Cathedrals of Spain

by John A. Gade

The Angel de la Guarda, or Guardian Angel, is one of the master's very best works. The purples and yellows of the angel's vesture have kept their depth and richness through all the centuries in which the colors have been drying.

There might be a guide-book dealing with the paintings of the Cathedral alone. How differently it is decorated from the great Gothic cathedrals of the present Anglican Church! In Seville as in Florence, all the fine arts seemed to flower and come to perfection during the sixteenth century. Sculpture and painting were employed to embellish architecture, as in the ancient days of Greece. The sister arts walked once more hand in hand. The figures in stone and still more in terra-cotta which adorn the exterior porches and the more decorative portions of the interior are unusually fine. Many of the bishops, saints and kings have an unmistakable Renaissance feeling. Take, for instance, such a statue as the Virgin del Reposo, so dear to the Sevillians,—you feel in all the handling the period of transition. Such sculptors as Miguel Florentin, Juan Marin, and Diego de Pesquera must have been influenced by Italy when they carved the statues which adorn the Cathedral of Seville.

The contact with Italy and the many Italian workmen gradually induced faithlessness to the earlier Gothic ideals of the founders and builders of the church. The great Maestro Mayor of Toledo Cathedral,{224} Henrique de Egas, was among the first to introduce restraint in Spanish building after the fanaticism of the later flamboyant. In the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, a well-known Toledan published a Spanish abridgment of Vitruvius; this in conjunction with the influence of many foreign artists led the way to classical building. Granada was soon resurrected as a Greek-Roman "Centralbau" and even the crossing of Gothic Burgos was unfortunately restored by Borgoña after classic models.

The new foreign movement found expression in architecture, in sculpture and in painting, often with the most extraordinary attempts to employ the new without discarding the old. Grotesque and fantastic ornaments crown illogical construction.

The royal chapel, the chapter house, the sagrario and the great sacristy are examples of the new-born style. The first two are magnificent specimens of Spanish Renaissance. Each of them is a fine church in itself, and they can only be classed as chapels because they bear that relation and are proportioned to the immense mother church of Seville.

The walls of the Capilla Real form the eastern termination to the Cathedral, and the chapel is very properly planned upon the axe of the church and entered through a splendidly decorated lofty arch. It is about 81 by 59 feet in plan, and 113 feet high to the lantern crowning the really fine dome. A round altar at its eastern extremity is closed off by a typically impressive reja. The architecture is of the magnificence of Saint Peter's in Rome, and not unlike it in detail. Eight Corinthian pilasters support the dome, breaking the wall space into panels and carrying the{225} richest classical cornice surmounted by fine statues of the Apostles, Evangelists and kings. The chapel takes its name from being the burial place of the royal house. Along its walls are the tombs of Saint Ferdinand's consort, of Alfonso the Learned and his mother, Beatrice of Suabia, and the beautiful Doña Maria de Padilla, the mistress of Pedro the Cruel. He himself is buried below in the vault with many other of the royal princes. In the centre of the chapel Saint Ferdinand lies in full armor with a crown on his head. Three times a year he is shown to the soldiers of Spain, who march past with sounding bugles and lowered banners.

The chapel was planned and built by Martin Ganza during the reign of Charles V. Shortly after the defeat of the Moors, an earlier royal one was built upon the same site and added to the old mosque. When the great new Cathedral was planned, the Chapter begged permission to remove temporarily the bodies of the royal personages interred in the chapel,—the holy King Ferdinand, his mother and son. This petition was granted by Queen Joanna on condition that they would rebuild it on a more fitting scale at as early a date as possible. The Chapter preferred, however, to expend all its means and energies on the great vaulting of the Cathedral rather than on the new royal sepulchre, and this was not rebuilt until Charles V finally lost patience over the negligent and disrespectful manner in which the remains of his forbears were treated and wrote to the Chapter, in 1543, commanding them "to start the work without any delay whatsoever, and to bring it to completion as rapidly as possible, and to execute the{226} work as excellently as befitted its royal guests." That the workmen made no delay in obeying the royal commands is shown by the fact that the walls were well up as early as 1566 and finished shortly afterwards.

None of the Spanish cathedrals have a better type of Plateresque architecture and decoration than the sacristy, built during the first half of the seventeenth century. The plan is that of a Greek cross, 70 by 40 feet, and about 120 feet high. Its dome, spanning the great central vault, is a distinct feature in any comprehensive exterior view of the Cathedral. The Sacristy is filled with curious and priceless relics, treasures, and vestments belonging to the church. As Santa Justa and Santa Rufina are in a manner the patron saints of Seville, their picture by Goya hanging here is of interest. Both of them hold vessels of the character of soup dishes; and their faces, taken from Seville models, are of decidedly earthly types.

To the west of the façade as you enter, lies the large sagrario, or parish church. It is a building entirely by itself, 112 feet long, with a single nave spanned by a dangerously bold barrel vault.

Here and there among the chapels you come suddenly on famous subjects by great masters, names renowned in Spanish history or striking works of art. Learning and statesmanship are honored in great Mendoza's monument: the silent mailed effigies of the Guzmans commemorate the thrilling exploits of Spanish arms. What sympathies are stirred as you stand uncovered before the tomb of the great and deeply wronged Discoverer! We hear again the passionate appeals and the vain pleadings of his undaunted{227} faith. The living head was left to whiten within prison walls; its effigy is now proudly carried on the four gorgeous shoulders of the Spanish states; the poor bones, after their weary travels from Valladolid to the Carthusian monastery of Las Cuevas, from Hispaniola to Havana, have finally found a resting-place within the very walls where they were once treated with such contumely,—for here lies the Great Admiral, Cristoforo Colon.