The Picturesque Antiquities of Spain / Described in a series of letters, with illustrations representing Moorish palaces, cathedrals, and other monuments of art, contained in the cities of Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville.

by Nathaniel Armstrong Wells

In ceasing, however, to live, and to fill society far and wide with its enlightening influence,—in exchanging its erect attitude for the prostrate one consequent on its fall,—seldom has a creed, which has long held possession of the most enlightened intellects of our race for the time being, undergone an entire extinction, so as to disappear altogether from the face of the earth, and leave no trace of its existence. The influence of the soil, formation, and climate of the region, in the bosom of which such civilization has had its birth, on the dispositions and faculties of the race which has become its depositary, has always set its peculiar mark on its monuments, whether civil, military, or religious, but especially the last; which monuments, surviving the reign of the power to which they owe their existence, prolong and sanctify its memory, while they stand, erect and silent, over its grave; and furnish valuable information and benefit to those future generations sufficiently enlightened to consult them.

If this theory of successions and vicissitudes be consonant (which probably no one will deny) with the march of events on the surface of this our planet, then do the circumstances of the present situation invest, as far as regards Spain, those relics of human genius and human enthusiasm, the venerable temples of her declining faith, with an interest beyond that which they have possessed at any period since their foundation. It is impossible to have paid any attention to the events of the last few years, without having received the conviction that the reign of Christianity is here fast approaching,—not the commencement, but the termination of its decline. Spaniards will never do things by halves; and will probably prefer the entire overthrow of ancient customs to the system pursued in France, of propping up, by government enactments and salaries, a tottering edifice of external forms, long since divested of its foundation of public belief.

To speak correctly, the decline of religious supremacy in Spain is by no means recent. It was coeval with that of the arts, and of the political grandeur of the country. The gradual cessation of the vast gifts and endowments for the erection of the religious establishments was a symptom of devotional enthusiasm having passed its zenith. Had not this occurred nearly three centuries back, Madrid would not have wanted a Cathedral. Nothing could ever have tended more directly to compromise the durability of Christianity in Spain, than the final expulsion or extermination of the Moors and Jews. Had Torquemada and a few others possessed heads as clear and calculating as their hearts were resolute and inexorable—a knowledge of human nature as profound as their ambition of divine honours was exalted, they would have taken care not entirely to deprive the Church of food for its passions and energies. They would not have devoured all their heretics at a single meal, but would have exercised more ménagement and less voracity. They would have foreseen that by burning a few hundred Jews and Arabs less each year, nourishment would remain to animate the declamations of preachers, and the energies of the faithful; without which the fatal effects of sloth and indifference must inevitably take root in the imaginations, and eventually undermine their lofty fabric.

The decline was, however, so gradual as to exercise no perceptible influence on the general conduct of the population, by whom forms were still observed, churches filled, and acts of devotion unceasingly accomplished. A variety of causes (into a description of which it is not my object, nor would it be your wish, that I should enter, but of which one of the most influential has been the importation of foreign ideas—as well through natural channels, as by special and interested exertions) has precipitated the dénouement of this long-commenced revolution; and that with so headlong a rapidity, that, in that Spain which surpassed all other nations in bigoted attachment to religious rites, the confiscation of all the possessions of the Church, under a promise (not to be performed) of salaries for a certain number of ecclesiastics, insufficient for the continuation of the ancient ceremonies, is received by the population with indifference! The Cathedral of Toledo, deprived of the greater number of its functionaries,—including its archbishop and fifty-six of its sixty canons, and no longer possessing, out of an income of hundreds of thousands sterling, a treasure sufficient for providing brooms and sweepers for its pavement,—will, in perhaps not much more than another year, if the predictions of the inhabitants be verified, be finally closed to public worship.

The same interest, therefore, which surrounded the Arab monuments three centuries since, and the Roman edifices of Spain in the fifth century, attaches itself now to the Christian temples; which, at this crisis, offer themselves to the tourist in the sad but attractive gloom of approaching death; since depriving them of the pomp and observances which filled their tall arcades with animation, is equivalent to separating a soul from a body. He will explore them and examine their ceremonies with all the eagerness and perseverance of a last opportunity,—he will wander untired through the mysterious twilight of their arched recesses, and muse on the riches lavished around him to so little purpose, and on the hopes of those who entrusted their memories to the guardianship of so frail and transient a depositary. The tones of their giant though melodious voices, as, sent from a thousand brazen throats, they roll through the vaulted space the dirge of their approaching fate, will fill him with sadness; and the ray that streams upon him from each crimson and blue rosace will fix itself on his memory, kindling around it an inextinguishable warmth, as though he had witnessed the smile of a departing saint.

