Glories of Spain

by Charles W. Wood

It was a rough descent, but a singularly interesting scene. We found ourselves in narrow streets with ancient houses whose windows were guarded by splendid ironwork. Last night the watchmen had paced and cried the hour, awakening the echoes, summoning the silent shadows with their lanterns. To-day there was no sense of mystery about streets and houses; daylight loves to disillusion. We had to content ourselves with quaint gables and old-world outlines. Behind us was one of the ancient gateways strong and massive, leading directly into the precincts of the cathedral. Framed through its archway we saw a portion of the vast flight of steps crowned by the uninteresting west front. It was one of the very best, most old-world bits of Gerona, and within a small circle were antiquities and outlines that would have furnished an artist with work for half his days.

Upon all this we turned our backs as we went towards San Pedro. Here everything is in opposition to the cathedral; the exterior of this Benedictine church is its glory. Rounding a corner we are in full view of the beautiful west Norman doorway with its delicately wrought carving and fern-leaf capitals. Above the doorway is a very effective cornice and above that an admirable rose window: altogether a rare example of the Italian Romanesque. The whole church is very striking, with its fine octagonal tower and Norman apses built into the old town walls. Just beyond the tower a gateway leads to the citadel and open country beyond. A church existed here as early as the tenth century—possibly earlier; the present church dates from the beginning of the twelfth, when it was given to the Benedictine Convent of Santa Maria by the Bishop of Carcassonne.

We passed through the lovely old doorway to the uninteresting interior: a nave and isles with rude arches and piers plain and square. There was something cold and pagan about the general effect, exaggerated no doubt by contrast with the cathedral we had just left. Anselmo was not insensible to the influence.

"If I were Vicar of San Pedro, half the delight of my days would vanish," he said. "Instead of living in a refined, almost celestial atmosphere, existence would be a daily protest against paganism. Let us pass to the cloisters."

Here indeed the scene changed. Smaller than those of the cathedral, they were almost as beautiful and effective though more ruined and more restored.

"Not time but wanton mischief has been at work here," said Anselmo. "The work of destruction was due to the French in the Peninsular War. Which of Spain's treasures did they leave untouched?"

Nevertheless a great part of their beauty remained. The passages were full of collected fragments; old tombs, broken pillars, carved capitals and ancient crosses: a museum of antiquities: and the Norman arches resting upon their marble shafts were a wonderful setting to the whole. Above them, all round the cloisters, a series of small blind Norman arcades rested upon delicately carved corbels—charming and unusual detail.

Within a few yards of San Pedro was a still more ancient and interesting church with a most picturesque interior; yet a church no longer, for it has been turned into workshops. A low octagonal tower crowns a red-tiled roof with slightly overhanging eaves. Beneath the eaves repose small blind arcades, and here and there in the lower hall other arcades are gradually crumbling away. The wonderful roof is rounded and broken into sections to suit the plan of the building. Ancient eyelets admit faint rays of light, and a fine rounded arch points to what was once the principal doorway.

The interior is domed, vaulted and massive, black with age. Small, it seems to carry one back to the days when Christians were few and worshipped in secret. Now fitted as a carpenter's shop, it is full of the sound of hammer and plane. In one corner, men are melting glue and heating irons at a huge fireplace. The floor is uneven and below the level of the road. Light enters with difficulty. An obscure, suggestive scene worthy of Rembrandt, who would have revelled in this combination of mysterious gloom and human occupation.