The vaulting, one hundred feet high, is carried by a series of gigantic white piers consisting of four semi-columns of Corinthian order with their intersecting angles formed by a triple rectangular break. The vaulting springs from above a full entablature and surmounting pedestals, the latter running to the height of the arches dividing the various vaulting compartments. The church is about 385 feet long and 220 feet wide.
The choir is uninteresting; the carving of its stalls and organs in nowise comparing with the "silleria" of Seville or Burgos. The Capilla Mayor, the principal feature of the interior, is circular in form, and separated from the nave by a splendid "Arco Toral." The dome, which rises to a height of 155 feet, is carried by eight Corinthian piers. In general scheme it is pure Italian Renaissance, of noble and harmonious proportions and very richly decorated. At the foot of the pilasters stand colossal statues of the Apostles. Higher up there is a series of most remarkable paintings by Alfonso Cano and some of his pupils. Cano's represent seven incidents in the life of the Virgin,—the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Assumption, etc. Though some of his carvings, and especially the dignified and noble Virgin in the sacristy, are admirable, still, to judge from this series, it was as a painter that he excelled. They show, too, how essentially Spanish he was, like his great master, Montañez. The careless, lazy quality of his temperament is sufficiently apparent, but he cannot be denied a place among the great masters of Spanish painting who immediately preceded the all-eclipsing glory of Velasquez, Murillo, and Ribera.{259}
The lights of the dome which rises over the paintings are filled with very lovely stained glass, representing scenes from the Passion by the Dutchmen, Teodor de Holanda, and Juan del Campo. On the two sides of the choir below are colossal heads of Adam and Eve carved by Cano and kneeling figures of Ferdinand and Isabella.
There are endless chapels outside the outer aisles, but, in spite of some good bits of sculpture and painting here and there, one longs to sweep them out of the way and free the edifice from their encumbrance.
The interior of the great sagrario is an expressionless jumble of the later Renaissance decadence,—and it is a shame that no more fitting architecture surrounds the tomb of the good Talavera, here laid to rest by his friend Tendilla, the first Alcaide of the Alhambra, with the inscription over his tomb, "Amicus Amico."
The general color scheme in the interior of the Cathedral is white and gold. One feels that it is handsome, even harmonious and magnificent, but that all the mystery and religious awe that pervaded the great churches of the previous centuries have vanished forever.
The Royal Chapel, although the oldest part of the building, should be considered last of all, as it is by far the most interesting portion and leaves an impression so vivid as to overshadow all other parts of the great edifice. It is situated between the sagrario and the Sacristia and is entered through the southern arm of the transept. The chapel itself is the very last Gothic efflorescence from which the spirit has fled, leaving only empty form. It consists of a single big nave flanked by lower chapels. The ornamentally{260} ribbed vaulting with gilt bosses and keystones is carried by clustered shafts engaged in its side walls. The shafts are too thin and the capitals too meagre. A broader and more generous string course runs, at the height of the capitals, across the wall surfaces between the upper clerestory and the lower arcades. Portions of this reveal a strong Moorish influence, as the manner in which the great Gothic lettering is employed to decorate the band. Similarly to the invocations to Allah running round the walls of the Alhambra, we read here that "This chapel was founded by the most Catholic Don Fernando and Doña Isabel, King and Queen of the Españos[d], of Naples, of Sicily, and Jerusalem, who conquered this kingdom and brought it back to the faith, who acquired the Canary Isles and Indies, as well as the cities of Ican, Tripoli, and Bugia; who crushed heresy, expelled Moors and Jews from these realms, and reformed religion. The Queen died Tuesday, November 26, 1504. The King died January 25, 1516. The building was completed 1517." Enrique de Egas had, at Ferdinand's order, commenced building two years after Isabella's death. The grandson enlarged it later, finding it "too small for so much glory."
The high altar with its retablo and the royal sarcophagi are separated from the rest of the chapel by the most stupendous and magnificent iron screen or reja ever executed. Spaniards have here surpassed all their earlier productions in this their master craft. Not even the screens of the great choir and altar of Seville or Toledo can compare with it. With the possible exception of the curious Biblical scenes naively represented by groups of figures near the apex, which{261} still tell their story in true Gothic style, it is a burst of Renaissance, or Plateresque glory. It is not likely that the crafts, with all their mechanical skill, will ever again produce a work of such artistic perfection. It represents the labor of an army of skilled artisans,—all the sensitive feeling in the finger-tips of the Italian goldsmith, the most cunning art of the German armorer and a combination of restraint and boldness in the Spanish smith and forger. The difficulty naturally offered by the material has also restrained the artisan's hand and imagination from running riot in vulgar elaboration. The design, made by Maestro Bartolomé of Jaen in 1523, is as excellent as the technique is astonishing. It may be said that in grandeur it is only surpassed by the fame of the Queen whose remains lie below. The material is principally wrought iron, though some of the ornaments are of embossed silver plate and portions of it gilded as well as colored. Bartolomé's design consists in general of three superimposed and highly decorated rows of twisted iron bars with molded caps and bases. Each one must have been a most massive forging, hammered out of the solid iron while it was red hot. The vertically aspiring lines of the bars are broken by horizontal rows of foliage, cherubs' heads and ornamentation, as well as two broad bands of cornices with exquisitely decorated friezes. Larger pilasters and columns form its panels, the central ones of which constitute the doorway and enclose the elaborate arms of Ferdinand and Isabella and those of their inherited and conquered kingdoms. The screen is crested by a rich border of pictorial scenes, of flambeaux and foliated Renaissance scrollwork, above which in the centre is throned{262} the crucified Saviour adored by the Virgin and Saint John. The crucifix rises to the height of the very capitals which carry the lofty vaulting.
Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid