Not so the too famous and too horrible Trasparente behind the High Altar. What such a thing can possibly mean surpasses the average understanding. In the midst of all that one must venerate, in the home of majesty and loveliness, where beauty in stone and wood and colour takes its supreme form and hues, what effect but that of artistic scandal can such a monstrous creation have? One stares, one wonders, one could even weep for such inexplicable desecration, but one remains mystified and disheartened. Ponz a century ago wrote: “It is marble, an enormous affair in which it would have been better to have forever in the bowels of the hills of Carrara than to have brought it here to be a real blot in the Cathedral.” This celebrated atrocity is the work of Narciso Tomé, a native of Toledo, who, if he were useful for nothing else to posterity, offers an exceptional opportunity of measuring the frightful depths into which the dignity of Spanish art was plunged in the beginning of the last century. The degraded art of Churriguera may be bad enough elsewhere; here only does it stand out a gilt, magnificent marble nightmare, which cannot even be criticised, so awed is imagination by an ugliness that defies classification and repels reason. The man who paid 200,000 ducats for this blot upon a perfect temple, were he pope or bishop, merited at least a strait-waistcoat. Instead, he and the artist, and the thing itself, evoked, on its conclusion, national triumph and rejoicings, processions, illuminations, fire-works and bull-fights. Consistency is not a virtue we have a right to expect from races any more than from persons, so the massacre of horses and the idle torture of bulls, the encouragement of the brute instinct of cruelty, the destruction of which is admittedly the object of the mild and tolerant religion of Christ, may be regarded as nothing inordinately outrageous in ecclesiastical feastings. A modern Spanish critic is proud to own that for his part “he would not touch a hair of the smallest statue of this sumptuous fabrication,” and regards it as an interesting page in the history of Spanish architecture. There are of course curious natures who find interest in corruption and a certain majesty in madness. To these Churrigueresque masterpieces may be left, and with so many stupendous demands upon our admiration as the Cathedral holds, such a flaunting provocation of the contrary feeling may by the wise and grateful be accepted as a pause, a rest in interjectional contentment.
In the dim subterranean chapel of the sepulchre, there are sculptures and paintings worthy of inspection if there were light enough to see them by. One can see, however, that the sculptural group representing the burial of Christ by Copin of Holland is remarkable, but the paintings remain vague and blurred in the partially illuminated obscurity.
But however interesting each of the chapels may be, it is the general view that remains the loveliest thing about the Cathedral. Before you enter the space between the Coro and the Capilla Major, on looking up to the circular pierced arches between the curving line of columns, you will perceive a clear and charming evidence of Moorish influence in the architecture. The delicate pillars and horse-shoe arcade are familiar and welcome, and may again be seen running across the outer aisles. Nothing more graceful could be imagined than this light foreign touch in the sombre austerity of Gothic art. Again you are reminded of the Moors by a rich arch covered with lace-work in the chapel of Santa Lucia, mudejar rather than wholly Moorish, which looks quite oriental in front of the Renaissance arch of the other side of the chapel. It is such a variety in beauty that lends perpetual freshness to this monumental glory of Toledo. It has a face for every tone of reverie and musing. The light is always softly brilliant, and shadow not dense but suggestive; the very silence has the penetrative quality of mysticism, so that already on your second visit you will have ceased to feel a mere tourist, so intimate and instantaneous is its possession of you. Each day I have dwelt in the old imperial city, I have unconsciously wended my way to its doors. No matter what direction I started to take, it almost became a necessity to begin or end my daily wanderings by a pause in this spiritualised immensity of stone. I have never found its wonderful charm diminished by familiarity; on the contrary, the coloured rays of light from above, striking upon the brown shade of stone, seem ever more and more witching; the delicate tones of shadow more and more mysterious, and the unrivalled grandeur of long forested perspectives of aisles and of spacious naves, with the multiplicity of arches and windows, ever a greater testimony of Toledo’s departed glory.
