Cathedral Cities of Spain

by W. W. Collins

Very few cities in Spain can boast of prehistoric walls still extant. Tarragona can do so. The huge uneven blocks of granite, which may be seen in my sketch of the Archbishop's Tower, occupy the lower portion of the old Roman walls. On the north side of the city they are even more visible than in the sketch. Some of the blocks measure thirteen by seven by five feet. Three of the ancient portals, the stone of which is faced inside, still exist, but apparently no records do, to tell us who placed these Cyclopean defences where they stand to-day.

Many remains of Roman days may be seen built into the houses of the old and higher town, tablets, mural inscriptions, bits of columns, &c. The Cathedral possesses numerous plinths and pillars of marble from the quarries at Tortosa, built into its walls, and the Font in the Baptistery is an old Roman basin. What a glorious city it must have been when the Emperor Augustus made it his capital! and the overland trade met the sea-going in the harbour below.

Twenty miles away at Gayá the Romans tapped a continuous supply of fresh water, and their aqueduct, a good deal of which remains, ranks next to that of Segovia in size, and stands as an example of how the Romans built. Roman villas with incomparable views out to sea, dotted the hillsides; temples to every god and goddess rose in the city, which contained a million inhabitants. It possessed a mint of its own, and, favoured by nature and art, became known as "Colonia victrix togata turrita."

The Moslem sacked Tarragona, and for four centuries one of the glories of Colonial Rome lay a heap of ruins. In 1089, at the commencement of the building of the Cathedral, the see, much to the disgust of Toledo, was raised to metropolitan dignity. Thenceforth, between the two cities, endless disputes have arisen as to the Primacy of Spain.

Though begun at the above date, most of the Cathedral is of twelfth and early thirteenth-century work. It is not known who designed this magnificent church, the finest example of Transition in Spain. The interior is very simple and very dignified. The roof is borne by grand piers, thirty-five feet in circumference. Their bases are broken by four seats, one in each corner, placed thus to enhance the line of the composition, and break the otherwise too great severity of the foundations.

There is no triforium; but an early pointed clerestory of large bays, and a superb rose window in the west, of date 1131, admit a flood of light. Nothing could well be simpler than the pairs of massive columns which carry the centre arches of the vaulting, nor finer than the delicate single attendant at their sides from which spring the transverse sections. All these are capped with square Romanesque capitals.

The chancel is pure Romanesque and very beautiful. The semicircular end of the Capilla Mayor and the two small apses are the oldest part of this noble building. The retablo of the High Altar is alabaster, and carved with reliefs of the martyrdom of Santa Tecla, Tarragona's patroness. The delicate tapering finials and the figures under canopies below, are carved in wood. Behind the High Altar is a very interesting urn which contains the ashes of Cyprian, a Gothic archbishop.

The fine cimborio which rises above the crossing has eight windows of three and four lights alternately, which contain fragments of very brilliant coloured glass. In the transepts are two magnificent wheel windows full of good glass, indeed I know of no better scheme of colour than that which adorns this window on the south side.