Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain

by George Edmund Street

The last great middle-pointed feature is the chapel of San Ildefonso, at the extreme east end of the church. It is a most elaborate work, groined with an eight-sided vault; its windows and arches full of rich mouldings, and enriched by ball flowers and some of the other devices commonly seen in our own work of the same age. Each side of this chapel had an elaborate tomb with an arched recess in the wall over it, surmounted by a gabled canopy between pinnacles, and under which sculptured subjects are introduced.[241] These tombs were evidently all erected at the same time, and help to make the tout ensemble of the chapel very rich and striking. A string-course is carried round above them; and above this there are large traceried windows, alternately of three and four lights. The vaulting-ribs are treated in an unusual and rather effective way, being fringed with a series of cusps on their under side, which give great richness to the general effect. There are small triangular vaulting compartments in the two western angles, which are necessary in order to bring the main vault to a true octagon in plan.

The works added in the fifteenth century were both numerous and important. The cloister and chapel of San Blas, on its north side, are the first in importance. They owe their origin, indeed, to the previous century, the first stone having been laid on the 14th of August, A.D. 1389, by Archbishop Tenorio,[242] Rodrigo Alfonso being the master of the works. In the chapel is a fine monument of the Archbishop; and in the cloister walls a door which, in the capricious cusping and crocketing of its traceried work, illustrates the extreme into which the Spanish architects of this age ran in their elaboration of detail and affectation of novelty. The traceries of the whole of the windows of the cloister are destroyed, but the groining remains, and the proportions and scale of the whole work are both very fine.

The west front was commenced in A.D. 1418, and the north-west tower in A.D. 1425, one Alvar Gomez being the architect employed upon them; and in A.D. 1479 the upper part of the west front was completed; but the whole of this was again repaired and altered in A.D. 1777, so that now it presents little if anything really worthy of notice. The circular west window seems to be of the earlier half of the fourteenth century, and the later works were carried out in front of it. Between this window and the gable of the great doorway is an enormous sculpture of the Last Supper: the table extends from buttress to buttress; and our Lord and the Apostles sit each in a great niche. The steeple is certainly rather imposing in outline: a simple square tower at the base, and for some 170 feet from the ground, it is then changed to an octagon with bold turrets and pinnacles; and above this is a low spire, chiefly to be noticed for the three rows of metal rays which project from its sides. The upper part of the steeple was built when Alonso Covarrubias was the master of the works, but rebuilt after a fire in A.D. 1660.[243]

The chapel of Santiago, to the north-east of the chevet, was another great work of this period. It is similar in plan to that of San Ildefonso, by the side of which it is built, and has in its centre a grand high tomb, carrying recumbent effigies of the Constable D. Alvaro de Luna and his wife Doña Juana.[244] Each of the tombs has life-size kneeling figures, one at each angle, looking towards the tomb, and angels holding coats of arms—that most unangelic of operations, as it always seems to me—in panels on the sides. Here, as in the chapel of San Ildefonso, the sides of the chapel were each provided with a great canopied tomb, whilst on one side a mediæval carved and painted wooden Retablo to an altar conceals the original altar arrangement. The exterior of this chapel is finished with a battlement and circular overhanging turrets at the angles; above which is a tiled roof of flat pitch. Don Alvaro de Luna died in A.D. 1453, and his wife in A.D. 1448; and the chapel bears evidence in the “perpendicular” character of its panelling, arcading, and crocketing, of the poverty of the age in the matter of design. At this period, indeed, the designers were sculptors rather than architects, and thought of little but the display of their own manual dexterity.

I have already described the external screens of the Coro. Its internal fittings must not be forgotten, being very full of interest, and of much magnificence. The lower range of stalls all round (fifty in number) are the work of Maestro Rodrigo, circa A.D. 1495; and the upper range were executed, half by Berruguete, and half by Felipe de Borgoña, in A.D. 1543.[245] The old stall ends are picturesque in outline, very large, and covered with tracery, panels, and carvings, with monkeys and other animals sitting on them. The upper range of stalls is raised by four steps, so that between the elbows of the lower stalls and the desk above them are spaces which are filled in with a magnificent series of bas-reliefs illustrating the various incidents of the conquest of Granada. They were executed whilst all the subjects depicted in them must have been fresh in the minds of the people; and they are full of picturesque vigour and character. The names of the fortresses are often inscribed upon the walls: in some we have the siege, in others the surrender of the keys, and in others the Catholic monarchs, accompanied by Cardinal Ximenes, riding in, in triumph, through the gates. It may be a fair complaint that the subjects are rather too much alike; but in subjects all of which were so similar in their story, it was, of course, difficult to avoid this. Their effect is in marked contrast to the heavy dull Paganism of the sculptures by Berruguete, whose work took the place, no doubt, of some more ancient stalls. The canopies in his work rest on columns of jasper, a material which seems to be very abundant here.

In the centre of the Coro stands the great Eagle, a magnificent work in brass. The enormous bird, with outstretched wings, is fighting a dragon which struggles between its feet: its eyes are large red stones, and it stands upon a canopied, buttressed, and pinnacled pedestal, crowded with statues, among which are those of the twelve apostles. Six lions couchant carry the whole on their backs, and serve to complete the family likeness to other brass eagles, of which, however, this is, I think, by far the most grandiose I have ever seen.

Here as elsewhere throughout Spain the iron and brass screens are very numerous. The two Rejas, east of the Coro and west of the Capilla mayor, were finished in A.D. 1548. There is little to admire in their detail; but they are massive and bold pieces of metal-work, for the dignified simplicity of which there is much, no doubt, to be said, when we think of the terribly over-ornamented work—semi-renaissance in its feeling—which is so unfortunately fashionable among some of our own church restorers now-a-days.[246] The great iron screen outside the north transept door is an earlier work, and fine in its way. The detail of this is very much like the screens already described at Palencia.

There are also many Retablos, and some of them ancient. That behind the high altar is a grand work, of so great height that it rises quite from the floor to the roof, being filled with subjects from our Lord’s life, arranged with the most complete disregard to their chronology, and, so far as I could see, without any other better system of arrangement. The whole, however, is most effective, the subjects being richly painted and gilded, and the whole of the canopies and niches covered with gold, so that the effect is one of extreme richness and perfect quietness combined, the usual result of the ample use of gold. Many other small Retablos exist elsewhere, and many have been destroyed.[247]

The difficulty in the way of seeing to sketch anything inside the cathedral is as great as it usually is in Spain, but not at all in consequence of the absence of windows; for, as will have been seen from my description, the windows are both many and large: all of them, however, are filled with stained glass, and hence, in addition to the wonderful charm of contrasted lights and shades, which we have here in marvellous perfection, we have also the charm of seeing none but coloured rays of light where any fall through the windows on the floor or walls.

Most of the glass appeared to me to be of the fifteenth century, and later. The rose of the north transept, which is earlier, has already been described; and the glass in the eastern windows of the transept clerestory (single figures under canopies) looked as if it were of the same date, or at any rate earlier than A.D. 1350. The rest of the church is glazed rather uniformly with cinquecento glass of extreme brilliancy and unusual depth of colour, the upper windows having generally single figures, the others subjects in medallions. I had not time to make out the scheme of their arrangement; but I observed that the medallions of the clerestory of the intermediate aisle began at the west end, with the Expulsion from Paradise, and went on with subjects from the Old Testament.