Space forbids anything like a detailed account of the chapels and cloisters of the Cathedral. These latter are not to be compared with most of the other Spanish cloisters,—with, for instance, those of Segovia, of Santiago, of Burgos or Oviedo. There is the inevitable felicitous contrast of foliage and columned arch, and here, certainly, the note is more joyous than elsewhere, with the deep yellow light striking radiantly upon this large, airy square of sun-shot leafage open to the heavens. The cloisters were built by Cardinal Tenorio, and Blas Ortiz, a contemporary Toledan of Philip II. describes them in his beautiful caligraphy, preserved in the Biblioteca Provinciale, as “sumptuous.” This is a favourite adjective with the Spaniards who write about Toledo. It saves a multiplicity of explanations. The frescoes on the walls, painted by Bayeu after the manner of Vanloo, represent scenes from the life of St Eugenius and the famous legend of the Niño perdido. They are decorative but not interesting, and Gautier pronounces them out of keeping with the austere elegance of the architecture. It must be earlier paintings, since effaced, that Blas Ortiz describes as perfectissime. The fine door of the Presentation, a good specimen of plateresca work, was wrought by Pedro Castañeda, Juan Vasquez, Toribio Rodriguez, Juan Manzano, and Andréz Hernandez. The design and the reliefs are well worth careful examination. The portada de Santa Catalina commands attention. It is excessively decorated, and bears the arms of Spain and of the Tenorios; one of the finest details of the façade is the statue of St Catherine holding in one hand the wheel and in the other the sword, emblems of her martyrdom. Historical value is attached to Bayeu’s frescoe representing the reception at Toledo of the bones of St Eugenius, 1565. Philip II. and his son are there, as well as the archdukes Rudolph and Ernest, and there is a view of the Puerta Visagra through which the procession entered. Other frescoes treat of the Moorish saint Casilda, and on the north side is the chapel of St Blaise, built also by Tenorio as his coat of arms indicates. On a pedestal within a railing is a fragment found near St John of the Penetencia testifying to the date of the consecration of the Cathedral.
Near the cloister entrance is the chapel of St John or the Canons, as mass can only be said here by the chapter. The old Tower chapel here used to be called the Quo Vadis, and was dedicated to St Peter. Cardinal Tavera, designing it for his sepulchre, consecrated it to St John. The fine artesonado ceiling is picked out in gold and black, with carved flowers and figures; the altars are richly wrought and painted. Antonio Ponz in the last century greatly praises Luiz Velasco’s three pictures here. On the opposite side of the great gates is the Mozarabe chapel, set apart by Cisneros for the famous Gothic rite; the porch is Gothic; the doors of good renaissance style, were wrought in 1524 by Juan Frances; and the frescoes, painted by John of Burgundy, representing the conquest of Oran and triumph of the founder have no great value. There is a retablo of St Francis placed by Dr Francisco of Pisa, the historian of Toledo, who is buried outside. The chief interest of the Mozarabe chapel is centred in its quaint old ritual which may be heard here every morning at 9 A.M., and will be found extremely puzzling to follow. The canons behind, in a sombre, flat monotone, chant responses to the officiating priest at the altar. The sound combines the enervating effect of the hum of wings, whirr of looms, wooden thud of pedals, the boom and rush of immense wings circling round and round. After the first stupefaction, I have never heard anything more calculated to produce headache, nervous irritation, or the contrary soporific effect. In summer it must be terrible. In an old MS. of the Biblioteca in the last century there is a grave complaint made that the Gothic Mozarabe rite had already fallen from its beautiful solemnity, and that it was to be deplored that it should now be performed with such little decency and so little in accord with the founder’s idea. The writer naïvely hopes that the advent of Carlos III., which promised such general reform, would lift up again a degraded ritual and “that it would be placed in the rank of decency and splendour that a vestige so singular and worthy of appreciation deserves.” A hope not realised if I may judge from my assistance at the service. There was neither quaintness nor piety that I could see, but the canons looked and gabbled as if their thoughts were several miles away, staring roundly at the foreigners, and exchanging smiles as they altered their places.