XIX. TUDELA--OLITE--PAMPLONA…

XIX. TUDELA--OLITE--PAMPLONA

FROM Zaragoza the railway to Pamplona passes by Tudela. The line is carried all the way along the valley of the Ebro, the southern side of which is a fairly level open country, whilst on the north bold, barren hills, stream-worn and furrowed in all directions, rise immediately above the river. The broad valley through which the railway passes is well covered with corn-land, which, when I first passed, was rich with crops. To the south, as Tudela is approached, are seen the bold ranges of the Sierra de Moncayo, whilst in the opposite direction, far off to the north, soon after leaving Zaragoza the grand and snowy outlines of the Pyrenees come in sight.

Alagon is the only considerable town passed on the road, and there seems to be here an old brick belfry of the same character as the great steeple of Zaragoza, and, like it also, very much out of the perpendicular.

The cathedral dedicated to Sta. Maria at Tudela is one of the same noble class of church as those of Tarragona and Lérida, and quite worthy in itself of a long pilgrimage. It is said by Madoz to have been commenced in A.D. 1135, and consecrated in 1188, and was at first served by Regular clergy, but Secularized in 1238. It is slightly earlier in date than the churches just mentioned, yet some of its sculpture, as will be seen, has, perhaps, more affinity to the best French work, and is indeed more advanced in style, than that with which the other two churches are decorated. This may be accounted for, most probably, by its more immediate neighbourhood to France. Its scale is fairly good without approaching to being grand, and thus it affords a good illustration of the great power which the mediæval architects undoubtedly possessed, of giving an impression of vastness even with very moderate dimensions, and of securing a thoroughly cathedral-like effect in a building much smaller in all its dimensions than the ordinary cathedral of the middle ages. No power is more to be desired by an architect; none marks more distinctly the abyss between the artist and the mere mechanical builder; and none has been more lost sight of during the three centuries which have elapsed since the eclipse of the Pointed style in the sixteenth century. We see here the usual subdivisions of parts, all well-proportioned and balanced. The nave[392] is of four bays only in length, and this is now, and perhaps was always in great part, occupied by the Coro: but, on the other hand, the proportions of the transept are very fine, and its internal perspective compensates in great degree for the loss of that of the nave. Out of this transept five arches in the east wall open to the choir and to four chapels, two on either side: and it is remarkable that two of these have square east ends, whilst all the rest have circular apses.

The plan of the columns is almost identical with that seen at Tarragona and Lérida: but it is one of which the eye is never satiated, inasmuch as it is well defined in its outlines, strong and massive-looking, and evidently equal to all that it has to perform. The vaulting is all quadripartite, except in the two eastern chapels on each side of the centre apse, or Capilla mayor, which are roofed with semi-domes, the Capilla mayor having its apse groined in five bays, with very bold groining ribs.

The arches are all pointed, very simply moulded with bold, broad, flat soffeits, generally of only one order, and with labels adorned with dog-tooth. The bases and abaci of the capitals are all square. The former have the transition from the circular members to the square managed with admirable skill, tufts of foliage occupying the angles. The latter throughout the church are deep and boldly carved, as also are the capitals themselves. These seem to be of different dates: all those on the eastern side of the transept, and all the lower capitals of the nave, save the west end and first column, being very classical in their design, and probably dating from early in the thirteenth century, whilst the remainder appear to be generally of the latter part of the same century. In the earlier capitals the abaci are all set square with the walls, whereas in the later work they are set at right angles to the arch which they have to carry, and often, therefore, at an angle of 45° to the walls.

The groining ribs are very bold, and well moulded. There is no triforium, and the clerestory windows come down to a string-course just above the points of the main arches. They are of two lights, with a circle in the arched head, and their rear arches are moulded and carried on engaged jamb-shafts. The transepts have rose-windows in the bays next the choir, and lancet-windows in the north and south bays, and the carved abacus is carried over these as a label. There seem to have been rose windows round the principal apse at a lower level than the other clerestory windows; but only one of these is visible on either side, owing to the reredos: and I found it impossible to get any near exterior view of the east end, owing to the way in which it is built against by houses.

The west front had a large rose-window, which has been blocked up, and it still retains a noble doorway, of which I shall have to speak more in detail presently.

The north transept is now the least altered part of the church, and in the extreme simplicity of its bold buttresses, the refined beauty of its sculptured doorway, and the well-proportioned triplet which fills the upper part of the wall, it recalls to mind an English building of the thirteenth century. Unfortunately the gable has been destroyed, and the walls and buttresses are now finished with the straight line of the eaves. Almost the only peculiarity in the detail here is the wide, external splay of the windows between the glass and the jamb-shafts in the centre of the monials. The south transept has a triplet similar to that in the north transept, and has also lost its gable, and, being more shut in than the other, is perhaps the most picturesque in effect. A narrow lane leads up to it along the east wall of the cloister, and this, turning abruptly when it reaches the church, passes under a broad archway, which forms the south front of a porch, and then, out of an eastern archway, the street goes on again, twisting and turning in a fashion which is not a little eccentric. The exterior of the eastern apse retains its buttresses of slight projection, which run up to, and finish under, the eaves-cornice, which is carried, as all the cornices throughout the church are, upon boldly-moulded corbels.

It is only at some distance from the cathedral that anything is well seen of the turrets and tower, which give it most of the character it possesses. The west end had, I think, two small square towers, finished with octagonal turrets of smaller diameter than the towers. Of these the south-western still remains, but on the north side a lofty brick steeple was erected in the eighteenth century. Another turret is strangely placed over the centre of the principal apse. This is octangular in plan, with lancet-windows in the cardinal sides, and the sides of its spire pierced with two rows of small lights. The tile-roof of the apse slopes up on all sides from the eaves to the base of this turret; and, novel as its position is, it seemed to me to be well chosen and effective.[393] Other turrets rise out of the chapels which have sprung up round the church, and these, with the altered form of almost all the roofs, give a strange, informal, and disjointed look to the whole cathedral, which is eminently the reverse of attractive. Nevertheless the old work is there, and only requires a moderate amount of attention in order to understand the whole general character of the original scheme.

There are three grand doorways, one to each transept, and one at the west end. The former are not placed in the centre of the gable, but close to the western side of the transept, either, as is most probable, from a proper desire to leave space in front of the altars of the small transept chapels, or because then, as now, the ground was covered with houses, which made it impossible to place them centrally.

The finest of the three doorways is in the centre of the west front of the church, and its opening is more than nine feet in the clear, each of the jambs having eight shafts in square recesses. Two corbels support the tympanum, which has now no sculpture, nor any signs of ever having had any, and the arch has eight orders of sculptured moulding. The capitals of the columns in the jambs are all sculptured with subjects in a very exquisite fashion. There is here no grotesqueness or intentional awkwardness, but extreme beauty of design, simplicity of story, and fitness for the position chosen. The abaci are carved throughout with conventional foliage, well arranged and delicately cut. I know little even of French carving of the thirteenth century which surpasses this beautiful work, and none anywhere which more entirely deserves our admiration, or which may more worthily kindle our emulation. It is true, indeed, that here as elsewhere the cold formal critic may come and prove to his own satisfaction that some portions of the work are not academically correct: on the other hand, it is equally true that it is not academically cold and soulless, for the men who wrought here wrought of their love and enthusiasm, and not merely because they were drilled and paid, and they afford us, therefore, an example not to be despised of the truths, that in art enthusiasm is worth more than skill, and feeling more than knowledge; truths specially valuable in these days, when men fancy they can convert all who call themselves architects into artists, not by making them rejoice in their work, but simply by teaching them how to draw.

The subjects in the capitals are arranged in the following order:--Nos. 1 to 8 are those in the left or northern jamb, and Nos. 9 to 16 those in the right or southern jamb. Nos. 1 and 9 are next the opening, and Nos. 8 and 16 the extreme capitals right and left of the centre.

1. The Creation of Angels. 2. Do. of Earth, Stars, &c. 3. Do. of Trees. 4. Do. of Birds and Beasts. 5. Do. of Adam. 6. Do. of Eve. 7. The Fall. 8. Eve sleeping with a fig-leaf in her hand, and the Serpent mocking her. 9. Expulsion from Paradise. 10. Adam tilling, Eve spinning. 11. Cain and Abel sacrificing. 12. Cain killing Abel. 13. God cursing Cain. 14. Cain, a fugitive. 15. Entry into the Ark. 16. The Sacrifice of Abraham.

The two corbels which support the tympanum have on their face angels blowing trumpets, and under them two lions, eating, one of them two wyverns, the other a man. The archivolt has a series of eight figures carved on key-stones at its intersection. These are--beginning with the lowest--(1) the Agnus Dei, (2) the Blessed Virgin, (3) an angel, (4) a martyr, (5) a king, (6) a bishop, and (7) another king. On the sides the archivolt has on the left the Resurrection, and the happiness of the blessed, who are all represented in pairs; and on the right, the tortures of the damned, full of terror and horror of every kind. In the first rank of these unhappy ones are two bishops and an abbat learning the truth of our Lord’s aweful saying, “Where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched”--a saying practically ignored by our sculptors and carvers at the present day, who seem to believe in no Last Judgment, no masculine saints, and nothing but female angels; so far, at least, as one can judge by the figures with which they cover so profusely the walls of some of our new churches. The outer order of the archivolt has angels all round it, with crowns and sceptres in their hands. There can be little doubt, I suppose, that the tympanum was intended to have a sculpture, or, perhaps, had a painting of a sitting figure of our Lord in Judgment; without this figure the whole scheme wants the key-note, to give tone and significance to all its varied story. With it there would be few doorways which would be altogether finer or more worshipful than this.

The transept-doors are rightly much more simple than the western door, and the character of their sculpture has so much Byzantine feeling that there can he no doubt they are of somewhat earlier date.

The north transept doorway has on its eastern capitals: 1, The Baptism of our Lord by St. John; 2, Herod’s Feast; 3, The head of St. John brought in a charger;--and on its western capitals: 4, St. Martin giving his cloak to a beggar; 5, Our Lord holding a cloth (?). and two angels worshipping; 6, St. Nicolas restoring the two children to life. The door-arch is pointed, and all its orders and the label are very richly carved, but with foliage only. The south transept door is round-arched, and its tympanum is not filled in. On the capitals of the western jamb are: 1, St. Peter walking on the Sea; 2, The Last Supper; 3, The Charge to St. Peter;--and on the eastern jamb: 4, The Incredulity of St. Thomas; 5, The Walk to Emmaus; 6, The Supper at Emmaus.

The west front has two large square turrets, one of which only is carried up above the line of the roof. Its highest stage is octagonal, with a lancet opening on each face, and is finished with a low spire. A bold row of corbels is carried round the turret between the octagonal and square stages, as if for the support of a projecting parapet which no longer exists. The western rose-window was inserted under a broadly-soffeited and bold pointed arch, which spans the whole space between the turrets and rises nearly to the top of the walls.

The internal furniture of this church is not interesting. The metal screens are of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Coro occupies the second and third bays of the nave, and iron rails are placed from its eastern door to the doorway in the Reja or screen of the Capilla mayor, so as to preserve a passage for the clergy. The reredos of the high altar contains sixteen paintings, enclosed within a complicated architectural framework of buttresses, pinnacles, and canopies. In the centre is an enormous canopy and niche, in which is a modern effigy of the Blessed Virgin. This combination of rich architectural detail with paintings is not satisfactory to the eye; and it is evident that sculptured subjects would have been much more in harmony with the framework.

In the south-east chapel of the south transept there is a magnificent monument to the “Muy Hoñorable Señor Môsen Francis de Villia Espepa, Doctor, Cabalero, et Chanceller de Navarre,” and his “Muy Hoñorable Duenya Doña Ysabel,” who died in 1423. The two effigies lie under a deeply-recessed arch filled in with tracery, the recess being adorned with sculptured subjects on its three sides. There are eight Weepers in the arcade on the side of the tomb. It was too dark to see what all the subjects were; but at the back our Lord is seated and censed by angels; and below this He is represented in His tomb, with His arms bound, with a weeping angel on either side.

I have left to the last all notice of the beautiful cloister on the south side of the nave. The arcades, which open into the cloister-court, are carried on columns, which are alternately coupled and tripled or quadrupled; larger piers are introduced in the centre of each side, in order to give additional strength. The arches are generally simple and pointed, but on the north and south sides they are chevroned on the inside. The engraving which I give of the south-east angle of this cloister will show how elaborate the whole of the work is. The capitals throughout are carved with subjects and foliage, and most of the latter is of extremely delicate character. The acanthus-leaf is largely introduced. I had not time to catalogue the subjects carved in the capitals; but so many of them are concealed and so many damaged, that I fear it would be almost impossible at present to do so at all completely.

I may with safety class this small church at Tudela among the very best it has been my good fortune to visit in any part of Europe; and there is much in its Iconography and in its sculptured detail which would reward a much more lengthened examination than I was able to afford.

