Cathedrals of Spain

by John A. Gade

Many of the bishops who were buried in the choir in its old location were, on its removal to the bay immediately west of the crossing, also moved and placed in the various chapels. The sepulchre of Bishop Sancho Davila is very fine. Like his predecessors, he was a fighting man. His epitaph reads as follows:—

"Here lies the noble cavalier Sancho Davila, Captain of the King Don Fernando and the Queen Doña Isabel, our sovereigns, and their alcaide of the castles of Carmona, son of Sancho Sanches, Lord of San Roman and of Villanueva, who died fighting like a good cavalier against the Moors in the capture of Alhama, which was taken by his valor on the 28th of February in the year 1490."

The pulpits on each side of the crossing, attached to the great piers, are, curiously enough, of iron, exquisitely wrought and gilded. The one on the side of the epistle is Gothic and the other Renaissance, the body of each of them bearing the arms of the Cathedral, the Agnus Dei, and the ever-present lions and castles. The rejas, closing off choir and Capilla Mayor in the customary manner, are heavy and ungainly. On the other hand, the trascoro, that often{83} sadly blocks up the sweep of the nave, is unusually low and comparatively inconspicuous. It contains reliefs of the life of Christ, from the first half of the sixteenth century, by Juan Res and Luis Giraldo. The choir itself is so compact that it only occupies one bay. The chapter evidently was a modest one. The stalls are of elaborate Renaissance workmanship. The verger now in charge, with the voice of a hoarse crow, reads you the name of the carver as the Dutchman "Cornelis 1536."

Strange to say, there are no doors leading, as they logically should, into the centre of the arms of the transept. Through some perversity, altars have taken their place, while the northern and southern entrances have been pushed westward, opening into the first bays of the side aisles. The southern door leads to a vestibule, the sacristy with fine Gothic vaulting disfigured by later painting, a fine fifteenth-century chapel and the cloisters. None of this can be seen from the front, as it is hidden by adjoining houses and a bare, pilastered wall crowned by a carved Renaissance balustrade. The galleries of the present cloisters are later Gothic work with Plateresque decorations and arches walled up.

Avila Cathedral is, as it were, a part and parcel of the history of Castile during the reigns of her early kings, the turbulent times when self-preservation was the only thought, any union of provinces far in the future, and a Spanish kingdom undreamed of. She was a great church in a small kingdom, in the empire she became insignificant. Much of her history is unknown, but in the days of her power, she was certainly associated with all great events in old Castile.{84} Her influence grew with her emoluments and the ever-increasing body of ecclesiastical functionaries. In times of war, she became a fortress, and her bishop was no longer master of his house. The Captain-General took command of the bastions, as of those of the Alcazar, and soldiers took the place of priests in the galleries. She was the key to the city, and on her flat roofs the opposing armies closed in the final struggle for victory.

The Cathedral has, in fact, only an eastern and a northern elevation, the exterior to the west and south being hidden by the huge tower and the confused mass of chapels and choir which extend to the walls and houses.

The western entrance front is noble and dignified in its austere severity; probably as old as the clerestory of the nave, it is a grim sentinel from the first part of the fourteenth century. With the exception of the entrance, it speaks the Romanesque language, although its windows and some of its decoration are pointed. It is magnificent and impressive, very Spanish, and almost unique in the Peninsula. Four mighty buttresses subdivide the composition; between these is the entrance, and to the north and south are the towers which terminate the aisles.

The southern tower has never been finished. The northern is full of inspiration. It is broken at two stages by double windows, the upper ones of the belfry being crowned by pediments and surmounted by rich, sunk tracery. The piers terminate in hexagonal pinnacles, while the tower, as well as the rest of the front, is finished with a battlement. The later blocking up of this, as well as the superimposed roofing,{85} is very evident and disturbing. All the angles of buttresses, of windows, arches, splays, and pyramids,—those also crowning the bulky piers that meet the flying buttresses,—are characteristically and uniquely decorated with an ornamentation of balls. It softens the hard lines, splashing the surface with infinite series of small, sharp shadows and making it sparkle with life and light. The angles recall the blunt, blue teeth of a saw.

The main entrance, as well as the first two bays of the naves underneath the towers, must originally have been of different construction from the present one. Inside the church, these bays are blocked off from nave and side aisles by walls, on top of which they communicate with each other as also with the eastern apse by galleries, probably all necessary for the defense of troops in the early days. Possibly a narthex terminated the nave back of the original entrance portal underneath the present vaulted compartment.

The main entrance door is indeed a strange apparition. In its whiteness between the sombre tints of the martial towers, it rises like a spectre in the winding-sheets of a later age. It is distressingly out of place and time in its dark framework.