A real peculiarity of this church, and one which I do not remember noticing in any other Gallegan architecture, is the great stone corbels or brackets which, like gargoyles, form the sides of the church both inside and out. The outer ones were built either with the object of facilitating the erection of a parapet or tribune from which processions and other spectacles could be witnessed, or intended to be used like tent poles, and covered with awning when cases were tried or fairs were held there; the latter seems to me to have been their most probable use: some of the largest churches in Holland are still surrounded by shops and booths in this manner; the brackets in the interior support wooden-floored galleries in the nave, and are the most striking part of its ornamentation. Each is composed of two long stones; in the end of each stone there is sculptured an arch which forms the end of a deep niche filled with the head and torso of a statue with its hands upon its breast as if in the act of adoration; in some, the upper statue is that of a bearded man and the lower that of a woman; others appear to represent monks. Both when taken as a whole and in detail these Noya corbels represent an important point as regards the study of ornamental sculpture in Galicia.
The Gothic apse, which is semi-dodecagonal, has narrow lancet windows, and between the windows there are lofty buttresses. In the interior of the church, to right and left of the apse, there are pillars supporting arch stones without arches; whether this should be taken as a sign that the church was originally intended to have three naves, or not, is uncertain. In the opinion of Lamperez, San Martin de Noya does not give the impression of being an edifice in the construction of which the architects changed their original plan; it indicates rather that it was executed rapidly and upon one plan; “it is an example of the archaism of the Gallegan style, and of the persistence with which the Cathedral of Santiago was imitated throughout the province.”
An interesting sarcophagus has recently been discovered
|
GROUP OF MUSICIANS ONE IS HOLDING THE GALLEGAN BAGPIPE | MERCHANT’S PALACE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, NOYA |
in an old chapel on the left side of the church; it has upon it the recumbent effigy of a Noya alderman. The inscription is carved upon his stone pillow in such a manner that at a short distance it looks like embroidery; he holds a dagger in his hand, and wears a kilted skirt and a tall hat, and dates, in all probability, from the fourteenth century. The coloured glass in the rose window is modern, but its mellowing effect on the light that streams through it is very pleasing.
Almost facing the apse of this church is an interesting old house which is supposed to date from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century; its first floor rests upon a porch, or rather a colonnade, with four Gothic arches; the windows are very small, and the walls massive. This house is thought to have belonged to one of Noya’s wealthy merchant families; part of it is now used as an hotel; the balcony is modern. There are several other houses in Noya that are very similar to this one, and equally old, for Noya too had her own nobility and her days of splendour. The house opposite the façade of San Martin is an old one, and behind it are to be seen the ruins of what was formerly the summer residence of the archbishops of Santiago; there still remains a wall with a Gothic window, and a little while ago there was an arch still standing. In this courtyard a rebel was publicly executed by order of the archbishop, in the fourteenth century.