I saw but one other old church here--that of la Magdalena, in the Calle de Sta. Cruz. It consists of a nave and choir, vaulted with a pointed waggon roof, with bold transverse ribs carried on carved capitals built in the side-walls. The chancel makes a very decided bend to the north. There is a simple tower on the north side, with a round-arched window of two lights in the belfry stage, and a window of one light in the stage below it. The west doorway is very fine: it is round-arched, and has in the tympanum our Lord seated in a quatrefoil, surrounded by the emblems of the four Evangelists. The label is carved, and the orders of the arch are in part carved with acanthus, and in part with figures. Among the latter are the twelve Apostles and (apparently) the Descent of the Holy Ghost. The capitals are also storied.[394]

From Tudela I availed myself of a special train on the railway to Pamplona, which ran solely for the purpose of carrying the passengers of a diligence from Madrid, and in which the station-master obligingly gave me a seat. On the road we passed the towns of Olite and Tafalla, the view of the former of which gave so much promise that I returned there in order to examine its remains properly.

Tafalla and Olite were of old called the Flowers of Navarre. Olite now is dreary, desolate, and ruinous; and though Tafalla looks a little more thriving, it too has lost all its former claim to the title of a flower!

In Olite there are the extensive remains of a very fine castle, which was built as a palace by the kings of Navarre, and two interesting parish churches, Sta. Maria and San Pedro. Sta. Maria consists of a wide nave of four bays in length, and a small apse at the east end. On the west side is a small cloister in front of the principal entrance, which gives great picturesqueness to the whole work. The cloister is a work of the fifteenth century, an irregular square in plan, and arcaded with a good simple open arcade. The east side has been destroyed, in order to allow of the grand western doorway of the church being seen. This is protected by a penthouse roof, supported on two tall columns, which have taken the place of the old arcade. The church was built within the walls of the castle, but the cloister seems to have been thrown out beyond their line on the town side. There is a tower on the south of the nave, finished with a gabled roof, and pierced with some good early-pointed openings.

The west front is a very elaborate work of the fourteenth century. It has a central doorway, and a row of niches with figures on each side of it, above a stringcourse, which is on the same level as the springing of the doorway. The tympanum of the door has sculptures of the Blessed Virgin Mary and our Lord under a canopy in the centre; on the (proper) right, the Baptism, the Flight into Egypt, and the Massacre of the Innocents; and on the left, the Presentation, the Annunciation, and the Nativity. The carving of the archivolt is rich, mainly of foliage, but with two or three figures under niches introduced capriciously in its midst. The jambs, too, are covered with carvings of subjects arranged in the oddest way; e.g. there are in succession an Agnus Dei, an Annunciation, the Creation of Eve, Adam tilling the ground, wyverns, an elephant and castle, the Fall, a pelican vulming its breast with a goat standing on its hind-legs and looking on; and so on with subjects which seem to exhibit nothing but the odd conceits of the workman, and to be arranged in no kind of order. The carving is all of that crisp, sharp, clever kind, so seldom seen in England, but so common in the fourteenth-century buildings of Germany, and in which some of the Spanish sculptors were unsurpassed by all save perhaps their own successors in the latest period of Gothic art, whose works I have already described at Burgos, Miraflores, and Valladolid. There are extensive traces of old painting on the stonework of this doorway; and I noticed that the detached shafts (of which there are four in each jamb) were covered with a trailing branch of ivy, with green leaves and red stems.

The interior of Sta. Maria is not very interesting, though its scale is good, the groined nave being 36 feet wide by 108 feet in length. The groining-shafts are commendably bold and dignified. There is the usual late western gallery, and a modern chapel and large irregular porch on the south side.

Sta. Maria stands, as I have said, partly within the walls of the ancient castle or palace. This was dismantled in the course of the Peninsular war, but is still an imposing ruin, with a vast extent of enclosing wall, out of which rise several fine towers. These are generally very simple, but lofty, and capped with projecting machicoulis. I give an illustration of one in which the finish is unlike any that I remember to have seen.[395] The window here is a good example of a traceried domestic window, a straight stone transome being carried across under the tracery, so as to make the window-opening square-headed.

Two grand towers on the eastern face of the castle are octangular in plan, and one of them rises in three stages, each slightly within the other, and each finished with fine corbelled machicoulis.

The gateways have extremely small and low pointed arches, looking like little holes in the great walls. Some of the walls are finished with the common Arab type of battlement, the coping of which is weathered to a point. The keep is a large pile, with square towers at the angles; and near it is a large hall with battlemented side-walls, which has the air of being the earliest part of the castle, but into which I was unable to gain admission.

At the other extremity of the town (or village as it ought rather to be called) is the church of San Pedro. This forms an important feature in the picturesque view of the place, owing to its fine and peculiar tower and spire. This is built against the south side of the church, is quite plain until it rises above the roof, and then has two stages each pierced with windows; above this a pierced overhanging parapet, carried upon very bold corbels, and then a low octagonal stage, each side surmounted by a crocketed gable, and the whole finished with a spire, the entasis of which is very distinctly marked. An original design, such as this is, deserves illustration. The height of the spire bears, it will be seen, but a small proportion to that of the tower, as is often to be observed in the case of good steeples; but the most unusual feature is the enormous parapet, and taking into account the position of the church just at the extreme angle of the town, it may be supposed to have been built with some view to military requirements. The greater part of the steeple is a work I suppose of the fourteenth century--much later than the church, which, saving modern additions, is a fine work of quite the beginning of the thirteenth century, if not earlier. The west doorway is round-arched, having three shafts in each jamb, with sculptured capitals, and an arch of six orders alternately carved and moulded. The tympanum is sculptured with our Lord and two censing angels, and below are subjects from the life of St. Peter: (1) His commission; (2) His walking on the sea; (3) His trial; and (4) His crucifixion. Above the doorway is a stringcourse carved in the fourteenth century, and in the gable a wheel window within a pointed enclosing-arch. The plan of the nave and aisles is of the same kind as that of the church at Tudela, though on a smaller scale. A curious difference in the design is the carrying up of the aisle groining almost to the same level as that of the nave, whilst the transverse arches across the aisle are at a much lower level, and have fine pointed and circular windows pierced in the walls between the arches and the groining. The eastern part of the church is all modern and very bad.

Olite is a very squalid and miserable place; but a few hours may be well spent here; and the castle in particular, which has been very badly treated within a few years, ought to be carefully examined and drawn before it is too late. I was there on a hot day in June,--so hot as to make it difficult to work,--and yet on the summit of the hills, lying to the south-south-west of the town, a good deal of snow was lying, and in the evening, as the sun went down, the cautious Spaniards put on their great cloth cloaks, and stole about muffled up to the eyes as though it were mid-winter.

From Olite to Tafalla there was once, or was once intended to be, a continuous subterraneous communication. The distance must be some three or four miles, so that the story would appear to be rather improbable. The intention of Charles III. of Navarre to make such a communication between the great palace he was building at Tafalla and the already existing castle of Olite, is mentioned by Cean Bermudez under the date of 1419; but he gives no authority for his statement.

I was unable to stop at Tafalla: it is a more important place than Olite, and has two churches, both apparently of the latest Gothic, with square-ended transepts, and windowless apsidal choirs like those of the late Burgalese churches.

After leaving Tafalla the country becomes at every step wilder and more beautiful. The hills rise grandly on either side, and are bare and rocky. The railway passes under an aqueduct, which in height, length, and simple grandeur of design, is worthy to be ranked among the finest European aqueducts. It was built at the end of the last century by D. Ventura Rodriguez. The only old church I saw on this part of the road was close to Las Campanas station. Its west front had a good doorway, and above this a great arch rising almost to the point of the gable, with a circular window pierced within it. The same design is repeated in one of the churches of Pamplona.

The towers and walls of Pamplona are seen for some time before they are reached. The railway follows the winding of a pretty stream, and the city stands well elevated above it. The situation is indeed very charming, the whole character of the country being thoroughly mountainous, and the city standing on an elevated knoll rising out of an ample and prosperous-looking valley surrounded by fine hills.

The views from the cathedral and walls are very beautiful, and as the town is large and rather handsomely laid out with a grand arcaded Plaza in the centre, it gives a very favourable impression of Spain to those who make it their first resting-place on a Spanish tour.

The cathedral stands on the outside of the city and close to the walls. It was commenced in A.D. 1397 by Charles III. of Navarre, who pulled down almost[396] the whole of the old church (built circa A.D. 1100). The planning of this church is both ingenious and novel. Its chevet is entirely devised upon a system of equilateral triangles, and, as will be seen by reference to my plan,[397] the apse has only two canted sides, having a column in the centre behind the altar; and though it is perfectly true that this two-sided apse is in itself not a very graceful scheme, it is at the same time equally true that the combination of the chapels with the central apse is very ingenious and clever. The distortion of the chapel next to the transept is very objectionable, and seems to be without reason or necessity. There are transepts and a nave and aisles of six bays in length, with side chapels along the greater part of the aisles. The extreme shortness of the constructional choir makes it certain that the church was planned for the modern Spanish arrangement of the Coro, which now occupies two bays of the nave, leaving one bay between its eastern Reja and the Crossing. The Reja of the Capilla mayor is under the eastern arch of the Crossing, so that the low rails marking the passage from the Coro to the Capilla mayor are very long. The detail of all the architecture is characteristic of the late date at which the church was built. The columns are large, but composed of a succession of insignificant mouldings, so as to produce but little effect of bold light and shade: those in the choir are cylindrical, with clusters of mouldings supporting, and continued on as, the groining ribs, and they all lack that definiteness of arrangement and plan which is one of the surest tests of the difference between good and bad Gothic architecture generally, as it is between the work of men of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries almost everywhere.

The internal effect of the cathedral is certainly very fine. The peculiar scheme of the apse allows of the erection of a Retablo of unusual height with less interference with the architectural features than is common; and the whole design has the merit which I have so often had to accord to the latest school of Gothic artists in Spain, of having been schemed with an evident intention of meeting and providing for the necessities of the climate; and one consequence of this is that almost all the windows are left as they were originally designed, and have not been blocked up in order to diminish the glare. The clerestory windows throughout are small, those in the transepts are only small roses, and owing to the steep slope of the aisle roofs there is a great space between these openings and the main arcades. The three eastern bays of the nave have geometrical traceries, whilst in the western bays and the choir they are flamboyant in character; but I do not imagine that this slight difference in character betokens any real difference in their age. They all, in short, have somewhat of late middle-pointed character, though their actual date and their detail would make us class them rather with works of the third-pointed style.

The stalls in the Coro are of Renaissance character, but founded closely on the older models; and the Reja, to the east of them, is of wrought iron, old, but with a Renaissance cresting. The Reja in front of the Capilla mayor is much finer; it is of wrought iron, and is made, as is so usual, with vertical bars, set rather close together, and alternately plain and twisted. What the lower part lacks in ornament the cresting more than atones for; it is unusually ornate, consisting of interlacing ogee arches with crocketed pinnacles between them, all very elaborately hammered up. The horizontal bars and rails are also all covered with traceries in relief, and at regular intervals on these there are small figures under canopies. The whole stands upon a moulded and panelled base of stone. The total height of this screen is not less than thirty feet, of which the cresting is about a third.

Of the other furniture I may mention some of the glass in the clerestory, which is fine; and the old Retablos. Two of these in the south chapel of the chevet are especially worthy of notice. One of them has a crucifix (with the figure draped in modern drapery) which has the feet half plated with silver, and behind it are twelve prophets in rows of four over each other, and all of them with inscriptions referring to the Crucifixion--such as the texts beginning “Foderunt manus,” “Vere languores nostros ipse tulit,” “Post ebdomadas sexaginta dies occidetur,” “Quid sicut plage iste,” &c.

The western front is a poor Pagan work utterly out of keeping with the remainder of the fabric, and erected in the last century from the designs of D. Ventura Rodriguez. The rest of the exterior is Gothic, but not at all striking. It was once well garnished with crocketed pinnacles above its flying buttresses, but they have now for the most part disappeared. The roofs are flat and tiled, and hipped back in an ungainly fashion even at the transepts. The north transept door has an unusually fine example of a latch-handle or closing ring: the handle has writhing serpents round it, and the plate is perforated all over with rich flamboyant traceries.

