As regards painting, one artist's life is wrapped up in that of the wonderful city on the Tago; many of his masterworks are to be seen in Toledo's churches and in the[{357}] provincial museum. I refer to Domenico Theotocopuli, he who was considered a madman because he was a genius, and who has been called el Greco when really he ought to have been called el Toledano.
If Toledo is the nation's architectural museum, the city's cathedral, the huge imposing Gothic structure, is, beyond a doubt, an incomparable art museum. Centuries of sculptors carved marble and berroqueña; armies of artisans wrought marvels in cloths, metals, precious stones, glass, and wood, and a host of painters, both foreign and national, from Goya and Ribera to the Greco and Rubens, painted religious compositions for the sacristy and chapels.
Consequently, and besides the architectural beauty of the primate church of Spain, what interests perhaps more keenly than the study of the cathedral's skeleton, is the study of the ensemble, of that wealth of decorative designs and of priceless art objects for which the temple is above all renowned.
Previous to the coming of the Moors in the eighth century, a humble cathedral stood where the magnificent church now lifts its three-hundred-foot tower in the summer[{358}] sky. It had been built in the sixth century and dedicated to the Virgin, who had appeared in the selfsame spot to San Ildefonso, when the latter, ardent and vehement, had defended her Immaculate Honour before a body of skeptics.
The Moors tore down or modified the cathedral, and erected their principal mosque in its stead. When, three hundred years later, they surrendered their Tolaitola to Alfonso VI. (1085), they stipulated for the retention of their mezquita, a clause the king, who had but little time to lose squabbling, was only too glad to allow.
The following year, however, King Alfonso went off on a campaign, leaving his wife Doña Constanza and the Archbishop Don Bernardo to look after the city in his absence. No sooner was his back turned, when, one fine morning, Don Bernardo arrived with a motley crowd of goodly Christians in front of the mosque. He knocked in the principal door, and, entering, threw out into the street the sacred objects of the Islam cult. Then the Christians proceeded to set up an altar, a crucifix, and an image of the Virgin; the archbishop hallowed his work, and in an hour was the smiling possessor[{359}] of his see. Strange to say, Don Bernardo was no Spaniard, but a worthy Frenchman.
The news of this outrage upon his honour brought Alfonso rushing back to Toledo, vowing to revenge himself upon those who had seemingly made him break his royal word; on the way he was met by a committee of the Arab inhabitants, who, clever enough to understand that the sovereign would reinstate the mosque, but would ever after look upon them as the cause of his rupture with his wife and his friend the prelate, asked the king to pardon the evil-doers, stating that they renounced voluntarily their mosque, knowing as they did that the other conditions of the surrender would be sacredly adhered to by his Majesty.
Thanks to this noble (cunning) attitude on the part of the outraged Moors, the latter were able to live at peace within the walls of Toledo well into the seventeenth century.
Toward the beginning of the thirteenth century Fernando el Santo was King of Castile, and his capital was the city on the Tago. The growing nation was strong and full of ambition, while the coming of the Cluny monks and Flemish and German[{360}] artisans had brought Northern Gothic across the frontiers. So it occurred to the sovereign and his people to erect a primate cathedral of Christian Spain worthy of its name. In 1227 the first stone was laid by the pious warrior-king. The cathedral's outline was traced: a Roman cruciform Gothic structure of five aisles and a bold transept; two flanking towers,—of which only the northern has been constructed, the other having been substituted by a cupola of decided Byzantine or Oriental taste,—and a noble western façade of three immense doors surmounted by a circular rosace thirty feet wide.
The size of the building was in itself a guarantee that it would be one of the largest in the world, being four hundred feet long by two hundred broad, and one hundred feet high at the intersection of transept and nave.