Cathedrals of Spain

by John A. Gade

Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid

CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS
View of the nave

The old structure is the kernel of the present church. It consists of a central nave of six bays up to a strongly marked crossing and three beyond, terminating in a pentagonal apse. The side aisles are decidedly lower and continue across the transept{41} round the apse. These again are flanked on the west by the chapel churches of Santa Tecla, Santa Anna, and the Presentacion, as well as by a number of other smaller, vaulted compartments. Only two of the radial chapels outside the polygonal ambulatory remain, the others having been altered or supplanted by the great Chapels of the Constable, of Santiago, Santa Catarina, Corpus Christi, and the Cloisters. The western front is entered by a triple doorway corresponding to nave and side aisles; the southern transept, by an incline 40 feet wide, broken by 28 steps. On reaching the door of the northern transept, one finds the ground risen outside the church some 26 feet above the level of the inner pavement, and instead of descending by the interior staircase, one wanders far to the northeast, there to descend to a portal in the north of the eastern transept. The whole church is about 300 feet long, and in general 83 feet wide, the transepts, 194 feet.

The piers under the crossing, as well as those of the first bay inside the western entrance, are much larger than the others, in order to support the additional weight of crossing and towers, and the piers, abutting aisle and transept walls, are also unusually strong. The interior pillars are of massive cylindrical plan, of well-developed French Gothic type, solid, but kept from any appearance of heaviness by their form and by eight engaged columns. The ornamented bases are high and of characteristic Gothic moldings. The finely carved capitals carry square abaci in the side aisles and circular ones in the nave. Both abaci and bases have been placed at right angles to the arches they support. The three engaged pier columns{42} facing the nave carry the transverse and diagonal groining ribs, while the wall ribs are met by shafts on each side of the clerestory windows.

The four main supports at the angles of the crossing are rather towers than piers. In the original structure, they were probably counterparts of those supporting the inner angles of the tower between nave and side aisles, with a fully developed system of shafts for the support of the various groining ribs. With the collapse of the old crossing and the consequent erection of an even bulkier and far more weighty superstructure, tremendous circular supports upon octagonal bases were substituted. They are thoroughly Plateresque in feeling, 50 feet in circumference and delicately fluted and ribbed as they descend, with Renaissance ornaments on the pedestals and similar statues under Gothic canopies, evidently inserted in their faces as a compromise to the surrounding earlier style.

Glancing up at the superstructure and vaulting, there is a great consciousness of light and joy,—a feeling that it would have been well-nigh perfect, if the choir and its rejas could only have remained in their old proper place east of the crossing, instead of sadly congesting a nave magnificent in length and size. The brightness is due, partly to the stone itself, almost white when first quarried from Ontoria, and partly to the uncolored glass in the greater portion of the clerestory. Here and there the masonry has the mellow tones of meerschaum, shaded with pinkish and lava-gray tints, but the effect is rather that of ancient marble than of limestone. The interior, compared to Toledo, is a bride beside a nun.{43} Granting the loss of original simplicity and a rather distressing mixture of two styles, the combination has been handled with a skill and genius peculiarly Spanish and therefore picturesque. The austerity of the French prototype has been replaced by joyousness and regal splendor. If we examine carefully the older portions of the interior structure and carving as well as the traces of parts that have disappeared, we feel how very French it is, and undoubtedly erected without assistance from Moorish hands. The vaulting is like some of the French, very rounded, especially in the side aisles. It is all plain excepting under the dome and the vaults immediately abutting, where additional ribs were evidently added at a later time. The vaulting ribs of the main arches start unusually low down, almost on a level with the top of the triforium windows, giving the church relatively a much lower effect than Leon or the French Rheims or Amiens.

Both triforium and clerestory are very fine, especially in the nave, where, although they have undergone alterations, these are less radical than in the Capilla Mayor. The triforium, which is early thirteenth-century work, is strikingly singular. Its narrow gallery is covered by a continuous barrel vault parallel to the nave. Six slender columns divide its seven arches, while above them are trefoil and quatrefoil penetrations contained within a segmental arch, broken by carved heads. The fine old shafts, separating the trefoiled or quatrefoiled arcade, are hidden by crocketed pinnacles and a traceried balcony. The triforium east of the crossing has only four arches, with much later traceried work above. The{44} charming old simplicity is of course lost wherever gaudy carving has been added, but the oldest portions belong decidedly to the early Gothic work of northern France. Above rises the clerestory in its early vigor, with comparatively small windows, consisting of two arches and a rose.

Probably the crossing had originally a vault somewhat more elaborate than the others, or, possibly, even a small lantern. To emphasize the crossing, both internally and externally, was always a peculiar delight to Spanish builders. This characteristic was admirably adapted to Romanesque churches and in the Gothic was still felt to be essential, but Burgos shared the fate of Seville and the new Cathedral of Salamanca. The old writer, Cean Bermudez, relates that "the same disaster befell the crossing of Burgos that had happened to Seville,—it collapsed entirely in the middle of the night on the 3d of March, 1539. At that time the Bishop was the Cardinal D. Fray Juan Alvarez de Toledo, famous for the many edifices which he erected and among them S. Esteban of Salamanca. Owing to the zeal of the Prelate and the Chapter and the piety of the generous Burgalese, the rebuilding began the same year. They called upon Maestro Felipe, who was assisted in the planning and construction by Juan de Vallejo and Juan de Castanela, architects of the Cathedral. Felipe died at Toledo, after completing the bas-reliefs of the choir stalls. The Chapter honored his memory in a worthy manner, for they placed in the same choir under the altar of the Descent from the Cross this epitaph: 'Philippus Burgundio statuarius, qui ut manu sanctorum effigies, ita mores animo exprimebat:{45} subsellis chori struendis itentus, opere pene absoluto, immoritur.'"[6]

In place of the old dome rose one of the most marvelous and richest structures in Spain, a crowning glory to the heavenly shrine. It is at once a mountain of patience and a burst of Spanish pomp and pride. It is the labor of giants, daringly executed and lavishly decorated. "The work of angels," said Philip II. Nothing less could have called forth such an exclamation from those acrimonious lips and jaded eyes. The men who designed and erected it were the best known in Spain. There was Philip, the Burgundian sculptor with exquisite and indefatigable chisel, who had come to Spain in the train of the Emperor. Vallejo, one of the famous council that sat at Salamanca, had with Castanela erected the triumphal arch which appeased Charles's wrath kindled against the citizens of Burgos, and is even to-day, after the Cathedral, the city's most familiar landmark. In the year 1567, twenty-eight years after the falling of the first lantern, the new one towered completed in its place. It was a magnificent attempt at a blending, or rather a reconciliation, of the Renaissance and the Gothic. There is the character of one and the form of the other. Gothic trefoil arches and traceries are carried by classical columns. Renaissance balustrades and panels intermingle with crockets and bosses, and Florentine panels and statues with Gothic canopies. They are so interwoven that the careful student of architecture feels himself in a nightmare of styles and different centuries. It was of course an undertaking doomed to failure.{46}