This cathedral is fortunate in retaining many of its old dependent buildings in a very perfect state, but unfortunately I have spent only one day in Pamplona, and I did not see by any means all that is to be seen. For Cean Bermudez[398] says that some portions of the first cathedral, founded in A.D. 1100, still remain; particularly the small cloister and some of the buildings attached to it. This was the last cathedral in Spain that observed the rule of St. Augustine, and the canons always lived in common; the refectory, said to be of the thirteenth century, the kitchen and offices, all still remain. Of about the same age as the cathedral are the beautiful cloisters on its south side, and the Chapter-house to the east of the cloister. It is said, indeed, that a part of this cloister had been built some seventy years before the fall of the old cathedral rendered it necessary to rebuild it from the ground, and the style of much of the work encourages one to believe the statement. It is certainly a very charming work in every way: it is a square in plan, each side having six traceried windows towards the centre court, and a small chapel breaks out into this at the south-west angle. The windows are all of four lights, filled with geometrical traceries, with crocketed labels to some and canopies to others, and delicate buttresses and pinnacles dividing the bays. The low wall below the open windows is covered with small figures in niches, and the walls above the windows with panelling, as is also the parapet of the modern upper cloister. The general conception is very ornate, and at the same time very delicate and light in its proportions; and it is rendered very interesting by the number of rich doorways, monuments, and sculptures with which the walls are everywhere enriched. The door called “Of our Lady of the Refuge” opens from the transept to the cloister; its front is in the cloister, of which it occupies the north-western bay. In its tympanum is a sculpture of the burial of the Blessed Virgin, whose statue, with the figure of our Lord in her arms, occupies the post of honour against the central pier. The reveals of the jambs are filled with little niches and canopies in which are figures and subjects; and below the bases, in a band of quatrefoils, are on the one side the Acts of Mercy; on the other, figures playing on instruments. Angels in the archivolt bear a scroll on which is inscribed--“Quæ est ista que ascendit de deserto deliciis affluens, innixa super dilectum suum? Assumpta est Maria in cœlum.” Against the east wall of the cloister is a sculpture of the Adoration of the Magi, and next to this the grand triple opening to the Chapter-house--a richly moulded door with a two-light window on either side. In the southern alley are a fine tomb of a bishop, the door of the Sala Preciosa adorned with a series of bas-reliefs from the life of the Blessed Virgin, and another door with the Last Supper and the Entry into Jerusalem; and close to the latter, but in the western wall, is a doorway with the Crucifixion, and the Maries going to the Sepulchre. Between these sculptured doorways the walls are all arcaded with tracery panels corresponding to the windows; and as all the mouldings are rich and delicate in their design, and the proportions of the cloister very lofty, it will be seen that I cannot be very far wrong in considering this to be, on the whole, one of the most effective and striking cloisters of its age. The projecting chapel on the south-west angle is exceedingly delicate in its construction, and is screened from the cloister with iron grilles. A quaintly trimmed box-garden occupies the cloister-court to the no small improvement of its effect.

On the eastern side is the Chapter-house; a very remarkable work of probably the same age as the cloister, though of a simpler, bolder, and much more grand kind of design. It is square in plan, but the vault is octagonal, the angles of the square being arched and covered with small subordinate vaults below the springing of the main vault. Buttresses are placed outside to resist the thrust of each of the eight principal ribs of the octagonal vault; and these buttresses, being all placed in the same direction as the ribs, abut against the square outline of the building in the most singular and, at first sight, unintelligible manner. They are carried up straight from the ground nearly to the eaves, where they are weathered back and finished with square crocketed pinnacles; whilst between them an open arcade is carried all round just below the eaves. On the exterior this Chapter-house seems to be so far removed from the east end of the church as to have hardly any connection with it; they are separated by houses built up close to their walls, and present consequently a not very imposing effect from the exterior; and standing, as the Chapter-house does, just on the edge of the city walls, it is strange that it has fared so well in the many attacks that have been made on Pamplona. The interior is remarkable only for the grand scale and proportions of the vault with which it is covered.

There are several other old churches here which deserve notice, though none are on a very fine or grand scale. That of San Saturnino--the first Bishop of Pamplona--is remarkable chiefly for the very unusual planning of its eastern end, which has three unequal sides, out of which three unequal polygonal chapels open.[399] My impression is that there was never any altar under the great apse, but that the high altar stood in the central chapel, at its east end. The Coro is, and probably was always intended to be, in the western gallery, the under side of which is groined, and any arrangement of stalls on the floor of such a church would be obviously inconvenient and out of place. Two towers are built against the eastern bay of the nave. The window tracery is of good geometrical middle-pointed character, and the mouldings and other details all seem to prove that the church was built about the middle of the fourteenth century. The south doorway has the rare feature at this period of capitals historiés; on the left hand are the Annunciation, the Salutation, the Nativity, and the Flight into Egypt; and on the right our Lord bearing His Cross, the Descent from the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Descent into Hell. The Crucifixion forms the finial of the canopy over the doorway, and three or four other subjects are concealed by the modern framework round the door. There seems to be no reason why the idea of such a plan as this should not be adopted again: the termination of the nave by a kind of apsis, from one side of which the chancel projects, is extremely good, and perhaps, on the whole, the best way of effecting the change from the grand span of so broad a nave to the moderate dimensions (just half those of the nave) of the chancel. Such a church would probably hold about six hundred worshippers, all in sight of the altar, and might, with advantage to its proportions, be lengthened by the addition of another bay; and, simple as all its parts would be, it would be a relief to eyes wearied by the flimsy weakness of our modern Gothic work to look upon anything which could not possibly be constructed without solid walls, massive buttresses, and some degree of constructive skill.

The church of San Nicolas is of Romanesque date, but much altered and added to at later periods. It consists of a nave and aisles of three bays, a Crossing, and a short eastern polygonal apse. The nave aisles retain their original waggon vaults, with transverse ribs at intervals; but the other vaults are all quadripartite. The clerestory of the nave, too, consists of broad unpierced lancets, which are probably coeval with the arcades below them.

The exterior of this church is very much obscured by modern additions and excrescences, but still retains some features of much interest. There is a fine early western door, and above this a rose window filled with rich geometrical tracery, over which is a very boldly projecting pointed arch, which abuts against a tower on the north and against a massive buttress on the south. The walls appear to have been finished at the eaves with very bold machicoulis. At a much later date than that of the church a lofty open cloister, with plain pointed arches, was added on the western and northern sides.

On either side of the apse of this church, in front of the Retablo and altar, are what look like two tabernacles for the reservation of the Sacrament: but I had no opportunity of learning the object of this double arrangement.

The views from the walls of Pamplona are eminently lovely; I remember looking across to the east, over the flat which stretches away from them to where the mountains begin to rise boldly beyond; and, as my eyes wandered on, I began to turn my thoughts eagerly homewards, and much as I had enjoyed the Spanish journey which ended at Pamplona, there was perhaps no part of it which I enjoyed more than this, where I was ungrateful enough to Spain to allow everything to be seasoned by the near prospect of home.

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XX. GENERAL SUMMARY

IT is time, now that I have described so many Spanish Gothic buildings in detail, to undertake a somewhat more general classification of them, both in regard to their history and their style. Hitherto I have spoken of each building by itself, only endeavouring to give so clear and concise an account of each as was necessary in order that their general character might be understood. But this kind of account would be incomplete and almost useless without a more generalizing and more systematic summary of the whole. And to this I propose to devote this chapter.

There are, indeed, few parts of Europe in which it is more easy to detect the influence of History upon Art than it is in Spain. I dismiss from consideration the period of the Visigothic rule, which lasted from A.D. 417 to 717; for though it is possible that some works of this age still exist, as e.g. part of the walls of Toledo, and the metal votive crowns of Guarrazar, they do not really come within the scope of my subject, inasmuch as there is no kind of evidence that they exercised any influence over the architecture of the Christian parts of the country after the Moorish interregnum.

From the first invasion by the Moors in A.D. 711 down to their expulsion from Granada in A.D. 1492, their whole history is mixed up with that of the Christians; and, as might be expected, so great was the detestation in which the two races held each other, that neither of them borrowed to any great extent from the art of the other, and accordingly we see two streams of art flowing as it were side by side at the same time, and often in the same district,--a circumstance, as I need hardly say, almost, if not quite, unknown at the same period in any other part of Europe. The Mosque at Cordoba in the ninth century, the Alcazar and Giralda at Seville in thirteenth, the Court of Lions in the Alhambra in the fourteenth, some of the houses in Toledo in the fifteenth century, are examples of what the Moors were building during the very period of the Middle Ages in which all the buildings which I have described and illustrated were being erected; the only exception to be made to this general statement being, that when the Christians vanquished the Moors they usually continued to allow them to build somewhat in their own fashion,--as, for example, they did in Toledo,--whilst on the other hand, the Moors seem never to have imitated this example, though they were of course utterly unable to suppress all evidence in their work of any knowledge of Gothic buildings.

The reason of this was, no doubt, that throughout this period any contrast drawn between the Moors and Christians in regard to civilization would generally, if not always, have been in favour of the former. They were accomplished both in art and science: their architectural works would have been impossible except to a very refined people, and their scientific attainments are evidenced even to the present day by the system of artificial irrigation which they everywhere introduced, and which even now remains almost unaltered and unimproved. The Christians, on the contrary, were warlike and hardy, and in the midst of constant wars had but scant time for the pursuit of art; and finally, when they had re-established their supremacy, they wisely allowed the Moors to remain under their rule when they would, and employed them to some extent on the works in which they could not fail to see that they excelled.

Again, the subdivision of the country into several kingdoms, administered under varying laws, owing no common allegiance to any central authority, and inhabited by people of various origin, might well be expected to leave considerable marks on the style of the buildings; though, at the same time, the antipathy which the inhabitants of all of them felt for the Moors rendered this cause less operative than it would otherwise have been. Some portions of the country had never been conquered by the Saracens: such were the regions of the Pyrenees lying betwixt Aragon and Navarre, the Asturias, Biscay, and the northern portion of Galicia.[400] And though it was by degrees that the other states freed themselves from their conquerors, it happened fortunately that the Christian successes generally synchronized as nearly as possible with that great development of Christian art which at the time covered all parts of Europe with the noblest examples of Pointed Architecture. Toledo was recovered by the Christians in A.D. 1085, Tarragona in 1089, Zaragoza in 1118, Lérida in 1149, Valencia in 1239, Seville in 1248, whilst Segovia, Leon, Burgos, Zamora, and Santiago suffered more or less from occasional irruptions of the Moors down to the beginning of the eleventh century, but from that date were practically free from molestation. By the middle of the fifteenth century the number of states into which the country had been divided was reduced to four, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and the Moorish kingdom of Granada. Of these Aragon and Castile are the two of which I have seen the most, and, I may venture to add, those in which the History of Gothic Architecture in Spain is properly to be studied. For though it is true that Seville was recovered in the thirteenth century, and Cordoba about the same time, it is equally so that most of their buildings are Moorish or modern, the Gothic cathedral in the former not having been commenced until A.D. 1401, and the Moorish mosque in the latter still doing service as the Christian cathedral; and generally throughout the South of Spain, so far as I can learn, there are but few early Gothic buildings to be seen; whilst the late examples of the style were designed by the same architects, and in precisely the same style, as those which were erected in the parts of Spain which I have visited.

Of these two great divisions of the country, Aragon included the province of that name, together with Cataluña and Valencia; and owing to the great political freedom which the Catalans in particular enjoyed at an early period, to the vast amount of trade with Italy, the Mediterranean, and the East carried on along its extensive seaboard, and to its large foreign possessions--which included the Balearic Isles, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia--the kingdom of Aragon possessed great wealth and power, and has left magnificent architectural remains.

The kingdom of Castile in course of time came to include, in addition to the two Castiles, Leon, Biscay, the Asturias, Galicia, Estremadura, Murcia, and Andalusia: and here there was not only a larger Spanish territory, but one peopled by a much more varied population than that of Aragon, and which naturally, I think, left a less distinct architectural impress than we see in the other.

Each of these kingdoms of course inherited a certain number of buildings erected under the rulers who had formerly held the country. It is possible that some portion of the walls of Toledo were built by the Goths; and at any rate we know by the fortunate discovery of the crowns at Guarrazar,[401] that, whatever may have been the state of the people in respect of other arts, that of working in precious metals was in an advanced state.

The Moors who succeeded them undertook undoubtedly large works in many parts of the country. They first built the Bridge of Alcantara across the Tagus at Toledo, and enclosed several towns with strong walls, among others Valencia and Talavera. They erected mosques and other public buildings, and before the Christian conquests of the eleventh century had no doubt imported much of a very advanced civilization into the country which they ruled. The mosque “Cristo de la Luz,” at Toledo, is a remarkable example of delicate skill in design and construction, and certainly in advance of the coeval Christian works. The ingenuity of the planning of the vaults is extreme, and though, at the same time, there is to our eyes an error in trying to do so much in so very small a space--nine vaulting compartments covered with varied vaults being contrived in a chamber only 21 feet square--it is to be observed that this is just one of the mistakes which arises from over-great education and skill, and is in marked contrast to the kind of design which we see in the simple, grave, but rude buildings which the less cultivated Christians were erecting at the same period.

Of the early Christian buildings I think there can be but little doubt that some at least still exist. There is no one year in Spanish history which can be used as that of the Norman Conquest is in England. Here people are accustomed to argue as though before and after A.D. 1066 two entirely different styles existed, with few, if any, marks of imitation of one from the other, though of course both must have had the same common Roman origin. This cannot be said in Spain; and where we find distinct and good evidence of the erection of churches in the ninth and tenth centuries, and the buildings still standing, with every architectural evidence of not being more modern than the eleventh century, I see not why we should doubt their greater antiquity. For looking to the solid way in which all these early works were built, it seems to be extremely unlikely that they should have required rebuilding so soon, or that, if they were rebuilt, not only should older stones with inscriptions recording the dates be inserted in the new walls, but also that no kind of evidence--documentary or other--should be forthcoming as to their reconstruction.

