This produced the desired result, for the two delinquent architects hurried to the city, studied the conditions, and, after considerable squabbling with each other and the Chapter, many drawings, and a lengthy report, agreed to disagree. This was too much for the Bishop, and without further ado he summoned on the 3d of September, 1512, a famous conclave of all the celebrated architects in Spain to pass on the report of Egas of Toledo and Rodriguez of Seville and settle the matter. Here sat besides Egas, Juan Badajos, Juan Gil de Hontañon, Alfonso Covarrubias, Juan de Orazco, Juan de Alava, Juan Tornero, Rodrigo de Sarabia and Juan Campero. The matter was thrashed out both as to site and form and a final report sent in, stating the result of their deliberations, "and as they were much learned and skilful men, and experienced in their art, their opinion ought certainly to be acted on." However, to leave no further doubt, every one of them swore "by God and Saint Mary, under whose protection the Church is, and upon the sign of the Cross, upon which they all and each of them put their hands bodily, that they had spoken the entire truth, which each of them did, saying, 'So I swear, and Amen.'" This settled the business. Three days afterwards, Juan Gil de Hontañon, the later builder of Segovia and rebuilder of the dome of Seville, was named Maestro Mayor and Juan Campero, his apprentice.{23}
On a stone of the main façade there still stands an inscription recording the solemn laying of the corner-stone on the 12th of May, 1513. It was dedicated to the Mother and the Saviour. The wisest of the resolutions passed by this wisest of architectural bodies was the recommendation to leave the old edifice undisturbed.
Work was immediately started on the western entrance front and continued with untiring energy by Juan Gil until his death in 1531. His two sons assisted him, and they were all constantly guided and aided by a body of the most eminent Spanish architects who yearly visited the edifice. On the death of Maestro Alvaro, six years later, Juan's son, Rodrigo Gil, was selected as Maestro Mayor. He naturally tried to carry out all his father had planned, building with equal rapidity and no less excellence. By 1560 the work had been carried as far towards the east as the crossing. Amid immense popular rejoicing, and with ecclesiastical pomp, the Holy Sacrament was moved from the old Basilica to the new. "Pio III papa, Philippe II rege, Francisco Manrico de Lara episcopo, ex vetere ad hoc templum facta translatio xxv mart. anno a Christo nato mdlx." This of course gave a new impetus to the work, and arch after arch, chapel on chapel, rapidly grew through the next decades. The bigoted Philip naturally looked on with favoring eye.[3] Twice the work languished, but was resumed through the waning period{24} of the Gothic style. The new classicism was triumphantly replacing the dying art, and the builders of Salamanca were sorely perplexed whether or not to make a radical departure to the newer style. Most fortunately, the conclave called together at this critical moment remained loyal to the original conception, and the Renaissance only took possession in ornamentation and the dome. Not until 1733 was the final "translation" celebrated. Later, earthquakes and lightning shook down both dome and tower, so that practically it was not till the nineteenth century that the last mortar was dry. The building spanned a long and glorious epoch in the city's history, from a time when her imperial master ruled the world until a foreign upstart trampled her under foot.
The plan of the new Cathedral, like that of Seville, is an enormous rectangle of ten bays, resembling a huge mosque, 378 feet long by 181 feet wide. It consists of nave and double side aisles without projecting transept; square chapels fill the outer aisles as well as the bays of the eastern termination. After much discussion it was decided that the nave (130 feet high) should be about one third higher than the first side aisles; the chapels are 54 feet in height.
The choir blocks the third and fourth bays of the nave, while the Capilla Mayor occupies the eighth. Over the sixth soars the lantern. The platform of the Patio Chico separates the sacristy and the old Cathedral that practically abuts the entire southern front. At the southwestern angle, the intersection of the two cathedrals is hidden by the gigantic tower. The northern front is admirably free, the whole structure being visible on its high granite platform. The{25} western front is entered through the great triple doorway, the central being that of the Nacimiento; the northern, through the Puerta de las Ramos, the southern, through the Puerta del Patio Chico.
Glancing at the plan as a whole, one cannot but deplore that a conception of such daring proportions with no limitation of time nor money, having centuries and the wealth of the Indies to draw on, was not conceived with that most perfect of all Gothic developments, the semicircular apsidal termination. The Spanish, as well as the customary English eastern end, can never, from any standpoint of ingenuity or beauty, be comparable to the amazing conceptions of Rheims or Amiens or Paris.
The interior effect is expressed in one word,—"grandiloquence." It is a true child of the age which conceived it, and the spirit which informed its erection. If the fabric of the old Cathedral is essentially Romanesque, with later Gothic ornamentation and constructional features, the new is entirely Gothic, with Renaissance additions. The spirit and form are Gothic,—Spanish Gothic,—and one of its last sighs. The fire was extinct. By display and sculptural fire-works, by bold flaunting of mechanical mastery, a last trial and glorious failure were made in an attempt to emulate the marvelous structural logic and simplicity which had marked the Gothic edifices of an earlier age.
The blending of the two styles does not jar, but has been effected with a harmony scarcely to be expected. If one were not hampered with an architectural education, one could admire it all, instead of criticizing and wondering why a Renaissance lantern is raised{26} upon a Gothic crown, and why a fine Renaissance balustrade above Gothic band-courses separates the nave arches from its clerestory, while those of the side aisles are separated by a Gothic one. The interior fabric itself is fine: it is more in detail, in the stringiness and multiplicity of moldings, in the fineness, subdivision, and elaboration of carvings and ornament that one feels the advancing degeneration. From being frank and simple, it has become insincere and profuse.
The Gothic window openings, which had been steadily developing larger and bolder up to their culmination in the glorious conservatory of Leon, had again grown smaller and more fitted to the climate. In Salamanca they are small and high up. Nave and side aisles both carry clerestories; that of the nave consisting of seventy-two windows in alternate bays of three windows and two windows with circle above, that of the side aisle, of one large window subdivided within its own field. The chapel walls are also pierced by smaller openings. Some have good though not excellent coloring.
The form of the Renaissance lantern is not infelicitous, either from the inside or outside. It was first built by Sacchetti. The double base is octagonal, with corners strengthened by columns and pilasters and executed with much artistic skill. Were it not for the vulgar interior coloring and ornamentation of cherubs, scrolls, and scallop shells, contorted, disproportionate, and unmeaning, its high, brilliantly lighting semicircle might be pleasing. Horrible decoration fills the panels of the octagonal base. The dome itself is almost as gaudily colored.{27}