Cathedrals of Spain

by John A. Gade

Here and there, in the interior as in the exterior, we find, mixed with or decorating the Gothic, Moorish and Renaissance details and the later extravagances which followed the decline of the Gothic. Even where the carvers are expressing themselves{161} in Gothic or Renaissance details, we frequently observe an extreme richness, a love of chiaroscuro, of sparkling jewel-like light and shade, and intricately woven ornamentation which betrays the influence of the Arab. We see the Morisco, a kind of fusion of French and Moorish, in many places. The triforium of the choir is decidedly Moorish in its design, although it is Gothic in all its details and has carvings of heads and of the ordinary dog-tooth enrichment instead of merely conventionalized leaf and figure ornament. It consists of a trefoil arcade. In the spandrels between its arches are circles with heads and, above these, triangular openings pierced through the wall. The moldings of all the openings interpenetrate, and the whole arcade has the air of intricate ingenuity so usual in Moorish work. Again, in the triforium of the inner aisle we find Moorish influence,—the cusping of the arcade is not enclosed within an arch but takes a distinct horseshoe outline, the lowest cusp near the cap spreading inward at the base. We see Moorish tiles, we find Moorish cupolas as in the Mozarabic chapel, and Moorish doorways, as the exquisite one leading into the Sala Capitular,—here and there and everywhere, we suddenly come upon details betraying the Arab intimacy.

The children of the Renaissance also embellished in their new manner, not only in the magnificent carvings of the choir but in a variety of places, for instance, the doors themselves contained within the Moorish molds leading to the Sala just mentioned, the entire chapel of St. Juan, the Capilla de Reyes Nuevos, portions of the Puerta del Berruguete, and the bronze doors of the Gate of the Lions.{162}

Again, on the capitals and bases of many of the piers, with the exception of those of the central nave, Byzantine influence may be seen.

So each age, according to its best ken, dealt with the Cathedral. In among the varying styles of architectural decoration, the sister arts embellish the stone surfaces or are hung upon them. There are paintings by Titian, Giovanni Bellini, and Rubens, by El Greco, Goya, and Ribera; Italian and Flemish tapestries, and frescoes too. Probably the greater portion of the main walls were covered with them, for here and there traces are still to be seen and a tree of Jesse remains in the tympanum of the south transept, and near it an enormous painting of Saint Christopher.

While the "Tresorio" may have been the treasure-house of the clergy, the church itself was that of the people. Here was their art museum, here were their galleries. The decorations became the primers from which they learnt their lessons. Here they would meet in the afternoon hour as the light fell aslant sapphire and ruby, through the clerestory openings. It would light up their treasures with strange, unearthly glory and form aureoles and haloes of rainbow splendor over the heads of their beloved saints. Cool amethyst and emerald and warmer amber and gold touched the darkest corners, and a gold and purple glory illuminated the high altar.

Some of the earlier glass is as fine as any to be found in Europe. The depth and intensity of the colors are remarkable. Probably none of it was Spanish, but all was imported from France, Belgium, or Germany. The glass in the rose of the north transept and in the eastern windows of the transept{163} clerestory can hold its own beside that of the cathedrals of Paris and Amiens. The subject scheme of the rose in the north transept is truly noble. The earliest glass is that in the nave (a little later than 1400), and this is Flemish. The windows of the aisles are at least a century later. Their composition is simple and broad, the coloring rich and deep, and the interior dusk of the church enhances the value of the sunlight filtering through the glass.

Better than to descend into the immense crypt below the Cathedral, with its eighty-eight massive piers corresponding to those above, is it to stray into the broken sunlight of the green and fragrant cloister arcade.

Bishop Tenorio procured the site for the church from the Jews, who here, right under the walls of the Christian church, held their market. A fresco adjoining the gate explains by what means. It represents on a ladder a fiendish-looking Jew who has cut the heart out of a beautiful, crucified child and is holding the dripping dagger in his hand. This fresco stirred up the fury of the Christian populace to the point of burning the Jewish market, houses and shops, which then were annexed by the Bishop. The fine, two-story Gothic arcade of the cloisters encloses a sun-splashed garden filled with fragrant flowers. Around the walls of the lower arcade are a series of very mediocre frescoes. The architecture itself is not nearly as interesting as that of the cloisters of Salamanca. It ought particularly to be so in this portion of the church, for here is the very climate and place for the courtyard life of the Spaniard.{164}

V

So lies the Cathedral, crumbling in the sunlight of the twentieth century. Beautiful, but strange and irreconcilable to all that is around her, she alone, the Mother Church, stands unshaken, lonely and melancholy, but grand and solemn in the midst of the paltry and tawdry happenings of to-day. She has served giants, and now sees but a race of dwarfs; princes have prostrated themselves at her altars, where now only beggars kneel. Her walls whisper loneliness, desertion, widowed resignation.