Several inscriptions on foundation-stones are given by Cean Bermudez,[402] and I regret never having been able to examine the buildings in which they occur. One of the earliest of these, Sta. Cruz de Cangas, is described as having a crypt; and a long inscription, with the date 739, on a stone in it is given by Florez.[403] But I gather from Mr. Ford that the church has now been modernized. Cean Bermudez describes it as “strong, arched, and without ornament.” Another church at Santiañes de Pravia has a labyrinthine inscription of A.D. 776, recording its erection by the King Silo. This church was very small, but had a Capilla mayor, two side chapels, a Crossing, and three naves; in fact, was in plan completely and exactly what the Spanish churches of the twelfth century were; and in this case it may, perhaps, be doubted whether the inscription referred to the church described, and was not taken from some older building. But the most interesting probably of these early churches is that of Sta. Maria de Naranco, near Oviedo. This is described and illustrated by Parcerisa,[404] and is undoubtedly a most remarkable example, though unfortunately I can find no reliable evidence as to its probably very early date. It seems to be planned with a view to a congregation outside the church joining in the worship within, there being galleries and open arches at the ends through which the altar might be seen. I confess that the details which I have seen, as well as the plans and views of this church, and of some portions of Oviedo Cathedral, to which a similarly early date is ascribed, do not give me the impression of work which is sufficiently distinct in style to be pronounced, as the Spanish writers have it, “obra de Godos,” or work of the Goths. Yet it is undoubtedly of early date, and probably, at any rate, not later than the tenth or eleventh century. The detail is Romanesque, and the modification of plan in such a building seems to point to some special use for it rather than to some special age for its erection. On the other hand, there is some reason to suppose that the church at Santiago, which existed before the erection of the present cathedral, was very similar in its plan;[405] and if so, it would seem to fortify the claim for a very early date for Sta. Maria de Naranco.

I have thought it right to refer to these buildings on account of the great age ascribed to some of them; but I have done so with some hesitation, because I have not seen them myself, and it is impossible to form any good opinion upon such questions as arise in connexion with them without careful personal examination.

It is a relief, therefore, to turn now to more certain ground, and to speak of churches which I have myself seen. I think the earliest of these are the two old churches of San Pablo and San Pera, at Barcelona, said to have been built in A.D. 914 and 983. I see no reason whatever to doubt these dates; at least it is improbable that if San Pablo was built in 914 it should have required rebuilding before the end of the next century; and no one I suppose would suggest a later date for it than this. In any case it is a valuable example. The ground-plan is cruciform, with a central lantern and three eastern apses; and the roofs are all covered with waggon vaulting and semi-domes. The plan is quite worthy of very attentive consideration, since with more or less modification of details it is that which more than any other may be said to have been popular in Spain in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The question as to the quarter from whence it was derived is one of the greatest possible interest, and admits, I think, of but little doubt. It must be remembered that in considering these questions there are no Pyrenees. The towns on what is now the French side of the mountains were not then French; and such places as S. Elne were not only really Spanish, but so intimate was the connexion existing between them and places at a greater distance (as e.g. Carcassonne), that for our purpose they may fairly be considered as being in the same country. The plan which we see in San Pablo del Campo is one which, having its origin in the East, spread to the north of Italy, was adopted largely in Provence, Auvergne, and Aquitaine, and was probably imported from thence to Barcelona. The central lantern and the three eastern apses are rather Byzantine than Romanesque in their origin; and though they are not common in Italy, they are occasionally met with; whilst in the parts of France just mentioned they are of frequent occurrence. The church which I coupled with this--San Pedro de las Puellas, in the same city--was consecrated in A.D. 983; it is also cruciform, but has no chapels east of the transepts. Here, too, we have waggon-vaults, and a central dome.

The little church of San Daniel,[406] at Gerona, not much later probably in date than those first mentioned, is mainly remarkable for the apsidal north and south ends of its transepts. This common German arrangement is most rarely seen in Spain, and deserves especial notice. Here it is coupled with a central octagonal lantern, which has a very good effect. It is repeated very nearly in the church at Tarrasa, and so far as the apses at the end of the transept in the church of San Pedro, Gerona; and there is considerable similarity between the latter and the cathedral at Le Puy en Velay.

The succeeding century shows us the same type of plan becoming much more popular, and developed again in such close imitation of some foreign examples as to make it almost impossible to doubt its foreign origin. In these buildings the nave has usually a waggon-vault, and this is supported by half barrel-vaults in the aisles. There is no clerestory; a central lantern rises to a moderate height; and three eastern apsidal chapels open into the transepts, and are roofed with semi-domes. San Pedro, Huesca--probably not later in date than A.D. 1096-1150--is a remarkably good and early example of the class; and will be found to be extremely similar to some of the churches built about the same time on the other side of the Pyrenees. The plan of the steeple[407]--which is hexagonal--deserves special record; and it may not be amiss to observe, that at Tarbes, in the Pyrenees, the principal church not only has three eastern apses, but also a central octagonal steeple; and the same type is again repeated at San Pedro, Gerona--said to have been commenced in A.D. 1117--though here there are two apses on each side of the principal altar, and all the detail of the design is very Italian, or perhaps I should rather say Provençal, in its character. If we compare some of these churches with the earlier portions of the cathedral at Carcassonne, we shall find them to be almost identical in character and detail, and cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that they were all designed by the same school of architects or masons. Carcassonne Cathedral has a nave and aisles divided by columns formed of a square block, with an engaged shaft on each face: the covering of the nave is a waggon-vault with square ribs on its under side, and that of the aisles is a quadrant. It is, in fact, almost identical with San Pedro at Gerona. Go farther east, and in the church at Monistrol, between Le Puy and S. Etienne, the same design precisely will be seen in a remote French village far from Spain.

About this period a type of church varying but little from this became extremely common in Aquitaine and Auvergne; and this again evidently influenced at least one of the Spanish architects very much indeed: I allude to such churches as those of Notre Dame du Port, Clermont Ferrand, and S. Sernin at Toulouse--to name two only out of a large number. In these the ground-plan has usually nave and aisles, transepts, central lantern, and a chevet consisting of an apsidal choir with a surrounding aisle, and chapels opening into it, with spaces between each chapel. This plan, as I have already shown, is absolutely repeated at Santiago with such close accuracy that one can hardly avoid calling it merely a reproduction of S. Sernin at Toulouse.[408] It is the more remarkable because for some reason the early Spanish architects almost always avoided the erection of a regular chevet, and adhered strictly to their first plan of separate apsidal chapels on the eastern side of the transept. But whilst the early French chevet was only copied at Santiago, the other features of the French churches to which it belonged were copied not unfrequently--these are the waggon-vaulted nave, supported by half waggon-vaults over the aisles, and the central lantern. Gradually the design of these various parts was developed into a sort of stereotyped regularity, the instances of which extend so far across to the Peninsula as to be very surprising to those who have noticed the remarkable way in which local peculiarities generally confine themselves to the particular districts in which they originated. In course of time the groining was varied, and in place of the round barrel-vault, one of pointed section was adopted, and in place of it again the usual quadripartite vault. The examples which I have described, and which belong to this class, are--San Isidoro, Leon; San Vicente and San Pedro, Avila; several churches in Segovia; the old Cathedral at Salamanca; Lérida old Cathedral; Sta. Maria, Benevente; and Santiago, la Coruña. Other churches of precisely similar character exist at Valdedios, near Gijon; Villanueva and Villa Mayor, near Oña; San Antolin de Bedon, between Ribadella and Llanes; Sandoval, on the river Esla; San Juan de Amandi and Tarbes, on the French side of the Pyrenees. Those in Segovia may be accepted as the best examples of their class, and they are so closely alike in all their details as to lead naturally to the belief that they were all executed at about the same period, and by the same workmen. The sack of the city by the Moors in 1071, when it is said that thirty churches were destroyed, seems to point to the period at which most of these churches were probably erected to take the place of those that had been destroyed; and it seems to be certain that their leading features remained generally unaltered until about the end of the twelfth, if not far into the succeeding century. Indeed it is remarkable in Spain, just as it is in Germany, that the late Romanesque style, having once been introduced, retained its position and prestige longer than it did in France, and was only supplanted finally by designs brought again from France in a later style, instead of developing into it through the features of first-pointed, as was the case in England and France.

In this general similarity there are several subordinate variations to be observed. At Santiago, for instance, we see an almost absolute copy of the great church of S. Sernin, Toulouse, erected soon after its original had been completed. At Lugo it is clear, I think, that the architect of the cathedral copied, not from any foreign work, but from that at Santiago: he was probably neither acquainted with the church at Toulouse, nor any of its class. At San Vicente, Avila, again, though we see the Segovian eastern apses repeated with absolute accuracy, the design of the church is modified in a most important manner by the introduction of quadripartite vaulting in place of the waggon-vault, and the piercing the wall above the nave arcades with a regular triforium and clerestory. The same design was repeated with little alteration at San Pedro, in the same city; and in both it seems to me that we may detect some foreign influence, so rare was the introduction of the clerestory in Spanish buildings of the same age. Sta. Maria, la Coruña, again, though it evidently belongs to the same class as the cathedral at Santiago, has certain peculiarities which identify it absolutely with that variation which we see at Carcassonne and Monistrol:[409] for here there are narrow aisles; and the three divisions of the church are all covered with waggon-vaults, those at the sides resisting the thrust from the centre, and, owing to their slight width, exerting but slight pressure on the outer walls. The distinction between this design and one in which the aisles are covered with quadrant-vaults is very marked; and the erection of the cathedral at Santiago would not have been very likely to lead to the design of such a church as this.

In all these churches the proportion of the length of the choir to that of the nave is very small. Usually the apses are either simply added against the eastern wall of the transept, or else, whilst the side apses are built on this plan, the central apse is lengthened by the addition of one bay between the Crossing and the apse. It is very important to mark this plan, because, however it was introduced--whether in such churches as that of the abbey of Veruela, where the conventual arrangement of Citeaux was imported, or in those earlier churches of which San Pedro, Gerona, may be taken as an example, in which from the first no doubt the choir was transferred to the nave, and the central apse treated only as a sanctuary--the result was the same on Spanish architecture and Spanish ritual. The Church found herself in possession of churches with short eastern apses and no choirs; and instead of retaining the old arrangement of the choir, close to and in face of the altar, she admitted her laity to the transept, divorced the choir from the altar, and invented those church arrangements which puzzle ecclesiologists so much. In our own country the same system to some extent at first prevailed; but our architects took a different course; they retained their choirs, prolonged them into the nave, and so contrived without suffering the separation of the clergy from the altar they serve, which we see in Spain.[410] In one great English church only has the Spanish system been adopted, and this, strangely enough, in the most complete fashion. Westminster Abbey, in fact, will enable any one to understand exactly what the arrangement of a Spanish church is. Its short choir, just large enough for a sumptuous and glorious altar, its Crossing exactly fitted for the stalls of the clergy and choir, its nave and transepts large enough to hold a magnificent crowd of worshippers, are all mis-used just as they would be in Spain; whilst the modern arrangements for the people--much more mistaken than they are there--involve the possession of the greater part of the choir by the laity, and the entire cutting off by very solid metal fences of all the worshippers in the transepts from the altar before which they are supposed to kneel, and the placing of the entire congregation between the priest and the altar.[411]

This digression will be excused when it is remembered how universally this tradition settled itself upon Spain, and how completely the perseverance in Romanesque traditions has affected her ritual arrangements, and with them her church architecture from the twelfth century until the present day. The long choirs which were naturally developed in England and France were never thought of there; the choir was merely the “Capilla mayor”--the chapel for the high altar; and the use of the nave as the people’s church was ignored or forgotten as much as it was--very rightly--in some of our own old conventual churches, where the choir was prolonged far down into the nave, and the space for the people reduced to a bay or two only at its western end.

I must now bring this discussion to a close, and proceed with my chronological summary; and here the Abbey Church at Veruela ought to be mentioned, if regard be had to the date of its erection--circa A.D. 1146-1171--though I must say that I have not been able to discover that it exercised any distinct influence upon Spanish buildings. It is in truth a very close copy of a Burgundian church of the period, built by French monks for an order only just established in Spain, under the direction probably of a French architect, and in close compliance with the rather strict architectural rules and restrictions which the Cistercians imposed on all their branches and members.[412] The character of the interior of this church is grand and simple, but at the same time rather rude and austere; but the detail of much of the exterior is full of delicacy; and the design of the chevet, with its central clerestory, and the surrounding aisle roofed with a separate lean-to roof, and the chapels projecting from it so subordinated as to finish below its eaves, recalls to memory some of the best examples of French Romanesque work.[413] The beauty and refinement of the little Chapter-house here lead me to suppose that it cannot be earlier than the end of the century.

There are some of these churches which require more detailed notice as being derived to some extent from the same models, but erected on a grander scale, and if documentary evidence can be trusted, whose erection was spread over so long a time as to illustrate very well indeed the slow progress of the development in art which we so often see in these Spanish buildings. The old cathedral at Salamanca was building from A.D. 1120 to 1178; Tarragona Cathedral was begun in 1131; Tudela, commenced at about the same time, was completed in 1188; Lérida, whose style is so similar to that of the others as to make me class them all together, was not commenced until 1203, nor consecrated until 1278; and Valencia Cathedral, of which the south transept of the original foundation still remains, was not commenced until A.D. 1262. Yet if I except the early and Italian-looking eastern apse at Tarragona, most of the features of these churches look as though they were the design of the same man, and very nearly the same period; and it is altogether unintelligible how such a work, for instance, as Lérida Cathedral could be in progress at the same time as Toledo and Burgos, save upon the assumption that the thirteenth century churches in an advanced Pointed style, such as these last, were erected by French workmen and artists imported for the occasion, and in a style far in advance of that at which the native artists had arrived.

