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

According to the tradition, St. James preached the Holy Gospel, and after him St. Peter (or St. Paul?), who left his disciple St. Astorgio behind as bishop (91 A. D.). Twenty-two bishops succeeded him, the twenty-third on the list being John I., really the first of whose existence we have any positive proof, for he signed the third council in Toledo in the sixth century. In the eighth century, the Saracens drove the shepherd of the Christian flock northward to Asturias, and it was not until 1100 that the first bishop de modernis was appointed by Archbishop Bernardo of Toledo. The latter's choice fell on Peter, a virtuous French monastic monk, who was canonized by the Pope after his death, and figures in the calendar as St. Peter of Osma.

When the first bishop took possession of his see, he started to build his cathedral. Instead of choosing Osma itself as the seat, however, he selected the site of a convent on the opposite banks of the Duero (to the north), where the Virgin had appeared to a shepherd. Houses soon grew up around[{214}] the temple and, to distinguish it from Osma, the new city was called Burgo de Osma, a name it still retains.

In 1232, not a hundred years after the erection of the cathedral, it was totally destroyed, excepting one or two chapels still to be seen in the cloister, by Juan Dominguez, who was bishop at the time, and who wished to possess a see more important in appearance than that left to him by his predecessor, St. Peter.

The building as it stands to-day is small, but highly interesting. The original plan was that of a Romanesque basilica with a three-lobed apse, but in 1781 the ambulatory walk behind the altar joined the two lateral aisles.

Two of the best pieces of sculptural work in the cathedral are the retablo of the high altar, and the relief imbedded in the wall of the trascoro—both of them carved in wood by Juan de Juni, one of the best Castilian sculptors of the sixteenth century. The plastic beauty of the figures and their lifelike postures harmonize well with the simple Renaissance columns ornamented here and there with finely wrought flowers and garlands.[{215}]

The chapel where St. Peter of Osma's body lies is an original rather than a beautiful annex of the church. For, given the small dimensions of the cathedral, it was difficult to find sufficient room for the chapels, sacristy, vestuary, etc. In the case of the above chapel, therefore, it was necessary to build it above the vestuary; it is reached by a flight of stairs, beneath which two three-lobed arches lead to the sombre room below. The result is highly original.

The same remarks as regard lack of space can be made when speaking about the principal entrance. Previously the portal had been situated in the western front; the erection of the tower on one side, and of a chapel on the other, had rendered this entrance insignificant and half blinded by the prominent tower. So a new one had to be erected, considered by many art critics to be a beautiful addition to the cathedral properly speaking, but which strikes the author as excessively ugly, especially the upper half, with its balcony, and a hollow arch above it, in the shadows of which the rose window loses both its artistic and its useful object. So, being round, it is placed within a semicircular sort of avant-porche or recess,[{216}] the strong contours of which deform the immense circle of the window.

To conclude: in the cathedral of Osma, bad architecture is only too evident. The tower is perhaps the most elegant part, and yet the second body, which was to give it a gradually sloping elegance, was omitted, and the third placed directly upon the first. This is no improvement.

Perhaps the real reason for these architectural mishaps is not so much the fault of the architects and artists as that of the chapter, and of the flock which could not help satisfactorily toward the erection of a worthy cathedral. Luckily, however, there are other cathedrals in Spain, where, in spite of reduced funds, a decent and homogeneous building was erected.

The cloister, bare on the inner side, is nevertheless a modest Gothic structure with acceptable lobulated ogival windows.