The capital of this region is Palencia.
The erection of the cathedral church of the town was begun in 1321; it was dedicated to the Mother and Child, and to San Antolin, whose chapel, devoid of all artistic merit, is still to be seen beneath the choir.
This edifice was finished toward 1550. The same division as has been observed in the history of the city can be applied to the temple: at first it was intended to construct[{226}] a modest Gothic church of red sandstone; the apse with its five chapels and traditional ambulatory was erected, as well as the transept and the high altar terminating the central nave. Then, after about a hundred years had passed away, the original plan was altered by lengthening the body of the building. Consequently the chapel of the high altar was too small in comparison with the enlarged proportions, and it was transformed into a parish chapel. Opposite it, and to the west of the old transept, another high altar was constructed in the central nave, and a second transept separated it from the choir which followed.
In other words, and looking at this curious monument as it stands to-day, the central nave is surmounted by an ogival vaulting of a series of ten vaults. The first transept cuts the nave beneath the sixth, and the second beneath the ninth vault. (Vault No. 1 is at the western end of the church.) Both transepts protrude literally beyond the general width of the building. The choir stands beneath the fourth and fifth vaults, and the high altar between the two transepts, occupying the seventh and eighth space. Beneath the tenth stands the parish chapel or ex-high[{227}] altar, behind which runs the ambulatory, on the off-side of which are situated the five apsidal chapels. Consequently the second transept separates the old from the new high altar.
PALENCIA CATHEDRAL
In spite of the low aisles and nave, and the absence of sculptural motives so pronounced in Burgos, the effect produced on the spectator by the double cross and the unusual length as compared with the width is agreeable. The evident lack of unity in the Gothic structure is recompensed by the original and pleasing plan.
The final judgment that can be emitted concerning this cathedral church, when seen from the outside, is that it shows the typical Spanish-Gothic characteristic, namely, heaviness as contrasted to pure ogival lightness. There is poverty in the decorative details, and solemnity in the interior; the appearance from the outside is of a fortress rather than a temple, with slightly pointed Gothic windows, and a heavy and solid, rather than an elegant and light, general structure. Only the cathedral church of Palencia outgrew the original model and took the strange and exotic form it possesses to-day, without losing its fortress-like aspect.[{228}]
Though really built in stone (see the columns and pillars in the interior), brick has been largely used in the exterior; hence also the impossibility of erecting a pure Gothic building, and this is a remark that can be applied to most churches in Spain. The buttresses are heavy, the square tower (unfinished) is Romanesque or Mudejar in form rather than Gothic, though the windows be ogival. There is no western façade or portal; the tower is situated on the southern side between the true transepts.
Of the four doorways, two to the north and two to the south, which give access to the transepts, the largest and richest in sculptural decoration is the Bishop's Door (south). Observe the geometrical designs in the panels of the otherwise ogival and slightly pointed doorway. The other portal on the south is far simpler, and the arch which surmounts it is of a purer Gothic style; not so the geometrically decorated panels and the almost Arabian frieze which runs above the arches. This frieze is Moorish or Mudejar-Byzantine, and though really it does not belong in an ogival building, it harmonizes strangely with it.