Yet I think few churches deserve more careful study than these. I know none whose interiors are more solid, truly noble, or impressive; and these qualities are all secured not by any vast scale of dimensions--for, as will be seen by the plans, they are all churches of very moderate size--but by the boldness of their design, the simplicity of their sections, the extreme solidity of their construction, and the remarkable contrast between these characteristics and the delicacy of their sculptured decorations; they seem to me to be among the most valuable examples for study on artistic grounds that I have ever seen anywhere, and to teach us as much as to the power of Pointed art as do any churches in Christendom.

In all there is a very remarkable likeness in the section of the main clustered piers. They are composed usually of four pairs of clustered columns, two of them carrying the main arches, and two others supporting bold cross arches between the vaulting bays, whilst four shafts placed in the re-entering angles carry the diagonal groining ribs both of the nave and aisle. The arches are usually quite plain and square in section, the groining ribs are very bold and simple, and the whole decorative sculpture is reserved for the doorways and the capitals and bases of the columns. The windows have usually jamb-shafts inside and out; and the eastern apses are always covered with semi-dome vaults. Permanence being the one great object their builders set before them, they determined to dispense as far as possible with wood in their construction, and they seem to have laid stone roofs of rather flat pitch above the vaulting, and in some cases very ingeniously contrived with a view to preventing any possible lodgment of wet, and so any danger of decay. It may be said, perhaps, that fragments only of these roofs remain, so that after all timber roofs covered with tiles would have been equally good; but this is not so. The very attempt to build for everlasting is in itself an indication of the highest virtue on the part of the artist. The man who builds for to-day builds only to suit the miserable caprice of his patron, whilst he who builds for all time does so with a wholesome dread of exciting hostile criticism from those grave unprejudiced men who will come after him, and who will judge, not consciously perhaps, but infallibly, as to the honesty of his work. In England we have hardly a single attempt at anything of the kind, though in Ireland, in St. Cormack’s Chapel at Cashel, we not only have an example, but one also that proves to us that we may build in this solid fashion, so that our work may endure in extraordinary perfection come what may--as it has there--of neglect, of desolation, and of desecration! Yet of all the virtues of good architecture none are greater than solidity and permanence, and we in England cannot therefore afford to affect any of our Insular airs of superiority over these old Spanish artists!

Look also at the thorough way in which their work was done. The Chapter-houses, the cloisters, the subordinate erections of these old buildings, are always equal in merit to the churches themselves, and I really know not where--save in some of the English abbeys which we have wickedly ruined and destroyed--we are to find their equals. Nothing can be more lovely than such cloisters as those of Gerona or Tarragona, few things grander than that desecrated one at Lérida, whilst the Chapter-house at Veruela, and the doorways at Valencia, Lérida, and Tudela, deserve to rank among the very best examples of mediæval art.

There are yet two other grand early churches to be mentioned which do not seem to range themselves under either of the divisions already noticed, and which yet do not at all belong to the list of churches of French design with which my notice of thirteenth-century Spanish work must of necessity conclude. These are the cathedrals of Sigüenza and Avila.[414] Both of these are, so far as I can see, but to a slight extent founded upon other examples. Sigüenza Cathedral seems to have had originally three eastern apses: the plan is simple and grand, and its scale, either really, or at any rate in effect, very magnificent. The great size of the clustered columns, their well-devised sections, the massive solidity of the arches, the buttresses, and all the details, make this church rank, so far at least as the interior is concerned, among the finest Spanish examples of its age. At Avila, on the other hand, we see a remarkable attempt to introduce somewhat more of the delicacy and refinement of the first-pointed style; and just as if the architect had been exasperated by the obligation under which he lay to end his chevet within the plain, bald, windowless circular wall projecting from the city ramparts which was traced out for him, we find him indulging in delicate detached shafts, a double aisle round the chevet, and subsequently in such strange as well as daring expedients in the way of the support of the groining and the flying buttresses, as could hardly have been ventured on by any one really accustomed to deal with the various problems which the constructors of groined roofs ordinarily had before them. I venture therefore to place these two churches at Sigüenza and Avila among the most decidedly Spanish works of their day; I see no distinct evidence of foreign influence in any part of their design, and they seem to me to be fairly independent on the one hand of the early Spanish style of Tarragona, Lérida, Salamanca, and Segovia, and on the other of the imported French style of Toledo, Burgos, and Leon.

And now I must say a few words on the three last-named churches. I have already expressed my opinion as to their origin, which seems to me to be most distinctly and undoubtedly French. The history of the Spanish Church at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century, points with remarkable force to such a development as we see here. What more natural than that the country which looked, on the recovery from its troubles--on the expulsion of the Saracen--to its neighbour the French Church to supply it with bishops for its metropolitan and other sees--should look also to it for a supply of that instruction in art which had grown and flourished there, whilst men were fighting and striving with all their might and main here? And what is there more natural than that French architects, sent over for such works, should first of all plan their buildings on the most distinctly French plan, with French mouldings and French sculpture; and then--as we see both at Burgos and Toledo, in the singular treatment of the triforia--should have gradually succumbed to the national and in part Moresque influences by which they were surrounded? At Leon the evidences of imitation of French work are so remarkable, that no one capable of forming a judgment can doubt the fact; and if at Burgos and Toledo they are not quite so strong, the difference is slight, and one only of degree. I have already spoken upon these points in describing the churches in question; and here I will only repeat that, as the features of which I speak are exceptional and not gradually developed, it is as certain as anything can be that their style was not invented at all in Spain. We have only to remember the fact, that at the same time that Lérida Cathedral was being built, those of Toledo and Burgos were also in progress, whilst that of Valencia was not commenced until much later, to realize how fitful and irregular was the progress of art in Spain. It is, in fact, precisely what we see in the history of German art. There, just as in Spain, the Romanesque and semi-Romanesque styles remained long time in quiet possession of the field, and it was not until the marvellous power and success of the architects of Amiens and Beauvais excited the German architects to emulation in Cologne Cathedral, that they moved from their Romanesque style into the most decided and well-developed geometrical Gothic. And just as Cologne Cathedral is an exotic in Germany, so are those of Burgos, Leon, and Toledo in Spain; so that, whilst Spaniards may fairly be proud of the glory of possessing such magnificent works of art, their pride ought to be confined to that of ownership, and should not extend to any claim of authorship.

The demands of these three great churches upon our admiration are very different. The palm must be awarded to Toledo, which, as I have shown, equals, if it do not surpass, all other churches in Christendom in the beauty and scale of its plan. Undoubtedly, however, it lacks something of height, whilst later alterations have shorn it also of some of its attractiveness in design, the original triforium and clerestory remaining only in the choir. Nevertheless, as it stands, with all its alterations for the worse, it is still one of the most impressive churches I have ever seen, and one in which the heart must be cold indeed that is not at once moved to worship by the awefulness of the place.

I have already, in my account of this great church, entered somewhat fully into a description of the peculiarities of its plan, and the evidence which they afford of its foreign origin. The unusual arrangement of the chevet, in which the vaulting bays in both the surrounding aisles of the presbytery are made of nearly the same size,[415] by the introduction of triangular vaulting compartments, and in which the chapels of the outer aisle are alternately square and circular in plan, renders it, however, not merely an example of a French school, but one of the very highest interest and peculiarity. There is no church, so far as I know, similarly planned, though some are extremely suggestive as to the school in which its architect had studied. The cathedral at Le Mans has triangular vaulting compartments in the outer of its two aisles, arranged somewhat as they are at Toledo, but with inferior skill, the aisle next the central apse having the unequal vaulting compartments, which have been avoided here; but the surrounding chapels in these two examples are utterly unlike. Notre Dame, Paris, also has triangular vaulting compartments, but they are utterly different in their arrangement from those in Toledo Cathedral.[416] Neither of these examples, in short, proves much as to the authorship of the latter. A far more interesting comparison may, however, be instituted between the plan of this chevet and that rare example of a Mediæval architect’s own handiwork, which has been handed down to us in the design for a church made by Wilars de Honecort, under which he wrote the inscription, “Deseure est une glize a double charole. K vilars de honecort trova & pieres de corbie.” In English: “Above is (the presbytery of) a church with a double circumscribing aisle, which Wilars de Honecort and Peter de Corbie contrived together.”[417] In this plan we find these two old architects, not only introducing alternate square and circular chapels round their apse, but also an arrangement of the groining which looks almost as though they were acquainted with some such arrangement as that of the triangular vaulting compartments of Le Mans and Toledo. The diligent and able editors of Wilars de Honecort--M. Lassus and Professor Willis--say that no such plan as this is anywhere known to exist; and I believe they were nearly, though not, as I have shown, absolutely correct in this assertion. At Toledo they still exist in part, and once, no doubt, existed all round the chevet; and it may well, I think, be a question whether Peter, the architect of Toledo, had not studied in the French school, and with these very men--Wilars de Honecort and Peter de Corbie--who, “inter se disputando,” as they wrote on this plan, struck out this original scheme. At the same time it will be seen, on comparison of the two plans, that if he derived his idea from his brethren, he developed it into a much more scientific and perfect form.

It will be recollected that though I claim a French origin for Toledo Cathedral, I allow that it is not only possible, but probable, that, as the work went on, either Spaniards only were employed on it, or (which is more likely) that the French architect forgot somewhat of his own early practice, and was affected by the work of other kind being done by native artists around him. The evidence of this change is mainly to be seen in the triforium and clerestory of the choir and transepts.

The religious gloom of the cathedral at Toledo is strangely different from the religious brightness of that of Leon; for in the latter, where the sole end of the architect seems to have been the multiplication of openings and the diminution of solid points of support, the artist in stained glass has fortunately come to the rescue, and filled the windows with some of the most gorgeous colouring ever seen, so as to redeem it from its otherwise utter unfitness for its work in such a climate as that even of Northern Spain. I have already said that this church has not stood well. It was, in truth, too daring, and has in consequence failed to some extent. Yet, in spite of this, I cannot but admire immensely the hardihood and the skill of the man who could venture--knowing as much as he did--upon such a daring work as this; and I know not to whom to liken him so well as to the first architect of Beauvais Cathedral, though certainly the work at Leon has not failed so conspicuously as it did there. In both these churches the arrangement of the ground-plan of the chevet is so nearly similar as to allow of their being classed together as at any rate works of the same style, if they are not indeed both works of the same school. Both have pentagonal chapels round the apse, and square chapels to the west of them, and they were built within a few years of each other.[418] The detail at Leon is almost all very French, and the windows of its clerestory are, in their general design as well as in their detail, almost reproductions of those at Saint Denis, in the peculiar mode adopted there of strengthening the principal monials by doubling the smaller monials in width, without any change in their thickness.

The cathedral at Burgos is certainly in most respects a somewhat inferior work to that at Leon. It, too, is French; but its architect was familiar not with the best examples of French art in the Ile de France and Champagne, but only, I think, with those of the somewhat inferior Angevine school. The plan of this chevet[419] was probably never so fine as that of Leon, though it was very similar to it. Here, too, I think, we see some local influence exerting itself in the design of the triforia throughout the church, whereas at Leon the original scheme seems from first to last to have been faithfully adhered to. But if Burgos Cathedral is far inferior in scale to that of Toledo, and somewhat so to that of Leon in skilfulness of design, it is in all other respects equally deserving of study, and is in its general effect at present far more Spanish than either of them. The many additions have to a great extent, it is true, obscured the original design; but the result is so picturesque, and so far more interesting than an unaltered church usually is, that one cannot well find fault. The main failure of the design is the smallness of the scale, and the loss of internal effect owing to the alteration of the primitive arrangements by the placing of the Coro in the nave, and the leaving of the ample choir unoccupied save by the altar at its eastern end.

The succeeding great division of Gothic art is much more distinctly marked and more uniform throughout Spain, whilst at the same time it is even less national and peculiar. There are in truth very considerable remains of fourteenth-century works, though, perhaps, no one grand and entire example of a fourteenth-century building. All these examples are extremely similar in style; and I think, on the whole, more akin in feeling and detail to German middle-pointed than to French. The west front of Tarragona Cathedral, the lantern and north transept of Valencia Cathedral, the chapel of San Ildefonso, the Puerta of Sta. Catalina, and the screen round the Coro at Toledo, Sta. Maria del Mar and the cathedral at Barcelona, the chevet of Gerona Cathedral, the north doorway and nave clerestory of Avila Cathedral, and the cloisters of Burgos and Veruela, afford, with many others, fair examples of the design and details of churches of this period. The traceries are generally elaborately geometrical and rather rigid and ironlike in their character, the carving fair but not especially interesting--dealing usque ad nauseam in diapers of lions and castles--and the whole system of design one of line and rule rather than of heart and mind. Yet, in this, Spain reflected much more truly than before what was passing elsewhere in the fourteenth century; and exhibited, just as did Germany, France, and England[420] at the same moment, the fatal results of the descent from poetry and feeling in architecture to that skill and dexterity which are still in the nineteenth century, as they were in the fourteenth, regarded--and most wrongly regarded--as the elements of art most to be striven after and most taught. Art, in truth, was ceasing to be vigorous and natural, and becoming rapidly tame and academical!

