GERI: LAPI: RACHAMATORE: MEFECIT: INFLORENTIA.
The work is all done on fine linen doubled. The faces, hands, and many other parts—as, e.g., the masonry of a wall—are drawn with brown ink on the linen, and very delicately shaded with a brush. The use of ink for the faces is very common in early embroidery, but I have never before seen work so elaborately finished with all the art of the painter. The faces are full of beauty and expression, and have much of the tender religious sentiment one sees in the work of Fra Angelico. The drawing is extremely good, the horses like those Benozzo Gozzoli painted, and the men dressed in Florentine dresses of the early part of the fifteenth century. The subjects are full of intricacy, the Crucifixion having the whole subject, with the crucifixion of the thieves, and all the crowd of figures so often represented.
The work is marvellously delicate—so much so that, passing the hand over it, it is difficult to tell exactly when it ends and the painting begins. The colours are generally very fresh and beautiful; but the gold backgrounds being very lightly stitched down are a good deal frayed. There are borders between and around all the subjects. Such a piece of embroidery makes one almost despair. English ladies who devotedly apply themselves to this kind of work have as yet no conception of the delicacy of the earlier works, and reproduce only too often the coarse patterns of the latest English school.[351]
In the choir-aisle is a wheel of bells in its old case, and under the organ is the favourite Catalan device of a Saracen’s head.
A picturesque effect was produced in the church here by the large white flannel hoods which all the women wore at mass. The church was crowded with people, and these white hoods contrasted well with the many-coloured bags or sacks—red and violet predominating—which the men always wear on their heads.
I saw two other old churches here. That “del Carmen” is of the same age as the Collegiata, with a nave of six bays and an apse of seven sides. It is forty-seven feet wide in the clear, without aisles, has chapels between the buttresses, and is lighted by large clerestory-windows. Here, as at the cathedral, almost all the windows are blocked, and sufficient light seems to be obtained for the whole church by some ten or twelve holes about two feet square pierced here and there. The other church is of the same description, but less important.
Between Manresa and Lérida, the only town of any importance is Cervera. Here there is a vast and hideous university building going to ruin; and two churches, one of which, with a square steeple, seems to be early in date, and the other—that of Sta. Maria, I believe—of the usual Catalan fourteenth-century type. This steeple was completed, in A.D. 1431, by an architect of Cervera, Pedro de Vall-llebrera; but it must have been long in progress, inasmuch as the principal bell—which was never to be tolled save for the funeral of a peer, a royal officer, or a bishop—was put in its place in A.D. 1377.[352] This bell has disappeared. On another, however, is this inscription:—“I.H.S.. Mateus. de. Ulmo. magister. cimbalorum. ville. Cervariæ. me. fecit. anno. a. nativitate. Domini. millesimo. quadringentesimo. vigesimo. quarto. Si. ergo. me. queritis. sinite. os. habire.” And on another—“+ Barbara. nos. serva. Christi. sanctissima. serva.”
Between Cervera and Lérida the country is very uninteresting until near the end of the journey, when a good view of Lérida, and the cliff above the river, is obtained. I have twice visited this interesting old city. In the autumn of 1861 I passed a day there, when the greater part of my time was spent in endeavouring to get admission into the cathedral, so that I only saw enough to make me wish to repeat my visit; and this I was fortunately able to accomplish in the spring of 1862. My readers will agree with me, when they have realized to themselves what is to be seen, that such a cathedral as that of Lérida is in itself worth the journey from England. Unfortunately its examination will always be beset with difficulties—if indeed it is allowed at all when visitors become more numerous than they have been hitherto.
The town consists mainly of one very long, tortuous street parallel with the river Segre, a broad, rapid stream, carrying the waters of a large part of the southern slopes of the Pyrenees into the Ebro at Mequinenza. There is an Alameda all along the river-bank, and at about midway in its length a large stone bridge across the river. Behind the town a hill rises rapidly—in some parts abruptly—to an elevation of, I suppose, about three hundred feet above the river; and on the summit of this stand the old cathedral, and some remains of other coeval buildings, now the centre of a formidable-looking, though really neglected, system of fortifications. Two other old churches—San Lorenzo and San Juan—remain, one in the upper part of the city, and the other on the Plaza, near the bridge. A modern cathedral, of the baldest and coldest Pagan type, but of great size, was built in the main street, near the river, when the old cathedral was converted into a fortress; and I cannot do better than quote Mr. Ford’s rather ironical statement of its history:—“The ruin,” he says, “of the old cathedral dates from 1707, when the French made it a fortress: nor has it ever been restored to pious uses; for in the piping times of peace the steep walk proved too much for the pursy canons, who, abandoning their lofty church, employed General Sabatani! to build them a new cathedral below, in the convenient and Corinthian style.” From the date of its desecration nothing whatever has been cared for; and it goes to one’s heart to see so noble a work, and one so sacred, put to such vile uses, and to so little purpose: for even now when Spain bristles with soldiers, and the whole nation is bitten with the love of military sights and sounds, the desecration of a sacred building is all that has been accomplished; for I believe that the Spaniards have seldom managed to hold possession of it against the French, and in its present dilapidated state are less than ever likely to do so.[353] The position is, however, a very strong one; and another hill to the west of the city is crowned with a second fort connected with it. Admission is only to be obtained by an order from the commandant of the district, who resides in the city below; and he very kindly sent a sub-officer to remain with me whilst I was in the fort, and with true Spanish courtesy came up himself to see that I gained admission to every part, and took great trouble to open doors some of which seemed hardly to have been opened since the Peninsular war!