lower one is of the Ionic order, the upper of the Doric. Each has four columns, while the lower one has a pillar in the centre, separating the two entrances and serving as a basement for a statue of Faith which is seen in the centre of the upper storey. The doors and windows have semicircular lintels of the pattern seen in hundreds of Italian churches of that period. Above these are the arms of the archbishops, medallions, and other military trophies. To crown all, there rises the figure of St. James