How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

Plateresque Style.—The Spaniards had inherited from the Moors a consummate skill in metal-craftsmanship; and now the inflow of silver from the New World gave a stimulus to the craft of the silversmith. It reached extraordinary development in the making of church plate, particularly in the custodias or tabernacles, designed to hold the “Host,” which reached the magnitude of lofty structures, simulating towers and decorated with a wealth of intricate ornament of the most exuberant and yet delicate fancy. Foremost among these artists in silver was the family of Arphe, consisting of Enrique de Arphe, his son Antonio, and grandson Juan. Their work, which extended throughout the sixteenth century, began by being Gothic in character, but gradually reflected the Italian influence. It was so remarkable in its exuberant creativeness and so widely spread throughout the country—in Toledo, Cordova, Santiago, Seville, Valladolid—that its enormous effect upon architectural decoration is quite comprehensible.

The plateresque style is a combination of several elements: the freedom of the Gothic, the delicate profusion of Moorish ornament, and the ordered refinement of Raphael’s arabesques, mingled into a new and living medium of decorative expression by the vitality and fecundity of the Spanish fancy. And a corresponding originality was displayed in the manner of using it. It was massed chiefly around the doors and windows. Its earliest appearance is in the decorated portals, added to the Gothic cathedrals or to the newly erected secular buildings, of which a famous example is the doorway of the west façade of the University of Salamanca, in the province of Castile.

The earliest architect to apply this sculptural embellishment to the façades of buildings is said to have been Enrique de Egas, a native of Brussels, trained in the Gothic style, who was supervising architect of the Cathedral of Toledo. Among the gems which he contributed to the Early Spanish Renaissance are the College of Santa Cruz in Valladolid, built for Bishop Mendoza, and the Hospital of the same name, erected by Cardinal Pedro Mendoza in Toledo, which served as a model for the University of Salamanca. All three of these edifices are celebrated for the magnificent decoration of their principal portal: the one in Salamanca being specially notable for the device adopted to offset the effect of foreshortening in the ornament remote from the eye. For the depth of the cutting is graduated from flat relief in the lowest panels up to a bold enrichment of light and shade at the top. Another feature of these buildings, particularly fine in the two earlier ones, is the interior court or patio.

Patio.—The importance of the patio is a distinctive characteristic of Spanish architecture, deriving, not from the cortile of the Italian palace, but from the atrium of the Roman villa, preserved in the courts of Moorish buildings. The patio is surrounded on all four sides by colonnades of two stories into which all the rooms open, while approach to the second floor is given by a handsome staircase. A characteristic feature is the use of bracket columns, a well-known example being in the patio of the House of Miranda in Burgos. Sometimes, in the second story, an arcade is substituted for columns and entablature, as in the Casa de Zaporta, also known as the Infantado Palace, in Guadalajara.

Frequently the columns and surfaces of the patio are richly decorated with plateresque ornament, for the patio was the centre of the life and ceremony of the family. And this habit of domestic seclusion, inherited apparently from Moorish times, reacted on the exterior of the buildings; and, while the patio was luxuriantly decorated, a singular barrenness characterised the façades.

Thus the chief feature of the latter was the entrance doorway; the windows were few, small in size, and raised high above the level of the street, while occasionally a portico was added under the roof, where the inmates could take the air and view the outside life without themselves being seen. A famous example of this is seen in the college erected for Cardinal Ximenes in Alcala de Henares by the Castilian architect, Alonzo de Covarrubias, son-in-law of Enrique de Egas. He also designed the Archbishop’s Palace in the same city and the celebrated Chapel of the New Kings in the Toledo Cathedral.

Cathedrals.—Another northern centre of the Early Spanish Renaissance was Burgos. Here the master of the plateresque style was Diego de Siloe, sculptor and architect, who built the celebrated Golden Staircase in the Cathedral, to connect the higher levels of the old, thirteenth century Puerta de la Coroneria, with the floor of the north transept by a flight of 39 steps, which has a gilded balustrade, richly embellished and bearing the arms of Bishop Fonseca.

In 1520 Siloe was summoned to Granada to superintend the building of the Cathedral which had been designed in the Gothic style by Enrique de Egas. This, the earliest and most remarkable of the Renaissance cathedrals of Spain, represents an application of the Classic orders to the piers which support the vaulting. But its most distinctive feature is that the sanctuary or capilla mayor, instead of terminating in an apse, is fully circular in plan and crowned by a lofty dome, under which, in a flood of light, stands the high altar.

Two other important examples of Renaissance Cathedrals are those of Jaen and Valladolid, while amongst the Gothic edifices that were embellished with magnificent Renaissance portals may be mentioned the Cathedrals of Malaga and Salamanca and the Church of Santo Domingo in the latter city and of Santa Engracia in Saragossa. Also of the Early Renaissance period are the octagonal lantern of Burgos Cathedral, designed by Vigarni, called de Borgoña, because he was born in Burgundy, famous as a sculptor even more than as an architect; and the towers of the Cathedral del Pilar and of La Seo in Saragossa. The last named, octagonal in plan and consisting of four stories, diminishing in size and crowned with a lantern, bears some resemblance to the English steeples of Wren.

Casa Lonja.—The most splendid Municipal building of Spain is the Casa Lonja, or Exchange for merchants, in Seville, which was built in 1583-1598 by Diego de Riano from a design, not closely adhered to, by Juan de Herrera. The most highly decorated façade, which is on the side removed from the Square, shows a more than usual following of the Italian style in its system of pilasters and entablatures and the repetition and treatment of the windows. Yet the style is used with a decorative freedom, characteristically Spanish.