The real wonder of the cathedral is the far-famed Portico de la Gloria, the vestibule or narthex behind the western entrance of the church, and as renowned as its sculptural value is meritorious.
So much has already been written concerning this work of art that really little need be mentioned here. Street, who persuaded the British Government to send a body of artists to take a plaster copy of this strange work, could not help declaring that: "I pronounce this effort of Master Mathews at Santiago to be one of the greatest glories of Christian art."
And so it is. Executed in the true Romanesque period, each column and square inch of surface covered with exquisite decorative designs, elaborated with care and not hastily, as was the habit of later-day[{86}] artists, the three-vaulted rectangular vestibule between the body of the church and the western extremity where the light streams in through the rose window, is an immense allegory of the Christian religion, of human life, and above all of the mystic, melancholy poetry of Celtic Galicia. Buried in half-lights, this song of stone with the statue of the Trinity and St. James, with the angels blowing their trumpets from the walls, and the virtues and vices of this world symbolized by groups and by persons, is of a sincere poetry that leaves a lasting impression upon the spectator. Life, Faith, and Death, Judgment and Purgatory, Hell and Paradise or Glory, are the motives carved out in stone in this unique narthex, so masterful in the execution, and so vivid in the tale it tells, that we can compare its author to Dante, and call the Portico de la Gloria the "Divina Commedia" of architecture.
At one end there is the figure of a kneeling man, the head almost touching the ground in the body's fervent prostration in front of the group representing Glory, Trinity, and St. James. Is it a twelfth-century pilgrim whom the artist in a moment of realistic enthusiasm has portrayed here, in[{87}] the act of praying to his Creator and invoking his mercy? Or is it the portrait of the artist, who, even after death, wished to live in the midst of the wonders of his creation? It is not positively known, though it is generally supposed to be Maestro Mateo himself, kneeling in front of his Glory, admiring it as do all visitors, and watching over it as would a mother over her son.
If the chapels which surround the building have been omitted on account of their artistic worthlessness, not the same fate awaits the cloister.
Of a much later date than the cathedral itself, having been constructed in the sixteenth century, it is a late Gothic monument betraying Renaissance additions and mixtures; consequently it is entirely out of place and time here, and does not harmonize with the cathedral. Examined as a detached edifice, it impresses favourably as regards the height and length of the galleries, which show it to be one of the largest cloisters in Spain.
The cathedral's crypt is one of its most peculiar features, and certainly well worth examining better than has been heretofore[{88}] done. It is reached by a small door behind the high altar (evidently used when the saint's coffin was placed on grand occasions on the altar-table) or by a subterranean gallery leading down from the Portico de la Gloria, a gallery as rich in sculptural decorations as the vestibule itself.
The popular belief in Galicia is that in this crypt the cathedral reflects itself, towers and all, as it would in the limpid surface of a lake. Hardly; and yet the crypt is a nude copy of the ground floor above, with the corresponding naves and aisles and apsidal chapels. The height of the crypt is surprising, the architectural construction is pure Romanesque,—more so than that of the building itself,—and just beneath the high altar the shrine of St. James is situated where it was found in the ninth century.