Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain

by George Edmund Street

One of the earliest of these ajimez windows is in a house on the east side of the cathedral; and a fine example of later date is in an old house in the Calle de Caballeros, the internal court and staircase of which are also picturesque, though hardly mediæval. All the houses here seem to be built on the same plan, with the stables and offices on the ground floor, arranged round an internal court, an open stone staircase to the first floor, and the living-rooms above. The fronts towards the streets are generally rather gloomy and forbidding-looking, but the courts are always picturesque. The finest domestic building in the city is the Casa Lonja, or Exchange, which was commenced on the 7th November, 1482, the year in which the works at the cathedral were completed by Pedro Compte. There is no doubt, I believe, that he was the architect; and on March 19, 1498, he was appointed perpetual Alcaide of the Lonja, with a salary of thirty pounds (“libras”) a year. He was also “Maestro Mayor” of the city, and was employed in several works of engineering on the rivers and streams of the district.[264] The main front of the Lonja is still very nearly as he left it, a fine specimen of late Spanish pointed work. The detail is of the same kind as, but simpler than, the contemporary works at Valladolid and Burgos, and there is a less determined display of heraldic achievements; though the great doorway, and the window on either side of it which open into the great hall, and which are so curiously grouped together by means of labels and string-courses, have some coats of arms and supporters rather irregularly placed in their side panels. The great parapet of the end, and the singular finish of the battlements, are very worthy of note, and give great richness to the whole building. The principal doorway leads into a fine groined hall, 130 feet long by 75 feet wide, divided into a quasi nave and aisles of five bays by eight columns, sculptured and spirally twisted. The portion of the building to the left of the centre is divided into three chambers in height, the upper and lower rooms being low, the central room lofty and well proportioned. The lower rooms have plain square windows; the next stage, windows of much loftier proportions, and with their square heads ornamented with a rich fringe of cusping. There are pointed discharging arches over them. The upper stage of this wing is extremely rich, the window-openings being pierced in a sort of continuous arcading, the pinnacles of which run up to and finish in the parapet. This parapet is enriched with circular medallions enclosing heads, a common Italian device, betokening here the hand of a man whose work was verging upon that of the Renaissance school. At the back is a garden, the windows and archways opening on which are of the same age as the front.

Valencia, though not containing any building of remarkable interest, is nevertheless well worth a visit: it is a busy city, full of picturesque colour and people. The manta or rug worn by the peasants throughout Spain is here seen in perfection: it is of rich and very oriental colour, and charms the eye at every turn. I went into a shop and looked at a number of them, and there were none which were not thoroughly good in their colour; and, worn as they are by the sunburnt peasants, hanging loosely on one shoulder, they contrast splendidly with their white linen jackets and trousers, and swarthy skins. The river is, at any rate in the autumn, the broad dry bed only of a river, with here and there a puddle just deep enough for washerwomen. The water is all carried off to irrigate the fertile country around, and troops of cavalry and artillery, with their guns all drawn by fine mules, were hard at work exercising where it ought to have been. On the side of the river opposite to the city are some rather nice public gardens, with fine walks and drives planted with noble trees. A drive which begins here extends all the way to Grao, the port of Valencia, some two or three miles off. In the afternoon it seems to be always thronged with tartanas, carriages, and equestrians on their way to and from the sea: and each tartana is full generally of a lively cargo of priests and peasants, men, women, and children, all laughing, cheerful, and picturesque. I went to Grao to embark on the steamer for Barcelona. There is nothing to see there save the usual accompaniments of a sea-port, and the provision for a large and fashionable population of bathers from Madrid during the summer months. For their convenience small and very rude huts are put up on the beach, and left there to be destroyed by the winter storms. Not much is sacrificed, as they are of the very rudest description, and evidently devised for the use of people who go to Grao to be amused and to bathe, and not merely to show themselves off as fine ladies and gentlemen.

At Valencia the national love for the mantilla, which in courtly Madrid seems to be now half out of fashion, finds vent in the positive prohibition at one of the churches for any woman to enter who wears a bonnet in place of it!

CHAPTER XIII.
TARRAGONA.

NO one should go from Valencia to Barcelona without paying a visit to Tarragona. It is even now easy of access, and before long will be still more accessible by means of the railway which is being made between the two towns. I travelled from Barcelona to Tarragona and back again by diligence, and both journeys, unfortunately, were made for the most part by night, so that I am unable to speak very positively about the scenery upon the road. But both on leaving Barcelona and again before I reached Tarragona the road was very beautiful, and I have no doubt it would reward any one who could contrive to give up more time and daylight to it than I could. There is but one town of any importance on the road—Villafranca de Panades,—and here I caught a glimpse of an old church, which seemed to be of the fourteenth-century Catalan type, and fully to deserve examination.

The approach to Tarragona is very lovely. The old city stands on the steep slope of a hill, crowned by the stately mediæval cathedral, and surrounded on all sides by walls, which are still very perfect and in some parts unusually lofty and imposing. Below and beyond the walls to the left, as you approach, is the mean and modern town which covers a low promontory, and is now the centre of all the trade and business of the city. A broad street, in which are the principal inns, divides the two halves of the city, on the upper side of which the whole architectural interest is centred. The views on all sides are beautiful. Looking back to the east one sees hill after hill, ending in point after point, which jut out into the sea one beyond the other, and, combining with the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean, produce the most charming picture. To the south, looking over the modern town, mole, and harbour, is the sea; whilst to the west the eye wanders, well content, over a rich green expanse of level land, studded all along its breadth with rich growth of trees, till the view is bounded by the hills which rise beyond the old town of Reus, now an active and enterprising centre of manufacturing industry.

I ought, no doubt, to fill many pages here with an account of the Roman antiquities, which are numerous and important, Tarragona having been one of the most important Roman stations in Spain. But they have been often described, and the time at my disposal allowed only of a hurried glance at them, unless I chose to neglect in their favour the—to me—much more interesting Christian remains, which I need hardly say I was not prepared to do. The city walls are, I believe, to a considerable extent Roman. There are remains—though but slight—of an amphitheatre; the magnificent aqueduct, some little distance from the city, is one of the finest in Europe; and, finally, there is a museum full of Roman antiquities, which seem well to deserve due examination. But I was obliged to neglect all these, giving them the most cursory inspection, as I found in the cathedral ample occupation for every minute of my time.

This is certainly one of the most noble and interesting churches I have seen in Spain. It is one of a class of which I have seen others upon a somewhat smaller scale (as e.g. the cathedrals at Lérida and Tudela), and which appears to me, after much study of old buildings in most parts of Europe, to afford one of the finest types, from every point of view, that it is possible to find. It produces in a very marked degree an extremely impressive internal effect, without being on an exaggerated scale, and combines in the happiest fashion the greatest solidity of construction with a lavish display of ornament in some parts, to which it is hard to find a parallel. Unfortunately the documentary evidence that I have been able to find as to the age of the various portions of this church is not so complete as I could wish. A very elaborate and painstaking history of the city is in course of publication; but when I was there[265] the first volume only of this had been published, and this was confined entirely to the Roman antiquities contained in the Museum and other collections. The volume of España Sagrada, which relates to Tarragona, contains but few documents of any value, and I have been unable to put my hands upon any other which contains any at all. Yet there cannot be much doubt that a see whose history is so important, and whose rank is so high,[266] must have in its archives a vast store of information, out of which might be gathered all the material facts as to the foundation of, and additions to, the church.