Yet if these works are not very national, they are at any rate most interesting and deserve most careful study. He was no mean artist who made the first design for Barcelona Cathedral, who completed the chevet of Gerona, or who designed the steeple at Lérida, or the cloisters of Burgos, Leon, or Veruela. At this time indeed art was cosmopolitan, and all Europe seems to have been possessed with the same love for geometrical traceries, for crockets, for thin delicate mouldings, and for sharp naturalesque foliage, so that no country presents anything which is absolutely new, or unlike what may be seen to some extent elsewhere. There are perhaps only two features of this period which I need record here, and these are, first, the reproduction of the octagonal steeple, which, as we have seen, was a most favourite type of the Romanesque builders; and, secondly, the introduction of that grand innovation upon old precedents, the great unbroken naves, groined in stone, lighted from windows high up in the walls, and inviting each of them its thousands to worship God or to hear His word in such fashion as we, who are used to our little English town churches, can scarcely realize to ourselves.[421] But on this point I will say no more because its consideration more naturally arises in the succeeding period, in which the problem was more distinctly met and more satisfactorily settled.

The survey of Spanish art in the fifteenth century is, I think, on the whole, more gratifying than it is in the fourteenth. In the earliest churches, as the models from which they were derived were first of all built in hot climates, the windows were small and few, the walls thick, the roofs flat-pitched, and the whole construction eminently suited to the physical circumstances of the country. But these models, having been taken to the north of Europe, and there largely and perhaps thoughtlessly copied, in spite of the vast difference of climate, were soon found to be unfitted for their purpose, and were consequently, in due course of time, developed into that advanced style of Gothic of which the main characteristic is the size and beauty of its windows. Of course this development was just that of all others which ought not to have been tolerated at all under a southern sun; and we must allow the fifteenth-century architects the credit of having discovered this, and of having returned very much to the same kind of design as that in which their thirteenth-century predecessors had indulged.

The examples of this age which I have described will have given a fair idea of their main characteristics. The magnificent size, the solid construction, and the solemn internal effect of such churches as those of Segovia, Salamanca, Astorga, Huesca, Gerona, Pamplona, and Manresa, would be sufficient to mark the period which produced them as one of the most fertile and artistic the world has ever seen. We may approach such buildings full of prejudice in favour of an earlier style of architecture, of a purer form of art; but we cannot leave them without acknowledging that at least they are admirable in their general effect, and if not conceived in the very purest art, still conceived in what is at any rate a true form of art. By the time in which they were erected, Spain had become far more powerful than ever before; she was quite free from all fear of the Moors, and was so rich as to be able to expend vast sums of money in works of art and luxury. She had also more trade and communication with her neighbours; and no doubt their customs and their schools of art had become so familiar to Spanish architects as to lead naturally to some imitation of them in their works. In their later works we find, at any rate, a development beyond that point at which Spaniards had before arrived, and noticeably an affection for the French chevet or apsidal choir surrounded by a procession-path and group of chapels. This arrangement, which, when it was adopted at Veruela, Santiago, Burgos, Leon, and Toledo, was evidently only adopted because the architects of these churches were French, was a favourite one of the artists of the fifteenth century. Huesca and Astorga alone of the great churches mentioned just now are founded upon the old Spanish type of parallel apses at the east end: the others are all founded upon that of the French chevet with some modifications in the details of their design. Of these, few are more interesting than that which we see in the cathedral at Pamplona, the chevet of which is, to the best of my belief, unique in its curious use of the equilateral triangle in the plan. This is perhaps the most novel modification of the French plan; but among all of them it is impossible not to award the palm, most decidedly, to the really magnificent works of the Catalan School. In other parts of Spain the great churches of this period had no very special or marked character; nothing which clearly showed them to be real developments in advance of what had been done before or elsewhere. In Cataluña, on the other hand, there was a most marked impulse given by a Mallorcan artist at the latter part of the fourteenth century; and to the influence of his school we owe some of, I suppose, the most important mediæval churches to be seen in any part of Europe. Their value consists mainly in the success with which they meet the problem of placing an enormous congregation on the floor in front of one altar, and within sight and hearing of the preacher. The vastest attempt which we have made in this direction sinks into something quite below insignificance when compared with such churches as Gerona Cathedral, Sta. Maria del Mar, Barcelona, or the Collegiata at Manresa. The nave of the former would hold some two thousand three hundred worshippers, that of the next hard upon three thousand, and that of the third about two thousand. Their internal effect is magnificent in the extreme; and if, in their present state, their external effect is not so fine, it must be remembered, first of all, that they have all been much mutilated, and, in the next place, that their architects had evidently mastered the first great necessity in church-building--the successful treatment of the interior. In these days it is impossible to say this too strongly: men build churches everywhere in England, as though they were only to be looked at, not worshipped in; and forget, in fact, that the sole use of art in connexion with religion is the exaltation of the solemnity of the ritual, and the oblation of our best before the altar, and not the mere pleasing of men’s eyes with the sweet sights of spires rising among trees, or gables and traceried windows standing out amid the uninteresting fabrics of nineteenth-century streets!

In our large towns in England there is nothing we now want more than something which shall emulate the magnificent scale of these Catalan churches. They were built in the middle ages for a large manufacturing or seafaring population; and we have everywhere just such masses of souls to be dealt with as they were provided for. But then, of course, it is useless to recommend such models if they are only to be used as we use our churches, for four or five hours on Sundays, instead of, as these Spanish churches were and still are, for worship at all sorts of hours, not only on Sundays, but on every day of the week also. When English Churchmen are accustomed to see churches thoroughly well used; when no church is without its weekly, no great church without its daily Eucharist; and when they see none, great or small, without their doors open daily both for public and private prayer,--then, and not till then, can we expect that they will allow architects any chance of emulating the glories achieved by these old men. Till then we shall hold fast to our insular traditions of little town churches and subdivided parishes, and shall doubt the advantages of enormous naves, of colleges of clergy working together, and of those other old Catholic appliances, which must be tried fully and fairly before we give up in despair the attempt to Christianize the working population of our large cities.

The general idea of these great fifteenth-century churches has no doubt already been grasped by my readers. Worship at the altar appears to me to be the key to the design and arrangement of many of them, for nowhere else in Europe, I suppose, can we find a church on so very moderate a scale as the Cathedral at Barcelona crowded in the way it is with altars, and so planned and fitted up as to make it absolutely useless as a place of gathering for a large number of persons at one service. But if this multiplication of side altars was here carried to excess, one of the most remarkable examples of an attempt to glorify the high altar, and at the same time to provide for one enormous and united congregation, is unquestionably that which is presented by Sta. Maria del Mar in the same city. This church has its prototype at Palma in Mallorca, and I much regret that I have never yet been able to visit that island, for, so far as I can learn, it seems that the mainland owed much to it in the way of architectural development, and that some of the finest examples of the Catalan style in this age are still to be seen there.

The special devotion to the altar service which is exemplified in Barcelona Cathedral led naturally to other architectural developments. Such are the remarkable church of San Tomás at Avila, with its western choir and eastern altar both raised in galleries, and its arrangement for the congregation of worshippers below. Such again is the church of El Parral, Segovia, with its deep western gallery for the choir, its dark, gloomy, and austere nave, and the concentration of light and window round the altar. Indeed, the institution of the western gallery, so common--I might almost say so universal--in small churches at this period in Spain, arose from the same feeling as did the removal of the choir into the nave in the larger churches. The object of all these changes was to give the people access to the altar, and usually they seem to have been made upon the assumption that no one would care to assist at the services in the choir itself. I am very much inclined to think that the rise of this feeling was to a great extent an accident, and the result of the fact that almost all the early Spanish churches were founded on models in which the eastern limb of the Cross was so very short that the choir or Chorus Cantorum must almost always have occupied the eastern part of the nave, or the Crossing under the central lantern. This must have been almost a necessity in such cathedrals as those of Lérida, Tudela, and Sigüenza: whilst in others, as those of Tarragona, Tarazona, and Avila, the space must always have been cramped, though a choir might have been accommodated. Of the larger churches Burgos alone has a really large constructional choir. In Toledo it is very short, and in Leon certainly below what we usually find in a French church of the same age and pretensions.

The cathedrals of Segovia and Salamanca are the two latest great Gothic churches in Spain, and in some respects among the grandest; and here, as might be expected, the Spanish custom as to the position of the Coro had become so thoroughly fixed and invariable, that the choir proper is very short, and built only for the altar. The plan of Segovia Cathedral is very fine and well proportioned; whilst that of Salamanca has been unhappily ruined by the erection of a square east end, in place of the apse which was first of all intended: and this, in place of emulating at all the noble design of any of our English eastern ends, is contrived with but little skill, the aisle returning across behind the altar, whilst beyond it to the east there is a line of chapels similar to those beyond the aisles.

Of the later styles I need say but little. They are not Gothic, and this is a summary of Gothic architecture only; yet it is interesting to look into their history if only to notice how curious the fact is that at the same time that men like Berruguete were designing in the most thoroughly Renaissance style, Juan Gil de Hontañon was still painfully superintending the erection of a great Gothic cathedral. The remarkably Gothic staircase to the Hall at Christ Church, Oxford (A.D. 1640); the Gothic window traceries of Stone Church, Kent, of the same date; the rebuilding of Higham Ferrers steeple by the great Archbishop Laud, and of the spire of Lichfield Cathedral by good Bishop Hacket in 1669, are well-known instances of the remarkable love for Christian art which Englishmen retained long after the fashion for Pagan and Renaissance art had set in. And it is not a little interesting to find the same contest going on in Spain, and the same love for the old and hallowed form of art exhibited.

I cannot see much--I might almost say I can see nothing--to admire in the works of the Renaissance school in Spain. It was in their time that the discovery of America raised the country to the very summit of her prosperity, and right nobly did she acknowledge her duty by the offerings she made of her wealth. Few Spanish churches are without some token of the magnificent liberality of the people at this time, and one is obliged to acknowledge it in spite of the horror with which one regards the works they did, and the damage which their erection did to the older buildings to which they were added.

It would be dreary work to follow the stream of Spanish art down by Berruguete and Herrera to Churriguera and so on to our own time; and the only fact of interest that I know is that the old scheme of cruciform church with a central lantern is still the most popular, and that down to the present time almost every modern church has been so planned, with a lantern dome rising from above the intersection of the nave and transepts.

Fortunately, down to this time the tide of “Restoration” has hardly reached Spain, and one is able therefore to study the genuine old records in their old state. There are no Salisbury Chapter-houses or Worcester Cathedrals to puzzle us as to whether anything about them is old, or whether all may be dismissed or discussed as if it were perfectly new; and so it affords a field for study the value of which cannot be overrated, and which ought not to be neglected. It must not be supposed that this field of study is limited to the general scheme of the churches. On the contrary, their fittings and furniture, their appendages and dependent buildings, are unsurpassed in interest by those of any other land, and in addition to these there are several other heads under which my subject naturally presents itself.

First among them is that of church furniture. No country is perhaps now so rich in this respect as Spain. Few of course--if any--of her churches retain their old furniture in its original place earlier in date than the fifteenth century. It is true that the magnificent baldachin and Retablo at Gerona, the screens round the Coro at Toledo, and the beautiful painted Retablo in the old cathedral at Salamanca, are earlier than this; but these are exceptions to the rule. The great glory of the country in this respect are such Retablos--rich in sculpture, covered with gold and colour, and in paintings of no mean merit, and lofty and imposing beyond anything of the kind ever seen elsewhere--as those of Toledo Cathedral or the Carthusian Church of Miraflores. In these one hardly knows whether to admire most the noble munificence of the founders, or the marvellous skill and dexterity of the men who executed them. It is not only that they are rich and costly, but much more, that all the work in them is usually good of its kind, and far finer than the work of the same age and style which we see in the Netherlands and Germany. The choir stalls, again, are often magnificent. Nothing can be more interesting than the contemporary chronicle of the capture of Granada which we see in the lower range of stalls at Toledo; they are full of character and spirit, and represent what was no doubt felt to be a truly religious enterprize, with at least as much fidelity as any view of our own military operations at the present day ever attains to. Other churches have choir fittings, like those of Zamora, full of curious interest to the student of Christian iconography; like those at Palencia, remarkable for the exceedingly elaborate character of their traceries and panelling; and like those of Gerona, valuable for the fine character of the rare fourteenth-century woodwork which has been re-arranged in the modern Coro. Turn again from the choir stalls to the other fittings of the choir. Seldom elsewhere shall we see the old columns for the curtains at the side of the altar still standing as they do at Manresa. Nowhere shall we see such magnificent choir lecterns, in brass as that of Toledo, or in wood as that of Zamora; nowhere else such pretty and sweet-sounding wheels of bells for use at the elevation of the Host; nowhere, perhaps, so many old organs, many of which, if not Mediæval, are at any rate not far from being so; nowhere else so many or such magnificent Rejas or metal screens and parcloses, as in this country. In every one of these works Spanish workmen excelled, because they devoted themselves to them. We have lists of men who made screens, of others who carved the choir stalls, of others who made Retablos, and of others, again, who painted and gilded them. Each class of men is named after the furniture to the execution of which they devoted themselves, and occasionally individuals rose to rare eminence from this kind of work. The time was late, indeed, when it happened, but see how Borgoña and Berruguete strove for mastery over their work on the upper stalls at Toledo, or how the poor Matias Bonifé, at Barcelona, was bound to carve no beasts or subjects on his stalls, to which we may suppose he was addicted; and how his successor died of distress because the Chapter did not like the pinnacles he added to the canopies; and consider how people interested themselves in the matter, how they were excited in the contest between Borgoña and Berruguete, and no doubt in the others also, and we see at once how different was the position which these men occupied from that which, so far as we know, their contemporaries in England held.

