The church of San Pedro Martir, attached to the monastery of that order, and affiliated to St John of Latran in Rome since 1773, is as black and chill as a colossal vault. Señor Parro in Toledo en la Mano writes of this dull and unbeautiful edifice in terms of flatulent praise, several pages long. He calls it the Pantheon of Toledan glory. It is certainly an excellent tomb if nothing else. The coldest churches I have ever set foot in are this and San Benito of Valladolid, both warranted to provoke pneumonia on a summer’s day. In winter I should imagine the rash traveller would remain therein embalmed in ice. The architecture is of the Greco-Roman style, bewilderingly spacious without any majesty of effect in its immense proportions. Señor Parro tells us that the façade is “most lovely.” My expectations were not realised. I found the corinthian columns, the cornices, the “grandiose” central arch, the pilasters perfectly insignificant, but there are two marble statues on either side, sometimes mistakenly attributed to Berruguete, extremely fine, and also a life-size statue of St Peter effective in a lesser degree. The frescoes have disappeared, and the high altar is now defaced with commonplace modern pictures of no value whatever. But the gilt wood and sculpture remain. Once the degraded squares were filled with paintings of Fray Bautista Maino, the distinguished master of Felipe IV., Velasquez’s friend and patron. These vanished pictures were excellent imitations of Paul Veronese, so good that they were seized for the Musée of Madrid, and to fill up the horrid vacancy modern monstrosities, mere daubs, were ordered, which to-day grotesquely offend the eye. The celebrated Virgen del Rosario, an object of special devotion to the Toledans, may be seen in one of the chapels. The plateresca iron-railing of the sanctuary would be remarkable in any other land, but the railings of Spain are so sumptuous that one hardly notices this one. Still it is worth inspection, being a rich and profusely gilt specimen of that special work, with a fine centre cross and a rich frieze. Attached to the cross is the standard of the great Cardinal of Spain, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, pale blue damask, with four Jerusalem crosses in each corner, and in the centre an oval figure of St Helena holding the cross, before which kneels the great Cardinals. At the foot of the middle nave, below the choir, are a group of wooden statues representing the saints of the preaching orders and a scarce distinguishable fresco of Maino. The choir is large and free, with a fine reading-desk and sculptured seats, an inferior imitation of those of the Cathedral. Off the sacristy, a large but insignificant chamber, with an imposing marble table worthy a nobler setting, there is a little Gothic chapel dedicated to St Agnes, part of the primitive building, and here you may see an ancient retablo of extreme interest. Alonzo Carrillo of Toledo and Don Alvaro de Guzman were buried here as early as 1303, as the half-effaced Gothic characters tell us.
Among the great men of Toledo buried in the church are the Counts of Cifuentes, above whose arms Fray Maino painted a fresco. In the chapel of the Virgin of the Rosary is buried the famous poet Garcilaso de la Vega, whose statue, life-size in marble kneeling, is encased in armour, interesting rather as an historic figure than for any intrinsic merit of art. The Fiscal of Holy Office and Prior of Santillana, Pedro Soto Cameno, has also his statue as founder of the chapel; he was buried in 1583. In this same chapel is the impressive Gothic tomb of the Malograda, a surpassingly beautiful young woman, magnificently apparelled, lying upon a marble couch above the funeral urn that contains her ashes. Historians disagree as to the identity of this romantic figure. Some say she was Doña Maria, the bride of Don Lorenzo Suarez de Figueroa, Master of Santiago in 1389, whose despair on losing a loved young wife is thus immortalised. Others identify the Malograda with Doña Estefania de Castro, mysteriously done to death in the days of Alonso the Emperor. The tomb rests on superb marble lions, and angels as usual hold the shields, in Gothic fashion. The ample folds of the dead girl’s garments are charmingly graceful, and to the beauty of art is added the mystery of romance. Bride or mistress, this fair girl, asleep for six centuries, holds in the stillness of her delicate sculptured visage the enigma of her broken destiny. Sorrow or remorse built her splendid monument.
The tombs of the Fuensalidas in the transept are notable works of art. The statues representing the mighty and turbulent Ayalas and their wives are of alabaster, and close by, brought from ruins of the Augustine Convent, is a double tomb of plateresca style, highly sculptured and divided by two arches on delicate pillars, crowned with an intricate frieze in really fine relief, belonging to Diego de Mendoza, a great figure in the sixteenth century, and his wife, Ana de la Cerda. A niece of St Theresa also is buried here, Doña Marina de Rivadeneira y Cepeda.
The purest mudejar steeple of Toledo is that of San Roman. This Moorish steeple, with its arcaded windows and ingenious brickwork, was erected by the famous Esteban de Illan, chief of the Toledos. Formerly the church was a mosque remodelled from the original Gothic chapel, as the remains of Arabic inscriptions indicate. After the Conquest it was refashioned again into a Christian temple, and has since undergone frequent restoration. Here St Ildefonso, after St Leocadia, the patron of Toledo, was baptised in remoter centuries. In the sixteenth century the plateresca capilla major was built. Four wide arches, the two in front of the central nave open, and the others wrought into the lateral walls, with their graceful pillars and reliefs are extremely effective, and are regarded, with the florid sculpture and half-orange cupola, as constituting one of the finest specimens of plateresca architecture of Toledo. The light, however, is imperfect for full inspection. The retablo belongs to the same debased form of renaissance, an excess in sculpture, legends in relief and medallion, every kind of architectural fancy a combination of Gothic and classic could suggest. Nearly all evidence of its earlier form has vanished, but for a defaced Arabian inscription and a few horse-shoe arches, and a line of blocked arcades with the cusped arches above, bold and large, while a simple ceiling covers the primitive artesonado. In a little chapel on the Epistle side, are a few forsaken specimens of old Spanish painting, before it blossomed out into our European school. They are stiff and dull enough, and their subject the conventional scenes from the New Testament, but interesting as a development of Spanish art.
From the Moorish windows of its tower the flag of Castille waved in 1166, while the little king downstairs, in the safe keeping of the mighty Illans was proclaimed, Toledo, Toledo, Toledo por el rey Don Alonso VIII., and the town, in one of its customary phases of turbulent revolt, was divided between the followers of the great families of the Illans, the Laras, and the Castros. The tower is of plain reddish-brown stone, the brick-work rough and unmoulded of a supremely singular and distinguished effect, in perfect keeping with the rude, strange aspect of the city. Among the smaller mudejar steeples is a good example in that of Santa Magdalena. This is rougher and simpler than the rest. It has only two arched windows above, while the lower part is perfectly plain and solid. The bells hang in the window, adding thus to the picturesque rudeness of the general effect, so unfamiliar to the northern eye, so quaintly barbaric, so distinguished in its freedom from the curse of modern banality or vulgarity.