ENTRANCE TO THE ROYAL HOSPITAL, SANTIAGO
The work began in good earnest in the year 1501, and the building was ready to receive the first inmates within ten years from that date. At the time of its completion the Hospital Real was the finest establishment of its kind in the world, and it is still regarded as an important example of the Renaissance style of architecture.
Molina, writing in 1550, said, “I believe that the hospital is so well known in every part of the world, that all I can say about it will be readily credited. In the three large wards there are few days when there are less than two hundred sick people, especially in Jubilee years, and every patient is treated with as much care as if the hospital had only been erected for his particular benefit. This hospital is one of the great things of the earth. Apart from its sumptuousness and the regal grandeur of its architecture, it is a marvellous thing to feel its size, the multitude of its officials, their diligence, the zeal of the attendants, the cleanliness of the linen, the care taken about the cooking, the perfect order of the routine ... the assiduity of the doctors—in short, one may with reason regard it as a crowning glory of Christendom.”
The Hospital Real is, after the cathedral, the most interesting edifice in Santiago. Its front forms the northern side of the chief square of the town, the Plaza de Alfonso XII. The iconographic decoration of its principal entrance at once attracts the eye of every stranger who enters the square. Between the rectangular window and the two rows of statues over the entrance are inscribed the following words: “Magnus Fernandus et grandis Helisabeth: peregrinis: divi Jacobi construi: jussere: anno salutis: M: D: I: opus: inchoaturn: decennio: absolutum.” This entrance is an example of the most perfect style of the Renaissance in Spain. In the triangles formed by the principal arch are the busts, in bas-relief, of Ferdinand and Isabella, and in two straight rows above the arch are the twelve apostles, each distinguishable by his dress and other characteristic traits. On either side of the window above them are nude statues of Adam and Eve, with St. Catherine and St. John the Baptist to the left, and St. Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, and Salomé, the mother of St. James the Greater, to the right. In the tympanum of the window are the arms of the hospital—the cross beneath a crown, and with a lion on either side. The other statues represent the Virgin and Child, St. John and St. Paul in the niches to the left, and Christ, St. James in pilgrim garb, and St. Peter to the right. Six winged angels hover above with various musical instruments. Two eagles, resting on the graceful Ionic columns on either side of the window, support the escutcheon with their claws. The four pillars which adorn this entrance and the multitude of little statues all blend together with such exquisite proportion that the effect is extremely beautiful, even at a considerable distance. In the wall on either side are the arms of Castille and the Imperial Eagles, which carry our thoughts back to the days of Greater Spain.
But for this wonderful entrance the long low front of the hospital, with its little windows and slanting tile roof, might be taken any day for soldiers’ barracks, or even a prison. There are, however, sixteen remarkable stone gargoyles on the cornice beneath the roof, and the thirty-eight corbels or projecting stones supporting the balcony are curiously sculptured. The Churrigueresque decoration of the four large windows giving entrance to the balcony is eighteenth-century work.
We enter the building and find ourselves standing in a portico with our faces towards an altar enclosed behind a high iron railing. The altar is placed beneath a walled-up arch which formerly served as an entrance to the chapel. The arch itself is richly moulded, and ornamented in the plateresque style; it is without pilasters, its moulded archivolts descending to the base in a manner that is markedly Gothic.
A mural painting of “The Last Judgment” covers part of the wall, and two youthful portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella are placed on either side of the altar. The whole interior of this portico was once covered with frescoes, but a thick covering of whitewash has destroyed the greater part of them. The graceful railing of wrought iron which encloses the altar is the work of Master Guillen, the clever artist of whom we have already spoken; its design is Gothic. The bas-reliefs of the altar, divided into seven niches, are interesting, but the painting above is of no value. The framed placard suspended from the railing, which is seen in my photograph, is an announcement that certain indulgences will be granted to those of the faithful who visit the hospital chapel, and thither we will now repair.