Cathedral Cities of Spain

by W. W. Collins

Throughout the churches, in these houses, and the convents which remain unsuppressed are many fine pictures, and except for Seville, I found here more of interest than in any other city of Spain. In the convents of course mortal man is forbidden entrance, and I could only look at their lofty walls and wish myself a nearer acquaintance with the artistic treasures which I was told lay buried behind them.

Perhaps the best example of a square in the whole of the country is the Plaza Mayor. A lofty colonnade runs around the four sides and every evening the beauties and others of Salamanca make it their promenade. The men stroll round in one direction and the women in the opposite. The social life of a Spanish town passed in view before me, with all its fan and language of the eyes, as I sat at one of the small tables of a café and got this cheap and harmless entertainment for one real. The square dates from 1720; the houses are four storeys high and on the north and south sides bear medallions of kings and celebrated men. The Ayuntamiento, with its chirrigueresque façade, occupies the centre of the north side and adds greatly to the appearance of this fine Plaza where up to fifty years ago bull fights took place.

My work over, I nearly always found myself wandering on to the desert created by the French at the south-west angle of the city, and with my pipe spending half an hour or so meditating on the Salamanca of the Past and its contrast with the Present. The rock stands high here over the road and river below, and there is a drop of 100 feet or more down on to the former. It is but a narrow lane hedged in by a high wall and this forbidding-looking rock. When walking along this lane one day I noticed many crosses cut in the wall and chalked red. On inquiry I was told that each cross represented a suicide. From the height above, those tired of life or disappointed in love hurl themselves down and it is the unwritten law or prerogative of him who finds the mutilated body to carve a little cross on the wall at the spot where the unhappy mortal has ended his days. But it was not to prevent suicides that I wandered there and sat smoking my afternoon pipe. No, I fear it was something inglorious, it was to get away from the stenches and filth of the town and breathe the fresh air of the plain. I do not think that anywhere, unless it be in Tarragona, were my olfactory nerves so insulted as in Salamanca. Flies in thousands settled on my colour box and paper wherever I sat sketching. I can now appreciate fully the torture of the Egyptians during the plague.

Add to the flies beggars innumerable, with horrible sores, offal and filth in the streets and some of the romance vanishes. Yet Salamanca still remains the Spain of my imagination, for was not all this part and parcel of my dream?

AVILA

AVILA is one of the most perfectly preserved towns in Spain. It gave me the impression of having been dropped from the sky,—complete as it is—so desolate and barren is the boulder-strewn waste that surrounds it. A sort of suburb pushes its mean houses straggling beyond the walls, but Avila itself lies snugly within them. They are perfect—these walls that entirely encircle the old portion of the town. Forty feet high, twelve thick, with eighty-six defensive towers and bastions, and ten gates, they are constructed of slabs of granite set end upwards, and were always a hard nut for invaders to crack.

The Roman Avela afterwards fell into the hands of the Moors, who for long held it as a fortress of the first class. Alfonso VI., the conqueror of Toledo, drove them out after a lengthy siege, and Avila was rebuilt by his son Ramon of Burgundy. It was then that the present walls were built, being erected under the supervision of two foreigners, a Frenchman and an Italian, Florian de Pituenga and Cassandro. Since their day Avila has played an important rôle in the history of the country and witnessed many strange events.

In 1465 an extraordinary scene took place on the plain outside the city. That unpopular king, Enrique IV., was reigning at the time, and the hatred of the people towards him reached its height when his effigy was dragged from the city and set upon a throne which had been prepared for the ceremony of degradation. The Archbishop of Toledo having recounted the people's grievances, removed the crown from the effigy's head, others high in the land insulted it and at length pushed it off the throne, the people then kicked it about and a game of "socker" ensued. Prince Alfonso, a mere boy, was raised to the unoccupied seat, and hailed King by the Archbishop, nobles and people, amidst a blare of trumpets and general rejoicing.

Avila is an intensely cold place, frosts often occur here in May, but the summer months are delightful. Every street, every house almost is of interest, and in the old days of its importance there could have been few strongholds in the country so safe as this.

The Cathedral is almost a fort in itself. The east end forms part of the city walls, the apse abutting in line with the next two towers on either side forms part of the defensive works.