Cathedral Cities of Spain

by W. W. Collins

Beneath the church is a semicircular stone crypt, similar to that beneath the Cámara Santa; it is entered from the cottage in which at one time lived the officiating priest. The caretaker inhabits this cottage, which is built on to the church, and I had come at her dinner hour. Alas! she could not leave me in peace, and I must own to a defeat. I was practically driven away, for the meal was spoiling and required her undivided attention, but I had seen Santa Maria de Naranco; I had grasped how in the early days, when the Infidel was overrunning the land, this little building on the lone hillside was a centre of the Faith, and how from the surrounding mountain fastnesses worshippers had gathered here and gone away strengthened by prayer, and how from this little seed of the Church sown on the forest-clad hill Spain's mightiness had grown.

VALLADOLID

FOR nearly one hundred and fifty years, from the reign of Juan II., 1454, to Philip II., 1598, Valladolid was a royal city and the capital of Castile. It lies on the plain through which the river Pisuerga meanders, just touching the outskirts of the city on the western side. In the Moorish days Valladolid was known as Belad al Wali, "The Town of the Governor," and flourished as a great agricultural centre. It is still the focus of the corn trade of Old Castile. It was here that Prince Ferdinand, despite attempts on the part of his father Juan II. to frustrate it, was introduced to Isabella the reigning Queen of Castile and Leon. Many suitors had proposed themselves and paid their addresses to this paragon among women, but possessing a will of her own she made her choice and selected the Prince whom she married on October 19, 1469.

Valladolid suffered more severely at the hands of the French than any other city of Spain. They demolished most of the good houses and despoiled the churches; among those that are left, however, I found plenty to interest me and to make a stay, after I had discovered them, well worth the while.

I made a sketch of Santa Maria la Antigua, which is the most interesting edifice in the place. The fine Romanesque tower is surmounted by a tiled steeple which recalls Lombardy, and although many additions have been made to the original fabric the whole building piles up very well, the early Gothic east end being particularly beautiful. This church dates from the twelfth century, but the greater part of it is pure Gothic. The roof is richly groined; there are three parallel apses, and the coro is at the west end—an always welcome place to find it. The retablo by Juan de Juni, whose work is scattered throughout the churches of Valladolid, is fine though over-elaborate.

Another good church is San Pablo, partly rebuilt by the great Cardinal Torquemada, whose name will for ever be associated with the terrors of the Inquisition. I found another subject for my brush in its very intricate late Gothic west façade. The upper part of this contains the arms of the Catholic Kings, below which on either side are those of the Duque de Lerma. The niches are luckily all filled with their original figures, and the wonderful tracery of the round window is also in good preservation. The grey finials are weather-worn and contrast well with the rich yellow and pink of the rest of the front, a façade which is absolutely crammed with intricate design. Two hideous towers of later date and of the same stone as that with which the Cathedral is built, flank this and detract unfortunately from one of the best examples of late Gothic work in the country.

Hard by, up the street pictured in my sketch, stands the Colegiata de San Gregorio, with an equally fine façade, though being an earlier Gothic it is more severe in type. The doorway of this is surmounted by a genealogical tree and the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella. Some of the figures of rough hairy men with cudgels are very primitive. San Gregorio was a foundation of Cardinal Ximenes, it is now used as municipal offices. Passing through the doorway I entered a beautiful little court, rather dark, but with sufficient light to enable me to appreciate the good artesonade ceiling of its cloisters. The second court is a blaze of light. Spiral fluted columns form the cloister, the ceiling of which is picked out in a cerulean blue and white; they support a recently restored gallery, a mixture of Moorish, Romanesque and plateresque work, into which the sheaves and yoke of the Catholic Kings is introduced as at Granada and Santiago, making a very effective whole. A fine old stone stairway leads from this court up to what in the old collegiate days was a library.

Of the Cathedral I fear I can write but little. It is a huge gloomy edifice without a single redeeming feature, and of all those I saw the most incomplete and disappointing. The exterior north and south walls are still unfinished, the stone work is not even faced! The east are built of brick, and the west façade, altered by Chirriguera himself from the original plan of Herrara, is extremely bald and ugly.