Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain

by George Edmund Street

To me the sight of such work as this is always somewhat disheartening. For here in the twelfth century we find men executing work which, both in design and execution, is so immeasurably in advance of anything that we ever see done now, that it seems almost vain to hope for a revival of the old spirit in our own days: vain it might be in any age to hope for better work, but more than vain in this day, if the flimsy conceit and impudent self-assertion which characterize so much modern (so-called) Gothic is still to be tolerated! for evil as has been the influence of the paralysis of art which affected England in the last century, it often seems to me that the influence of thoughtless compliance with what is popular, without the least study, the least art, or the least love for their work on the part of some of the architects who pretend to design Gothic buildings at the present day, may, without our knowing it, land us in a worse result even than that which our immediate ancestors arrived at. Here, however, at Avila, in this porch of San Vicente, let us reverence rightly the art and skill of him who built, not only so delicately and beautifully, but also so solidly and so well; let us try to follow his example, knowing for certain that in this combination lies the true merit of all the best architecture—Pagan or Christian—that the world has ever seen.

The three stages of the western towers are, I think, respectively of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The second or intermediate stage is arcaded, and has its angles planned with a shaft set in a broad splay precisely in the mode we see so commonly adopted in the Segovian towers.[177] The upper stage is finished with gables on each face, the gable being fringed with a line of granite trefoils in not very good taste. Gil Gonzales Dávila[178] says that the tower of this church was built by alms in A.D. 1440. He refers, no doubt, to the upper stage, the design of which agrees with this statement. I was not able to learn how it had originally been roofed; but my impression is that it probably had two stone gabled roofs intersecting each other.

In addition to the western door there is another fine entrance on the south side of rather earlier date than the other, and now always in use as the ordinary entrance to the church. Descending here by some steps from the cloister, we find ourselves in the impressive interior, and are at once struck by some features which are of rare occurrence in this part of Spain. The columns are of very bold, perhaps heavy, design, and rest on circular bases. Their front portion is carried up on a bold and massive groining pier in front of the main wall; the arcades are severely simple, the arches semi-circular, and the capitals richly carved. A carved stringcourse is carried round the church above the arches, and there is the very uncommon arrangement (in this country) of a well-developed triforium; each bay here having a round-arched opening, subdivided into two smaller openings, divided by a massive column with sculptured capital. Another stringcourse divides the triforium and clerestory, which has also round-arched windows of one light. The vaulting, both in the nave and aisles, is quadripartite, the only remarkable feature in it being the massive size of the ribs.

The three eastern apses are vaulted with waggon-vaults over their western compartments, and semi-domes over the apses, and the transepts are roofed with waggon-vaults. All the latter have cross arches or ribs below them carried on engaged shafts, and the side walls of the chancel and chancel-aisles are arcaded below the vaulting.

The central lantern is carried on piers, which have evidently been in great part rebuilt at some time subsequent to the foundation of the church. They carry pointed arches of granite, clumsily moulded, and have rudely-carved capitals. Two piers on the south of the nave next the Crossing, and one on the north, were either partly or altogether rebuilt at the same time, and it looks very much as though the first lantern had partly fallen, and then, two centuries after the original foundation of the church, the existing one had been erected, for over the pointed arches there still seem to be remains of the older round arches. The lantern is rather loftier than is usual; it is vaulted with an eight-ribbed dome, carried on arched pendentives, and is lighted by small windows of two lights in its upper stage. Dávila[179] says that this church was rebuilt in the time of Ferdinand “El Santo” (1252-1284), who endowed it with certain rents for the purpose. But other authorities say, with more show of probability, that the work undertaken in this year was the repair of the church. The rebuilding at this date, which is utterly inconsistent with the whole character of the church, agrees, nevertheless, very well indeed with that of the lantern. Subsequently, in A.D. 1440, according to Dávila,[180] the tower of the church was built, and this statement probably refers to the upper stages of the western steeples. The crypt under the choir, called Nra. Sra. de Soterraña, is important only for its position: it is entered by a long flight of steps from the east end of the north aisle, and extends under the three eastern apses. It is mainly modernized, and the great attraction seems to be the hole in which, as I understood, people who wish to take a solemn oath put their hands whilst they swear.

There are no original ritual arrangements remaining here; but an iron Reja is carried across the nave and aisles one bay to the west of the crossing, and here probably was the old place for the Coro, as the position of the shrine of San Vicente under one side of the lantern would have made it impossible for the Coro to be placed nearer the east.

Some features still remain to be noticed, and the most important is the tomb or shrine of the tutelars—San Vicente and his brethren. This is picturesquely placed on one side of the space under the lantern, with entire disregard to that desire for balance everywhere which so painfully affects almost all of us now-a-days. It is a thirteenth-century erection standing on detached shafts, within which appears to be a tomb which is always kept covered with a silken pall. Over this is a lofty canopy carried on four bold shafts at the angles, and consisting of a deep square tester, above which is a lofty pyramidal capping with its sides slightly concave and crockets at the angles. It is rather difficult to convey an idea of this very remarkable work without large and careful illustrations. The inner tomb or shrine is the really important work, the outer canopy or tester being evidently a much later addition.[181] The shrine has all the character of an early pointed Italian Gothic work. Its canopy is carried on clusters of four shafts twisted together, at each of the angles; between them, on each side, are three coupled columns, and at the east and west ends are single shafts. These carry trefoiled or many-cusped arches, the spandrels of which are sculptured; and above this is a sort of shrine with a sloping stone scalloped all over on either side, and a steep diapered roof rising out of the centre. A series of subjects is carved in panels all along the sides of the shrine, which seem to have reference to three saints and martyrs—probably to San Vicente and his companions. Figures of the Twelve Apostles are introduced, two and two, at the angles, and other figures sitting and reading between the subjects. A late iron screen between the columns of the outer baldachin makes it rather difficult either to see or to sketch this interesting work carefully. Its detail is all very peculiar, and in the twisted and sculptured shafts, the strange form of some of the cusping, and the iron ties with which it is undisguisedly held together, I thought I saw evident traces of the influence of Italian art. I take the shrine to be a work of the thirteenth century, though the baldachin is no doubt of later date.

Near this shrine in the south aisle is some very fine rich and delicate wrought-ironwork in a grille round a side altar. It is possibly part of the old choir-screen, and at any rate does not belong to the place in which it is now preserved. The beauty of this work consists in the delicacy of the thin strips of iron, which are bent into a succession of circular lines ending in roses, and on an excessively small and delicate scale. Some similar work is still to be seen in one of the windows of the apse.

The arches on either side of the great western porch are filled in with open trellis-work wood-screens, which show how good occasionally may be the adaptation by Gothic hands of Moorish work. Here the lines of wood cross each other at intervals, leaving, of course, a regular series or diaper of open squares. The edges of all these are simply cut out in a pattern, or notched, in a variety of forms, and the effect is extremely good. The same kind of work is common in Moorish buildings, but I had not seen it before so boldly used by Christians.