I had read of Toledo being in possession of the finest church in Spain,—and that in the book of a tourist, whose visit to this town follows immediately that to Seville. Begging pardon of the clever and entertaining writer to whom I allude, the Cathedral of Toledo strikes me as far from being the finest in Spain; nor would it be the finest in France, nor in England, nor in other countries that might be enumerated, could it be transported to either. It is large; but in this respect it yields to that of Seville. What its other claims to pre-eminence may be, it is difficult to discover. It is true that its interior presents a specimen of the simple and grand pointed style of its period. This being put in execution on a large scale, would render it an imposing and a beautiful edifice, but for a subsequent addition, which, to render justice to the architect, he certainly never could have contemplated. The noble pillars, towering to a height of sixty feet, have been clothed, together with their capitals, in a magnificent coat of whitewash! Without having witnessed such a desecration in this or some similar edifice, it is impossible to conceive the deadening effect it produces on the feeling of admiration such a building ought to excite. An inscription in distinct and large characters, over the southernmost of the three western doors, after recording the conquest of Granada by the Catholic Kings, as Ferdinand and Isabella are here termed, the expulsion of the Jews, and the completion of the Cathedral, brands with this act of barbarism one Don Francisco Fernandez de Cuença, obrero mayor (almost a Dean) of the Cathedral in the year 1493.

There is, however, a moment of each day when the tall arcades vindicate their outraged majesty. "La nuit tous les chats sont gris," says the proverb. I therefore proceeded at the approach of twilight (all access at a later hour being prohibited) to see whether its application would extend to this church. This is, in fact, the hour, just before the closing of the doors, at which it should be visited. Darkness has assumed his empire within these walls long before the stirring labyrinth without has had warning of his approach. No colours nor gildings (the latter being rather injudiciously distributed) are visible—nothing but a superb range of beautifully painted windows; and the columns only trace their dim outline a little less black against the deep gloom of the rest of the building. At this hour, could it last, it would be impossible to tire of wandering through this forest of magnificent stems, of which the branches are only seen to spring, and immediately lose themselves beneath the glories of the coloured transparencies rendered doubly brilliant by their contrast with the gloom of all below them. The principal merit, in fact, of this edifice, consists in its windows. That of the purity of its general style deserves also to be allowed; but with some reserve in the appreciation of the accessory points of the design. It depended, for instance, on the judgment of the architect, to diminish or to increase the number of columns which separate the different naves, and by their unnecessary abundance he has impaired the grandeur of the general effect.

The interior dimensions are as follows:—Length, including a moderately sized chapel at the eastern extremity, three hundred and fifty English feet; width, throughout, one hundred and seventy-four feet; height of the principal nave and transept, about one hundred and twenty feet. The width is divided into five naves; those at the outside rising to about two-thirds of the height of the two next adjoining; and these to about half that of the centre nave. An entire side of a chapel opening out of the southernmost nave, is ornamented in the Arab style—having been executed by a Moorish artist at the same period as the rest; and not (as might be conjectured) having belonged to the mosque, which occupied the same site previously to the erection of the present cathedral. This small chapel would be a beautiful specimen of the Arab ornament in stucco, but for several coats of whitewash it has received. An arched recess occupies the centre, and is called the Tomb of the Alguazil. A handsome doorway in the same style is seen in the anteroom of the Chapter-saloon.

Facing the entrance to the centre or extreme eastern chapel, that of San Ildefonzo, the back of the high altar, or, as it is vulgarly called, the Trascoro, is—not adorned, would it were possible not to say disfigured, by an immense mass of sculpture called the Transparente. It is not easy to imagine the reason of this altar-piece having received its name, for it is not more transparent than any other mountain—never was witnessed so lamentable a mis-application of riches and labour! Some of the marble was brought from Carrara; the rest is not of a very good white, and being thus exposed to an unfavourable contrast, adds to the displeasing effect of the unwieldy forms which enter into the composition of this huge blunder of art—this pile of masses on masses of ugliness. At the sight of a large spherical form rising abruptly from the surface of some shaft of a pillar, you step back, and discover that it forms part of the posteriors of a corpulent cherub, as large as the column itself, which he has thus unmercifully annihilated, in order to save himself the trouble of passing a few inches to the left or right. But it is needless to notice the details of this piece of sculpture, which being the largest, and occupying the most conspicuous position in the whole church, forcibly attracts the attention which, but for that circumstance, one would rather bestow in another direction.