Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain

by George Edmund Street

The doorway on the south side of the nave is remarkable in one respect. It has in its jambs a series of statues of the Apostles, executed in terra-cotta; and the agreement for their execution, made, in A.D. 1458, with the artist Berenguer Cervia, binds him to execute them for six hundred florins, and “of the same earth as the statue of Sta. Eulalia and the cross of the new doorway at Barcelona.”[331] This doorway is very large, but bald and poor in detail; the statues to which the contract refers still remain, and are in good preservation.

There is nothing more specially worth noticing in the fabric; but fortunately the choir still retains precious relics in the Retablo behind, and the baldachin above, the high-altar. There are also said to be some frontals of the altar still preserved, which are of silver, and which were originally adorned with precious stones, and with an inscription which proves them to have been made before the consecration of the church, in A.D. 1038. Unfortunately they were not in their place when I was at Gerona, and so I missed seeing them.[332] The Retablo is of wood entirely covered with silver plates, and divided vertically into three series of niches and canopies; each division has a subject, and a good deal of enamelling is introduced in various parts of the canopies and grounds of the panels. Each panel has a cinquefoiled arch with a crocketed gablet and pinnacles on either side. The straight line of the top is broken by three niches, which rise in the centre and at either end. In the centre is the Blessed Virgin with our Lord; on the right, San Narcisso; and on the left, San Feliu. The three tiers of subjects contain (a) figures of saints, (b) subjects from the life of the Blessed Virgin, and (c) subjects from the life of our Lord. A monument in one of the chapels gives some account of this precious work; for though it is called a ciborium, it is also spoken of as being of silver, which, I believe, the actual ciborium is not.[333] The date of this monument is 1362; but in the ‘Liber Notularum’ for A.D. 1320, 21, and 22, it seems that the Chapter devoted 3000 libras for the reparation of the Retablo, though it was not till A.D. 1346 that the work was finished, and the altar finally fixed in its present position. [334] The whole of the work is therefore before this date; and probably the Retablo and the baldachin date from the period between the two dates last given, viz. A.D. 1320 and A.D. 1348.

The baldachin is, like the Retablo, of wood covered with thin plates of metal. It stands upon four shafts, the lower portions of which are of dark marble resting on the moulded footpace round the altar. These four shafts have capitals and bands, the latter being set round with enamelled coats-of-arms. The canopy is a sort of very flat quadripartite vault covered with small figures; but on both my visits to Gerona it has been so dark in the choir as to render it impossible to make out the subjects. The central subject seems to be the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, and in the eastern division is a sitting figure of our Lord with saints on either side. In order to show the figures on the roof of the baldachin as much as possible, the two eastern columns are much lower than the western, the whole roof having thus a slope up towards the west. A singular arrangement was contrived behind the altar—a white marble seat for the bishop raised by several steps on either side to the level of the altar, and placed under the central arch of the apse. Here, when the bishop celebrated pontifically, he sat till the oblation, and returned to it again to give the benediction to the people.[335]

The church is full of other objects of interest. Against the north wall is a very pretty example of a wheel of bells: this is all of wood, corbelled out from the wall, and is rung with a noisy jingle of silver bells at the elevation of the Host. Near it is a doorway leading into the sacristy, I think, which is very ingeniously converted into a monument. It has a square lintel and a pointed arch above: bold corbels on either side carry a high tomb, the base of which is just over the lintel; this is arcaded at the side and ends, and on its sloping top is a figure of a knight. The favourite type of monument in this part of Spain is generally a coped tomb carried on corbels, which are usually lions or other beasts: there are good examples of this kind both in the church and cloister; and in the latter there is also preserved a great wooden cross, which looks as though it had originally decorated a rood-loft.

The windows have a good deal of very late stained-glass, which consists generally of single figures under canopies. I have already mentioned the fine early wood-work in the Coro. In the fifteenth century this was altered and added to: and a seat was then made for the bishop in the centre of the western side of the Coro, which has enormous pieces of carved open-work on either side executed with uncommon vigour and skill. These, again, were added to afterwards by a Renaissance artist, so that it is now necessary to discriminate carefully between the work of various ages.

If, when the cathedral has been thoroughly studied, one goes out through the cloister, an external door at its north-western angle leads out to the top of a steep path from which an extremely picturesque view is obtained. The old town walls girt the cathedral on the north side; but in the eleventh century it was thought well to add to them, and a second wall descends, crosses the valley below, and rises against the opposite hill in a very picturesque fashion. This wall has the passage-way perfect all round, and occasional circular towers project from it. The eye is at once caught in looking at this view by a fine Romanesque church with a half-ruined cloister and lofty octagonal steeple, which seems to be absolutely built across and through the walls. This is the Benedictine church of San Pedro de los Galligans;[336] and a closer inspection shows that what at first looks like the round-tower of the town walls, against which the church has been built, is really the very apse of the church, which when the new walls were built was raised and converted above into a purely military work. The earliest reference to this church that I have found is a statement that it existed in the tenth century, and that, in A.D. 1117, the Count Ramon of Barcelona gave it to the Benedictine convent of Sta. Maria de la Crassa, in the bishopric of Carcassonne, of which his brother was Abbat; and I think we may safely assume that the whole of the existing church was built within a short time of its transfer from the hands of the Secular to those of the Regular Clergy.

The church[337] consists of a nave and aisles of four bays, the arches being very rude, and the piers plain and square. There are north and south transepts, the former having one, and the latter two eastern apsidal chapels; and the choir is also finished with an apse. There is another apse at the north end of the north transept. The nave is roofed with a round waggon-vault with plain cross-ribs carried on engaged shafts; and there is a clerestory of single-light windows which, on the inside, break up partly into the vault of the roof. The aisles are roofed with half-waggon or quadrant vaults, and the apses with semi-domes. The octagonal steeple is built above the north transept, and has in the eastern wall of its first stage two apsidal recesses, which seem to have been intended for altars, and are roofed with semi-domes. The detail of some of the work at the east end is of an unusual kind: it is built in stone and black volcanic scoriæ, and its rude character is evidence of its early date. Any one who is acquainted with the noble church at Elne, near Perpiñan, will remember the similar use of volcanic scoriæ there, and will be led to class the two monuments together as works of the same hand and period. The view of the exterior of the church from the north-west is very striking. There is a fine western door with a good deal of carving very delicately and elaborately wrought, one of the capitals having a very careful imitation of a fern-leaf on it; above the doorway a horizontal cornice is carried all across the front, and over this is a fine rose window. The side walls are finished with dentil-courses; and the clerestory—which is carried up very high above the springing of the vault inside—is finished with an eaves-arcading also. There were no windows in the side walls of the aisle; and the clerestory windows, and a window at the west end of the north aisle, have bold splays on the outside as well as inside.

The steeple has been much altered; but the original design of the two upper (and octagonal) stages seems to have had a two-light window with a bold central shaft, angle-pilasters, and stringcourses, with shallow arcading below them.