The Cathedrals of Northern Spain / Their History and Their Architecture; Together with Much of Interest Concerning the Bishops, Rulers and Other Personages Identified with Them

by Charles Rudy

The cathedral was closed to the public by the government in 1850 and handed over to a body of architects, who were to restore it in accordance with the thirteenth-century design; in 1901 the interior of the building had been definitely finished, and was opened once more to the religious cult.

The general plan of the building is Roman cruciform, with a semicircular apse composed of five chapels and an ambulatory behind the high altar.

As peculiarities, the following may be mentioned: the two towers of the western front do not head the aisles, but flank them; the transept is exceptionally wide (in Spanish cathedrals the distance between the high altar and the choir must be regarded as the transept, properly speaking) and is composed of a broad nave and two aisles to the east and one to the west; the width also of the[{156}] church at the transept is greater by two aisles than that of the body itself,—a modification which produces a double Roman cross and lends exceptional beauty to the ensemble, as it permits of an unobstructed view from the western porch to the very apse.

Attention must also be drawn to the row of two chapels and a vestibule which separate the church from the cloister (one of the most celebrated in Spain as a Gothic structure, though mixed with Renaissance motives and spoilt by fresco paintings). Thanks to this arrangement, the cathedral possesses a northern portal similar to the southern one. As regards the exterior of the building, it is a pity that the two towers which flank the aisles are heavy in comparison to the general construction of the church; had light and slender towers like those of Burgos or that of Oviedo been placed here, how grand would have been the effect! Besides, they are not similar, but date from different periods, which is another circumstance to be regretted.

The second bodies of the western and southern façades also clash on account of the Renaissance elements, with their simple horizontal[{157}] lines opposed to the vertical tendency of pure Gothic. But then, they also were erected at a later date.

Excepting these remarks, however, nothing is more airily beautiful and elegant than the superb expression of the razonadas locuras (logical nonsense) of the ogival style in all its phases, both early and late, or even decadent. For examples of each period are to be found here, corresponding to the century in which they were erected.

The ensemble is an astonishing profusion of high and narrow windows, of which there are three rows: the clerestory, the triforium, and the aisles. Each window is divided into two by a column so fragile that it resembles a spider's thread. These windows peep forth from a forest of flying buttresses, and nowhere does the mixture of pinnacles and painted panes attain a more perfect eloquence than in the eastern extremity of the polygonal apse.

The western and southern façades—the northern being replaced by the cloister—are alike in their general design, and are composed of three portals surmounted by a decidedly pointed arch which, in the case of the central portals, adorns a richly sculptured[{158}] tympanum. The artistic merit of the statuary in the niches of both central portals is devoid of exceptional praise, that of the southern façade being perhaps of a better taste. As regards the stone pillar which divides the central door into two wings, that on the south represents Our Lady of the Blanca, and that on the west San Froilan, one of the early martyr bishops of Leon.

Excepting the Renaissance impurities already referred to, each portal is surmounted by a row of five lancet windows, which give birth, as it were, to one immense window of delicate design.

Penetrating into the interior of the building, preferably by the lateral doors of the western front, the tourist is overcome by a feeling of awe and amazement at the bold construction of aisles and nave, as slender as is the frost pattern on a spotless pane. The full value of the windows, which are gorgeous from the outside, is only obtained from the interior of the temple; those of the clerestory reach from the sharp ogival vaulting to the height of the triforium, which in its turn is backed by another row of painted windows; in the aisles, another series of panes rose in the sixteenth century[{159}] from the very ground (!), though in recent times the bases have unluckily been blinded to about the height of a man.