The monuments in the Spanish churches are not the least of their glories. From one of the earliest and finest, that of Bishop Maurice at Burgos, there is a sequence illustrating almost every variety of Gothic down to that exquisite Renaissance monument of the son of Ferdinand and Isabella at Avila, in which--in spite of the date and style--the old spirit still breathes an air of grace, refinement, and purity over the whole work. Such chapels as those which enshrine these monuments,--that of the Constable at Burgos, of Santiago at Toledo, of Miraflores near Burgos,--are well fitted to hold the most magnificent of memorials; for were it not that such a work as the tomb of Juan II. and Elizabeth is almost unmatched anywhere for the skill and delicacy of its workmanship, and that some of the others are almost equally sumptuous, the chapels within which they are erected would appear to be in themselves the noblest remembrances of the dead.

Of the dependent buildings of these great churches I have had to speak over and over again. The ground-plans which I have given will show how complete they usually are. Their arrangement varies very much. The cloister, for instance, is on the north-east at Tarragona; the north at Sigüenza, Toledo, and Leon; the west at Lérida and Olite; the south at Santiago, Palencia, Tudela, and Veruela; and the south-east at Burgos. The Chapter-houses by no means always stand on the east of the cloister, though they usually retain the old triple entrance, and the remaining buildings seem to vary very much in the positions assigned to them.

The roofing of Spanish churches has been incidentally noticed in various places throughout this volume. It was almost always of stone. So far as the interior roofing is concerned, the changes that are seen are of course very much the same as those which marked the vaults of most other parts of Europe at the same period. At first the cylindrical Roman vault, then the same vault supported by quadrant vaults over the aisles, then simple quadripartite vaults, and finally vaults supported on very elaborate systems of lierne ribs. But there are some minor peculiarities in these vaults which deserve record. The waggon vaults generally have transverse ribs on their under side, and occur usually in buildings in which all the apsidal terminations are roofed with semi-domes--and they are sometimes (as in Lugo Cathedral, and Sta. Maria, la Coruña) pointed. The early quadripartite vaulting is generally remarkable for the large size of the vaulting-ribs, and for the very bold transverse arches which divide the bays. Ridge-ribs are hardly ever introduced, and the ridge is generally very little out of the level. The vaults of Leon Cathedral are filled in with tufa in order to diminish the weight, but I have not noticed any similar contrivance elsewhere. Down to the end of the fourteenth century the vaulting seldom if ever had any but diagonal, transverse, and wall-ribs; and even in many of the works of the succeeding century the same judicious simplicity is seen. But usually at this time it became the fashion to introduce a most complicated system of lierne ribs, covering the whole surface of the vault, dividing it up into an endless number of small and irregularly shaped compartments, and very much damaging its effect. My ground-plans of Segovia and (new) Salamanca Cathedrals show how extremely elaborate these later vaults very frequently were. There is another form of vault which is not unfrequently met with: this occurs where a square vaulting bay is groined with an octagonal vault. In these examples a pendentive is formed at each angle of the square, and thus the octagonal base is formed for the vault. Examples of this are to be seen in the Chapels of San Ildefonso and Santiago at Toledo Cathedral, in three of the late Chapels at Burgos Cathedral, and in the Chapter-house of Pamplona Cathedral. The fashion for this vault arose probably from the custom which had obtained of building central lanterns, which were frequently finished with octagonal stages, and consequently vaulted with octagonal vaults. So far as to the internal roofing. The evidence I have found of the old external roofing in some cases is even more interesting. It is clear that many of the early churches were intended from the first to be built entirely of stone in the roof as well as in the walls. Avila, Toledo, and Lérida Cathedrals, and the Collegiata at Manresa, still retain some of their old stone covering; and though it is true that in none of these cases has the attempt to construct an absolutely imperishable building been perfectly successful, it appears to me that the workmen and architects who attempted to carry such plans into execution deserve all our admiration. I have described these roofs in the course of my notes upon the churches in which they occur, and here I need only refer to my descriptions and illustrations.

In sculpture Spain is not so rich as France, but on the whole probably more so than England. The best complete Gothic work that I have seen is at Leon; but it offers no variety whatever from the best of the same age in France. I have given the various iconographical schemes, so far as I could manage to do so, in describing the several works, and here I will only repeat that, to my mind, the triple western doors at Santiago[422]--completed in A.D. 1188--are among the finest works of their age, and deserving of the greatest care and tenderness on the part of their guardians. Most of us are conscious how much good sculpture adds to the interest of good architecture. Usually, however, we spread our modern sculpture too lavishly in all directions if we have the money to spend. But even in this there may be too much of a good thing; the mind and eye become satiated, and sicken; and not half the real pleasure is felt in seeing some modern works that would be if the work had been somewhat less lavishly applied, somewhat more thoughtfully, or as at Santiago, in one spot, leaving the whole of the rest of the church in its stern, rude simplicity.

The domestic architecture of Spain in the middle ages is, as might be expected, very much less important than the religious architecture. Probably the wealth of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was even more damaging to the former than it was to the latter. At any rate, no country--Italy excepted--contains a greater number of showy Renaissance palaces in all its principal towns than Spain does; and there can be little doubt that they took the place of Gothic houses to a very considerable extent. Either I was very unlucky, or, if I saw what is to be seen, I must pronounce Spain to be unusually barren of old examples of domestic buildings. Of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries I have hardly seen a single example, save the house which I have described at Lérida; whilst of the two following centuries, the best examples seem to be confined very much to the Mediterranean sea-board. In this part of Spain are the simple houses lighted by ajimez windows, which I have described and illustrated; they extend all along the coast from Perpiñan to Valencia, and are usually so much alike as to produce the impression that they are all made from the same design. Later than this, the public buildings at Barcelona and Valencia, the palace of the Dukes del Infantado at Guadalajara, the museum and other convents at Valladolid, the house of the Constable Velasco at Burgos, and the great hospital at Santiago, are no doubt magnificent examples of their class. In these the buildings are generally arranged round courtyards, which are surrounded by passages opening to the court, and lighted either with open arches or with traceried windows. Rich and noble as some of these buildings are, there is little that is interesting or picturesque in them, and they seldom attain the degree of importance of which one would suppose such an architectural scheme skilfully treated would admit. Their date is rarely earlier than circa A.D. 1450, and the detail of their mouldings and sculpture is consequently of the latest kind of Gothic. There is, however, a rude barbaric splendour in some of the courts or patios at Valladolid, where this kind of building is seen to perhaps greater advantage than anywhere else.

The castles of Spain deserve, apparently, much more attention, and are in every way more important, than the other domestic buildings. Those at Olite, Segovia, and Medina del Campo have been already described; and there is, no doubt, a vast number of buildings of somewhat similar character to be seen, especially in those parts of the country which formed for a time the frontier land between the Moorish and Christian kingdoms. Generally, they are remarkable for the unbroken surface of their lofty walls, crowned with picturesque and complicated projecting turrets at the angles. The scale on which they are built is magnificent, and their walls still stand almost untouched by the ages of neglect from which they have suffered. In the same way the walls which encircle the Spanish cities are often still so perfect throughout their circuit that it is almost possible to persuade oneself that they have been untouched for three hundred years. Avila, Lugo, Segovia, Toledo, Pamplona, Astorga, Gerona, Tarragona, and many other towns are girt round with so close an array of tower and wall as to make them still look fit for defence. The age of these walls varies much; but most are probably of early foundation, owing their first erection to the days when the Moors still from time to time rode raiding across the land. They are always of extraordinary solidity, and consist usually of plain walls with circular projecting towers at short intervals.

The materials used by Spanish architects and builders seem to have been granite, stone, and brick. Granite was used in some of the very earliest constructions; but after the introduction of Christian art into the country, nothing but stone was used for two or three centuries, when granite was again made use of. We see the same thing in England; and no doubt the admirable masons who played so important a part in the development of Christian architecture must have detested the hard, coarse, and unyielding material, when they compared it with the more easily-wrought free-stones which lent themselves so kindly to their work. The Spanish masons were always, I think, skilful; and in the fifteenth century, when Gothic art was glowing forth in all the glory of decay, pre-eminently so. I know no mere execution of details more admirable in every way than that which we see, for instance, in the work of Diego de Siloe. It reaches the very utmost limit of skilful handiwork. It is not very artistic, but it is so clever that we cannot but admire it; and I doubt much whether the best of our own works of the same age can at all be put in comparison with it. It is generally marked by the extraordinary love of heraldic achievements which is so characteristic of the Spaniards. There are some of the façades of the later churches which are adorned with absolutely nothing but coats of arms and their supporters; and I know no work which is less interesting in spite of its extraordinary elaborateness. The decorations of parts of our Houses of Parliament give some idea of this sort of work, though they are by no means so painfully elaborate.

The masons seem to have worked together in large bodies, and the walls are marked in all directions with the signs which, then as now, distinguished the work of each mason from that of his neighbour, but I have been unable (save in one or two cases) to detect the mark of the same mason in more than one work; and from this it would seem to be probable that the masons were stationary rather than nomadic in their habits, a deduction which is fortified by the difference of general character which may, I think, be detected between the groups of marks in different buildings. Occasionally the number of men employed on one building seems to have been unusually large, and it is clear therefore that there were great numbers of masons in the country. In the small church of Sta. Maria, Benavente, there are the marks of at least thirty-one masons on the eastern wall; as many as thirty-five were at work on the lower part of the steeple at Lérida; whilst in one portion of Santiago Cathedral there appears to have been as many as sixty. These numbers would be large at the present day; and are very considerable even if compared with such a building as Westminster Abbey, where, in A.D. 1253, when the works were in full progress, the number of stone-cutters varied from thirty-five to seventy-eight.

The use of bricks was not, so far as I have seen, very great. They were used either in combination with stone, plaster, or tiles, or by themselves. Examples of their use in combination with stone may be seen at Toledo. Here, in all the Moorish or Moresque examples, the walls are built of rubble stone, with occasional bonding-courses of brick, and brick quoins. This kind of construction, which has been sometimes adopted of late years in England, is obviously good and convenient, but wanted, to some minds, the authority of ancient precedent; and here at Toledo we are able to show it from a very early period. In the very early Puerta de Visagra (circa A.D. 1108-1136) single bonding-courses of brick are used at a very short distance apart, whilst in the later works, such as the steeples of San Roman and La Magdalena, the bands are farther apart, and consist frequently of two or three courses of brick, whilst the stringcourses and corbel-tables are formed of projecting bricks, which are seldom, if ever, moulded. This, indeed, may almost be said to be the special peculiarity of Spanish brickwork; for in every other part of Europe, so far as I have seen, where bricks are much used, they were always more or less moulded. These examples are useful, however, as showing how very much richness of effect can be obtained by the use of the simple rough material in the simplest way. At Zaragoza, at Tarazona, at Calatayud, and elsewhere, the buildings and their steeples are covered with panels and arcades, formed by setting forward some of the bricks a few inches in advance of the face of the wall. In some cases, as in the Cimborio of Tarazona Cathedral, and the east wall of Zaragoza, the spaces so left are filled in with extremely rich work in coloured tiles, the effect of which is far less garish and strange than might have been expected.

The most curious feature that I have noticed about Spanish brickwork is, that it always, or almost always, appears to have been the work of Moorish workmen, and not of the Christian workmen by whom the great churches throughout the country were erected. The Moors continued to live and work in many towns long after the Christians had recovered them; and wherever they did so, they seem to have retained, to a great extent, all their old architectural and constructive traditions. We see this most distinctly in the markedly different character of the old Spanish brickwork both from the other Spanish architectural developments of the day, and also from any brickwork of the same period that is seen in other parts of Europe. If after leaving Zaragoza the traveller were to cross the Pyrenees, and then make his way to Toulouse, he would find himself again in the midst of brick buildings, erected at various times from the twelfth to the sixteenth century; but he would find them utterly different in style from the brick buildings of the Zaragozan district, and thoroughly in harmony with the stone buildings which were being erected at the same time in the same neighbourhood. And this brings us in face of one of the most curious evidences of the extremely exotic character of most Spanish art. Spain was the only country in Europe, probably, in which at the same time, during the whole period from A.D. 1200 to A.D. 1500, various schools of architecture existed much as they do in England at the present day. There were the genuine Spanish Gothic churches (derived, of course, from Roman and Romanesque), the northern Gothic buildings executed by architects imported from France, and in later days from Germany, and the Moresque buildings executed by Moorish architects for their Christian masters. Of these schools I have already discussed two in this chapter, and I must now say a few words about the third.

