Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain

by George Edmund Street

I felt, however, that one bull-fight was enough for me; the treatment of each bull is of necessity the same, and the mules have no sooner galloped out of one door trailing the dead bull and his victims out of the arena, than another dashes in from the opposite side, only to meet the same fate. The way in which the bulls come in is very striking: they rush in madly like wild beasts, and generally charge rapidly at one of the picadors or chulos. I asked a Spaniard how this was managed, and he explained that in the den from which they emerge they are goaded with sharp-pointed spears just before the doors are opened, and of course come into the arena mad with rage!

The object of bull-fights seems to be generally charitable—in the sense that charity bazaars are so. At Valencia, where they have recently erected an arena which almost rivals in size the Roman amphitheatres, the work has been done by the trustees of the hospitals, and this seemed to be usually the destination of the receipts whenever I saw them advertized. That it is possible to have a bull-fight of even a worse kind than the Spanish I learnt at Nîmes, where the cicerone showing me the amphitheatre explained that they had a bull-fight every Sunday, but never killed their bulls—only goaded them week after week!

Whilst I was at Madrid I made an excursion to Alcalá de Henares, the seat of Cardinal Ximenes’ famous university, under the impression that I should find a good deal to reward me. In this, however, I was disappointed, as the churches are mostly works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the whole place is decayed, unprosperous, and uncared for, without being picturesque and venerable.

The principal church, “El Magistral,” of SS. Just y Pastor—the tutelars of the city—is a large, late church of poor style. It has a nave and aisles of five bays, transepts and choir of one bay, and an apse of three sides. The aisle round the apse is contrived with three square bays and four triangular, and is evidently founded on the beautiful plan of the chevet of Toledo cathedral; but I must say that Pedro Gumiel “el Honrado,” Regidor of Alcalá, and architect of this church, has perfectly succeeded in avoiding any repetition of the beauties of Toledo; his work being thoroughly uninteresting and poor. The three western bays of the nave are open; the two eastern enclosed with screens and stalled for the Coro. A bronze railing under the Crossing connects the Coro with the Capilla mayor. There are no less than six pulpits here! two at the entrance to the choir for the Epistoler and Gospeller, two on the west of the Crossing, and two more opposite each other against the second column from the west in the nave. It looks just as though they had ordered a pair of pulpits as they did a pair of organs; and as preaching does not seem to be much the fashion now in Spain, I had no opportunity of learning how these many pulpits were to be used. There are two organs, one on each side over the Coro; that on the south so picturesque as to be worthy of illustration.

Two great monuments—one in the nave, and one under the Crossing—are remarkable for the position of the effigies with their feet to the west. On the south side of the south transept is a small chapel roofed with a most rich and delicate Moorish plaster ceiling; the whole was richly coloured. It did not appear to be earlier than the church, which is said to have been constructed between the years 1497 and 1509.

The University founded by Ximenes is in a wretched state of dilapidation; it is said to have been designed by the same Pedro Gumiel who built SS. Just y Pastor, but the work, so far as I saw it, was all Renaissance. The façade and court behind it were the work of Rodrigo Gil de Hontañon, between A.D. 1550 and 1553, and he destroyed Pedro Gumiel’s work in order to erect it. By the side of the college stands the church of San Ildefonso, which I suppose must be the chapel built by Pedro Gumiel. It is, I believe, desecrated, and no one could tell me where the key was to be found, so that I was unable to do more than get a note of the curious Cimborio from the exterior. It is not a lantern, but rather a raising of the whole centre of the church above the remainder. It is constructed of brick and stone, and is evidently of late date. Under this Cimborio, I believe, is the monument of the great Cardinal.

There are considerable remains of the old walls, with circular towers rather closely set around them. The bishop’s palace retains a fine tower, which seems to have been connected with the town walls. It is plain below, but has turrets picturesquely corbelled out on machicoulis over the centre of each side and at each angle. A wing of the palace which joins this tower has some very remarkable domestic windows, which deserve illustration. The shafts are of marble, the tracery and the wall below the sill of stone, but the wall of brick. The shafts are set behind each other, there is a good ball-flower enrichment in the label, and the mouldings are rich and good of their kind. Such a window seems to unite the characteristics of two or three countries, and is, indeed, in this, an epitome of Spanish art, which borrowed freely from other lands, and often imported foreign architects, yet, in spite of all this, is still almost always national in its character.

It is an easy journey from Alcalá to Guadalajara; and though the latter place disappointed me much, it is still worthy of a few hours’ delay to those who pass by it on the Madrid and Zaragoza railway. Seen from the distance it is an imposing city, and if it be seen as I saw it during fair time, full of peasants in gay costume, the general impression may be not unpleasant; but unfortunately, the early architectural remains are few and generally insignificant.