In its early days many a noted prelate and honored churchman was laid to rest within the holy precinct of the choir in front of the high altar or in the rough old sepulchres of the surrounding chapels. With the moving of the choir, and probably also a change in the church ceremonies, came a rearrangement of the apse and the Capilla Mayor's relation to the new rites.
The retablo back of the high altar, consisting of Plateresque ornament, belongs for the most part to the Renaissance. The Evangelists and church fathers are by Pedro Berruguete (not as great as his son, the sculptor Alfonso), Juan de Borgoña and Santos Cruz. In the centre, facing the ambulatory behind, is a fine Renaissance tomb of the renowned Bishop Alfonso Tostada de Madrigal. He is kneeling in full episcopal robes, deeply absorbed either in writing or possibly reading the Scriptures. The workmanship on mitre and robe is as fine as the similar remarkable work in Burgos, while the enclosing rail is a{80} splendid example of the blending of Gothic and Renaissance.
Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
AVILA
From outside the walls
The glass in the apse windows is exceptionally rich and magnificently brilliant in its coloring. It was executed by Alberto Holando, one of the great Dutch glaziers of Burgos, who was given the entire contract in 1520 by Bishop Francisco Ruiz, a nephew of the great Cardinal Cisneros.
Such, in short, are the characteristics of the chevet of the Cathedral of Avila, constructed in an age when its builders must have worked in a spirit of hardy vigor with the trowel in one hand and the sword in the other. As we see it to-day, it imparts a feeling of mystery, and its oriental splendor is enhanced by the dim, religious light.
In entering the crossing, we step into the fullness of the Gothic triumph. The vaults have been thrown into the sky to the height of 130 feet. It is early Gothic work, with its many errors and consequent retracing of steps made in ignorance. The great arches that span the crossing north and south had taken too bold a leap and subsequently required the support of cross arches. The western windows and the great roses at the end of the transepts, with early heavy traceries, proved too daring and stone had to be substituted for glass in their apertures; the long row of nave windows have likewise been filled with masonry. Despite these and many similar penalties for rashness, the work is as dignified as it is admirable. Of course the proportions are all small in comparison with such later great Gothic churches as Leon and Burgos, the nave and transepts here being merely 28 to 30 feet wide, the aisles only 24 feet wide. Avila{81} is but an awkward young peasant girl if compared with the queenly presence of her younger sisters. Nevertheless Avila is in true Spanish peasant costume, while Leon and Burgos are tricked out in borrowed finery. The nave is short and narrow, but that gives an impression of greater height, and the obscurity left by the forced substitution of stone for glass in the window spaces adds to the solemnity. The nave consists of five bays, the aisle on each side of it rising to about half its height. The golden groining is quadripartite, the ribs meeting in great colored bosses and pendents, added at periods of less simple taste. In the crossing alone, intermediary ribs have been added in the vaulting.
The walls of the transept underneath the great blind wheels to the north and south are broken by splendid windows, each with elaborate tracery (as also the eastern and western walls), heavy and strong, but finely designed. The glazing is glorious, light, warm, and intense. The walls of the nave, set back above the lowest arcade some eighteen inches, have triforium and clerestory, and above this again, they are filled quite up to the vaulting with elaborate tracery, possibly once foolhardily conceived to carry glass. Each bay has six arches in both triforium and clerestory, all of simple and early apertures. The glazing of the clerestory is white, excepting in one of the bays. In this single instance, a simple, geometric pattern of buff and blue stripes is of wonderfully harmonious and lovely color effect.
The shafts that separate nave from side aisles are still quite Romanesque in feeling,—of polygonal core faced by four columns and eight ribs. The capitals{82} are very simple with no carving, but merely a gilded representation of leafage, while the base molds carry around all breaks of the pier. It may be coarse and crude in feeling and execution, certainly very far from the exquisite finish of Leon, nevertheless the infancy of an architectural style, like a child's, has the peculiar interest of what it holds in promise. Like Leon, the side aisles have double roofing, allowing the light to penetrate to the nave arcade and forming a double gallery running round the church.