Cathedral Cities of Spain

by W. W. Collins

With Toledo and Burgos, Leon's Cathedral forms the group of three great churches that are distinctly French, and closely resemble Amiens and Rheims. It would be difficult to find another building the interior of which exceeded the colour elegance and grace of this airy structure.

The west porch is the finest Gothic specimen of its kind which exists in Spain and recalls those of Notre Dame de Paris and the Cathedral at Chartres. Three archways are supported by cloistered columns to which are attached figures under beautiful canopies. The archivolts and tympanum are covered with sculpture representing the Reward of the Just and Unjust, the Nativity, Adoration, Flight in Egypt, and Massacre of the Innocents. All are extremely interesting, many of the figures being in contemporary costume. Two grand towers flank the west façade, of which the north is the older and some thirty feet less in height than its neighbour. Both are surmounted by spires, that of the south being an excellent example of open filigree work, rivalling those at Burgos and very much better than that of Oviedo.

Between these towers and above the porch is a pediment with spires and a glorious wheel window, underneath which is a row of windows that corresponds to the triforium. This portion is part of the late restoration.

The south porch also has three arches, which have been well renovated. The centre one alone has a door to admit into the interior, it is double and surrounded by figures in the archivolt with reliefs in the tympanum. On the centre column is a figure of San Froilan, at one time Bishop of Leon.

A beautiful balustrade follows the sky-line of the whole Cathedral. This is broken by many pinnacles, some of which are spiral, with others on the façades and finishing the supports of the flying buttresses, give the exterior a resemblance to a forest of small spires.

The interior is a marvel of beauty and lightness. The nave and aisles consist of six bays, no lateral chapels disfigure the latter with chirrigueresque atrocities. The triforium runs round the whole Cathedral. So cleverly has the spacing here been arranged, that with the clerestory it makes one magnificent panel of gorgeous light. The windows of this, forty feet high, were at one time blocked up for safety. They now contain stained glass, and soar upwards to the vaulting of the roof. Every window in the Cathedral is coloured and the effect as the sun streams through can well be imagined.

No flamboyant retablo spoils the simplicity of the east end, the place of what might have been a jarring note amidst the Gothic work being taken by good paintings in flat gilded frames. It was Señor Madrazo's idea to remove the coro from the centre of the nave, and had this been done Santa Maria de Regla would have gained immensely. The carved stalls are good, and the trascoro sculptured in white marble, which age has toned, and picked out in gold, is decidedly a fine work.

Among the chapels in the apse that of La Nuestra Señora del Dado contains a miraculous Virgin and Child. Tradition tells that a gambler who had lost heavily threw his dice at her and smote her on the nose. This forthwith bled copiously, hence the miracle and the name of "Dado" or "die." Another chapel contains the tomb of a great benefactress of the Cathedral, the Condesa Sancha. An expectant nephew, seeing her property slowly dwindling in the cause of the Faith, put an end to his aunt, and thereby met his own death by being pulled asunder by horses to which he was tied.