Cathedral Cities of Spain

by W. W. Collins

I was disappointed with the interior on first acquaintance, but it has only to be known to be appreciated. The imposing proportions, it is 340 feet long, 158 feet wide and close on 100 feet high, gradually asserted themselves, and before I left Salamanca I was much in love with Hontañon's masterpiece. A pierced balustrade takes the place of a triforium, flamboyant Renaissance in the aisles and classical in nave. It runs round the whole church and in the transepts and choir these two occur together. Medallions in the spandrils of the arches add to the rich effect.

Many details in this interior I found to be worth a second and third visit. The Chapel of Dorado, a veritable museum, contains the tomb of the builder, Fransico de Palenzuela. Its walls are covered with a profusion of coloured saints on gilt pedestals. There is a very curious old organ, standing at the back of an also curious old minstrel's gallery. A sad-looking skeleton, with "Memento Mori" cut on a slab at his feet, occupies a dark hole in one of the walls. Fine azulejos decorate the chapel, and many other antiquities too, which I cannot enumerate.

In the Capilla del Carmen rest the remains of Gerómino, the Cid's bishop and confessor. An ancient wooden crucifix stands over the altar, it is the identical one carried by the bishop in the wars of the Cid. Another relic of the great Campeador is to be seen in the Relicario. A small Byzantine bronze, "el Crucifijo de las Batallas," studded with chequer work—a fine specimen of early Limoges enamel.

All this interested me muchly, but the "Catedral Vieja," a grand example of late Romanesque style, interested me more. Fortis Salmantica, as it was called, on account of the thickness of its walls, has not been used for service since its huge neighbour was erected.

I made a drawing of the only view which can be obtained of the exterior from the Plazuela chica. The central lantern is surmounted by the emblem of nobility, a cock, and is formed by an octagonal tower with a stone dome. The tower is arcaded and has four domed turrets and dormers at the corners similar to those at Zamora. Street considers that he has "never seen any central lantern more thoroughly good and effective from every point of view than this is."

To reach the interior one has to retrace one's steps to the "Catedral Nueva" and from its south aisle pass through a doorway into the other building. This was erected on a lower level than its big neighbour and with the attendant verger I descended ten steps and found myself in a very beautiful mellow-coloured church. The arches of the nave and aisles are pointed, but the windows and arcading are round. The capitals of the columns are a museum of carved fantasies, imps, animals, birds, &c. On the wall of the north aisle, which was partly demolished when the "Catedral Nueva" was built, are some very curious frescoes; the church has a clerestory of single lights but no triforium.

There is a wonderful retablo in the Capilla Mayor by an Italian, Nicolas Florentino. It is still in perfect preservation, and the fifty-five frescoes set in white and gold of which it is composed have a beautiful effect in the semi-gloom of the dark chapel. The Mozárabic Ritual is celebrated six times a year in another chapel, La Capilla de Talavera. The groining of its roof is the only one of the sort I have seen, it is composed of parallel ribs which cross one another. In the Capilla de San Bartolomé lies Bishop Diego de Anaya. His tomb is surrounded by one of the finest examples of wrought and hammered iron work in the whole of Spain. Some other members of this family are also interred in the chapel, which contains a mediæval organ covered by a screen of coloured Moorish arabesques.

The cloisters were built in 1170, but have been partly modernised and totally disfigured by a coat of whitewash. An uncared-for garden filled with rubbish occupies the centre. Surely some one might be found to tend this little secluded patch of quietness and make it a place for delightful repose instead of the disgrace it now is!