Santo Domingo de la Calzada.—The primitive ground-plan of the cathedral has been preserved, a nave and two aisles showing Romanesque strength in the lower and ogival lightness in the upper tiers. But otherwise nothing reminds one of a twelfth or thirteenth century church.
The cloister, of the sixteenth century, is a handsome plateresque-Renaissance edifice, rather small, severe, and cold. The great merit of this church lies in the sepulchral tombs in the different chapels, all of which were executed toward the end of the fifteenth and during the first years of the seventeenth centuries, and any one wishing to form for himself an idea of this particular[{203}] branch of Spanish monumental art must not fail to examine such sepulchres as those of Carranza, Fernando Alfonso, etc.
CLOISTER OF NÁJERA CATHEDRAL
The effigy of the patron saint (Santo Domingo) is of painted wood clothed in rich silver robes, which form a striking antithesis to the saint's humble and modest life. The chapel where the latter lies is closed by a gilded iron reja of plateresque workmanship. The saint's body lies in a simple marble sepulchre, said to have been carved by Santo Domingo himself, who was both an architect and a sculptor. The truth of this version is, however, doubtful.
Of the square tower and the principal entrance no remarks need be made, for both are insignificant. The retablo of the high altar has been attributed to Foment, who constructed those of Saragosse and Huesca. The attribution is, however, most doubtful, as shown by the completely different styles employed by the artist of each. Not that the retablo in the Church of Santo Domingo is inferior to Foment's masterworks in Aragon, but the decorative motives of the flanking columns and low reliefs would prove—in case they had been executed by the[{204}] Aragonese Foment—a departure from the latter's classic style.
In one of the niches of the cloister, in a simple urn, lies the heart of Don Enrique, second King of Castile of that name, the half-brother (one of the bastards mentioned in a previous chapter and from whom all later Spanish monarchs are descended) of Peter the Cruel. The latter was murdered by his fond relative, who usurped the throne.
Logroño.—In 1435 Santa Maria la Redonda was raised to a suffragan church of Santo Domingo de la Calzada; about this date the old building must have been almost entirely torn down, as the ogival arches of the nave are of the fifteenth century; so also are the lower windows which, on the west, flank the southern door.
Excepting these few remains, nothing can bring to the tourist's mind the fifteenth-century edifice, and not a single stone can recall the twelfth-century church. For the remaining parts of the building are of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and successive centuries, and to-day the interior is being enlarged so as to make room for the see which is to be removed here from Santo Domingo and Calahorra.