I do not propose to speak here of Moorish art, properly and strictly so called, but only of that variety of it which we see made use of by the Christians, and which throughout this volume I have called “Moresque.” Of these, the most remarkable that I have seen are in that most interesting city of Toledo, which, so far as I can learn, seems to surpass Seville in work of this kind, almost as much as it does in its treasures of Christian art. Here it is plain that, though Christians ruled the city, Moors inhabited it. The very planning of the town, with its long, narrow, winding lanes; the arrangement of the houses, with their closed outer walls, their patios or courts, and their large and magnificent halls, speak strongly and decidedly in favour of the Moorish origin of the whole. And when we come to look into the matter in detail, this presumption is most fully supported; for everywhere the design of the internal finishing and decorations of the houses and rooms is thoroughly Moorish, executed with the remarkable skill in plaster for which the Moors were noted, and with curious exhibitions here and there of a knowledge, on the part of the men who did them, of the Gothic details which were most in vogue at the time.

It may well be supposed that if the Moors were thus influenced by the sight of Christian art, the Christians would be not less so by the sight of theirs. I fully expected when I went first to Spain that I should find evidences of this more or less everywhere; I soon found that I was entirely mistaken, and that, though they do exist, they are comparatively rare and very unimportant. This will be seen if I notice some of the most remarkable of the examples.

(1.) In Toledo Cathedral the triforium of the choir is decidedly Moresque in its design, though it is Gothic in all its details, and has carvings of heads, and of the ordinary dog-tooth enrichment. It consists of a trefoiled arcade; in the spandrels between the arches of this there are circles with heads in them; and above these, triangular openings pierced through the wall; the mouldings of all these openings interpenetrate, and the whole arcade has the air of intricate ingenuity so usual in Moorish work. It might not be called Moresque in England, but in Toledo there can, I think, be no question that it is the result of Moorish influence on the Christian artist. So also in the triforium of the inner aisle of the same Cathedral the cusping of the arcades begins with the point of the cusp on the capital, so as to produce the effect of a horseshoe arch: and though it is true that this form of cusping is found extensively in French buildings in the country between Le Puy and Bourges, here, in the neighbourhood of the universal horseshoe cusping of the Moorish arches, it is difficult to suppose that the origin of this work is not Moorish also. The same may be said with equal truth of the triforium at the east end of Avila Cathedral.

(2.) The towers of the Christian churches in Toledo, at Illescas, at Calatayud, at Zaragoza, and at Tarazona, all appear to me to be completely Moresque. Those in Toledo make no disguise about it, the pointed arches of their window openings not even affecting to be Gothic in their mode of construction. So also in some of the churches of Toledo much of the work is completely Moresque. The church of Sta. Leocadia is a remarkable example of the mixture of Romanesque and Moresque ideas in the same building.

(3.) In many buildings some small portion of Moorish ornament is introduced by the Christian workman evidently as a curiosity, and as it were to show that he knew how to do it, but did not choose to do much of it. Among these are, (a) the traceries in the thirteenth-century cloister at Tarragona,[423] where the Moresque character is combined with the Christian symbol; (b) the interlacing traceries of the circular windows in the lantern of San Pedro, Huesca;[424] (c) the carving of a Moorish interlacing pattern on the keystone of a vault at Lérida; (d) the filling in of the windows of the Cloister at Tarazona with the most elaborate pierced traceries;[425] (e) the traceries of the clerestory of the aisle of the chevet of Toledo Cathedral; (f) and similar semi-Moresque traceries inserted in Gothic windows at Lugo, and many other places, where everything else is purely Gothic.

(4.) The introduction of coupled groining ribs, as in the vault of the Templars’ Church at Segovia, and in that of the Chapter-house at Salamanca. The Moorish architects seem always to have been extremely fond of coupled ribs. We see them in several of the vaults in the church or mosque called Cristo de la Luz;[426] and the principal timbers of the wooden roofs of the synagogue “del Transito” are similarly coupled. It is an arrangement utterly unknown, so far as I remember, in Gothic work, and there can be no doubt that in these examples it is Moresque. The vault of the Chapter-house at Salamanca, which also has parallel vaulting ribs, produces, as will be seen[427] in the centre, the sort of star-shaped compartment of which the Moorish architects were always so fond.

(5.) The Moorish battlement is used extensively on walls throughout Spain. It is weathered on all sides to a point, and covers only the battlements, and not the spaces between them.[428]

(6.) The Moorish system of plastering was considerably used, not only at Toledo, but also to a late period on the Alcazar and on houses and towers at Segovia. Here, however, though the system of design and the mode of execution are altogether Moorish, the details of the patterns cut in the plaster are generally Christian.

(7.) The Moorish carpentry is very peculiar, and is constantly introduced in late Gothic work. Most of my readers have probably seen the ingenious puzzles which the Moors contrived with interlacing ribs in their ceilings at the Alhambra, illustrated with so much completeness by Mr. Owen Jones; these patterns are constantly used in Gothic buildings for door-framing; and examples of this kind of work may be seen frequently, and especially in towns--like Valencia and Barcelona--on the eastern coast.

These evidences of Moorish influence upon Christian art in Spain are, it will at once be seen, rather insignificant, and serve on the whole to prove the fact, that Christian art was nearly as pure here as it was anywhere. This is precisely, I think, what might have been expected. For where a semi-religious war was for ages going on between two nations, and where art was, as it almost always is--God be praised--more or less religious in its origin and object, nothing can be imagined less probable than that their national styles of art should be much mixed one with the other. It is probable, on the contrary, that each would have a certain amount of pride in this practical way of protesting against his enemy’s heresies, so that art was likely to assume a religious air even greater and deeper than it did elsewhere.

The mention of the religious element in art leads naturally to the consideration of that art which most objectively ministered to the teaching of religious truths and history--the art of Painting. The admirable and interesting work of Mr. Stirling[429] begins just where I leave off, and almost treats the painters before Velasquez, Murillo, and Joánes as though they had never existed. But in truth I suppose it is necessary that the whole subject should be studied from the beginning; and though we can never hope for such a mine of information about mediæval Spanish painters as Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have given us about their Italian contemporaries, it is not, I think, unreasonable to suppose that a good deal of information might still be obtained. I regret very much that in all my Spanish journeys my time has been so fully occupied with purely architectural work that I have never been able to pay so much attention as they seemed to deserve to the early paintings that I saw. Yet the works of Borgoña at Avila, the paintings round the cloister and choir-screen at Leon, the painted Retablos at Barcelona, Toledo, and elsewhere, seemed to me to be often very full of beauty both of drawing and colour. Their number is very great, and most of them are still in the very places for which they were originally painted. Their character appears to me to be utterly different from that to which we are accustomed as marking Spanish painting. Almost all our ideas are formed, as it seems to me, on the work of a school of painters who, adopting religious art as their special vocation, and shutting themselves out almost entirely from any representation of any other kind of subject, contrived unfortunately to take the gloomy side of religion, and to paint as though an officer of the Holy Office was ever at their elbow. How contrary this spirit to that of the earlier men, who, so far as I have seen, painted just as naturally religious men, cheerful, hearty, and unaffected by the souring influence of the Inquisition, might be expected to paint! Their work appears to me to give them an intermediate place between the tenderly delicate treatment of the early Italian masters, and the intensely realistic and consequently very mundane style of the early German painters; but it is always bright, cheerful, and agreeable both in manner and choice of subject. The names of but a few of these early men are preserved, and unfortunately next to nothing beyond their names. Among them are Ramon Torrente of Zaragoza, who died in 1323; Guillem Fort, his pupil; Juan Cesilles of Barcelona, who at the end of the fourteenth century contracted for the painting of the Reredos at Reus, and some of whose handiwork may not impossibly remain among the Retablos still preserved in the cloister chapels of Barcelona Cathedral; Gherardo d’Jacobo Starna (or Starnina), born at Florence in 1354, who before the end of the fourteenth century spent several years painting in Spain; Dello, also of Florence, and a friend of Paolo Uccello, who died somewhere about 1466-70;[430] Rogel, a Fleming, who painted a chapel at Miraflores in A.D. 1445; Jorge Ingles (probably an Englishman), who was painting in Spain circa A.D. 1450; Antonio Rincon,[431] who was born at Guadalajara in 1446, studied under Ghirlandaio for a time, and, subsequently residing at Toledo, painted in A.D. 1483 the walls of the old sacristy, and died circa 1500, with the reputation of being the painter who had most contributed to the overthrow of the mediæval style; finally, Juan de Borgoña, who may be mentioned as one of the latest and greatest of the earlier school, and almost the only one of them whose known works are still to be seen. His great work appears to have been a series of paintings round the cloister of Toledo Cathedral, which have all been destroyed; besides which he executed other works in the sacristy, chapter-house, and Mozarabic chapel there, and in the Cathedral at Avila. The feature which strikes one the most in these early works is the strange way in which sculpture and painting are combined in the same work. The great Retablos which give so grand an effect to Spanish altars are frequently adorned with paintings in some parts and sculptured subjects in others. The frames to the pictures are generally elaborate architectural compositions of pinnacles and canopies, and consequently the art is altogether rather decorative than pictorial in its effect. Sometimes, when the altar is small, and the Retablo close to the eye, this is not so much the case, and I have seen many of the pictures in these positions look so thoroughly well as to give a very high impression of the men who produced them. They are almost all painted on panel, and, as might be expected, on gold grounds. Old wall-paintings are comparatively rare: I have seen no important series save that which I have described at Leon, and of the later of these some at least appeared to me to be extremely Florentine in their character.

This general review of the whole course and history of Spanish art seemed to be necessary in order to give point and intelligible order to the various descriptive notices which have been given in the previous chapters of this book. It is probable that some of my readers may after all think that I have had but little that was new to tell them. Possibly this may be so. The history of art repeats itself everywhere in obedience to some general law of progress; and it might have been assumed beforehand that we should find the same story in Spain as in France, Germany, or England. But the real novelty of my account is, I take it, this,--that whereas generally men credited Spain with forming an exception to a general rule, my business has been to show that, on the whole, she did nothing of the sort. Just as we obtained a French architect for our Canterbury, as the people of Milan obtained one from Germany for their cathedral, as the architect of St. Mark at Venice borrowed from the East, as he of Périgueux from St. Mark, as he of Cologne from Amiens or Beauvais, so Spain profited, no doubt, from time to time, by the example of her French neighbours. But at the same time she formed a true branch of art for herself, and one so vigorous, so noble, and so worthy of study, that I shall be disappointed indeed if her buildings are not ere long far more familiar than they now are to English Ecclesiologists.

I think, too, that the occasional study of any ancient school of architecture is always attended with the best possible results to those who are themselves attempting to practise the same art. It recalls us, when necessary, to the consideration of the points of difference between their work and ours; and thus, by obliging us to reconsider our position, may enable us to see where it is defective, and where the course we are pursuing is evidently erroneous. I have already noticed incidentally, in more than one place in this work, the noble air of solidity which so often marks the early Spanish buildings; I need hardly say that in these days none of us err on this side, and that in truth our buildings only too often lack even that amount of solidity which is necessary to their stability. And this leads me naturally to another questionable feature in modern work, which is to a great extent the cause of our failing in the matter of solidity. These noble Spanish buildings were usually solid and simple; their mouldings were not very many, and their sculptures were few, precious, and delicate. There was little in them of mere ornament, and never any lavish display of it. Sculpture of the human figure was but rarely introduced, and whatever sculpture there was, was thoroughly architectural in its character. How different is the case now! Hardly a church or public building of any kind is built, which--whatever its poverty elsewhere--has not sculpture of foliage and flowers, birds and beasts, scattered broadcast and with profusion all over it. However bad the work, it is sure to be admired, and as it is evidently almost always done without any, or with but little interference of the architect, he is often tempted to secure popularity for his work in this easiest of ways. I know buildings of great cost which have been absolutely ruined in effect by this miserable practice; and I know none in the middle ages in which so much carved work has been introduced, as has been in some of those which have recently been erected. I believe it to be a fact that more carving--if the vulgar hacking and hewing of stone we see is to be called carving--has been done in England within the last twenty years than our forefathers accomplished in any fifty years between A.D. 1100 and 1500! And I believe equally that, if we limited ourselves to one-tenth of the amount, there would be more chance of our having time to think about it and to design it ourselves.

The same misfortune that has befallen us with foliage will soon befal us with figures. It has suddenly been discovered that every architect ought to be able to draw the human figure, and soon, I fear, we shall see it become the fashion to introduce figures without thought or value everywhere. If men would but look at some of our own old buildings, they would see how great is still the work which has to be done before we understand how to emulate the merits of those even among them which have no sculpture of any kind in their composition, and how great the architect may be who despises and rejects this cheap kind of popularity.[432] And they ought to take warning, by the comparison of old work and old ways of working with new, of those too attractive but most dangerous schemes for seducing them from the real study of their art into other paths, certain, it is true, of popularity, but full of snares and pitfalls, which, as we see on all sides, entrap some of those even who ought to have been aware of their danger.

Sculpture in moderation is above everything beautiful. Sculpture in excess is very offensive. These Spanish churches teach us this most unmistakably if they teach us anything at all; and as the main object of the study of ancient art--the main object of those who wish to “stand in the old ways where is the truth”--is to derive lessons for the present and future from the practice of the past, I am sure that, in applying the results of my study of Spanish art in the warning which I here very gravely give, I am only doing that which as an artist I am bound to do, if I care at all for my art.

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XXI. THE SPANISH ARCHITECTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES

The history of the architects of the middle ages has never been written, and so few are the facts which we really know about them, that it may well be doubted whether it ever can be. Yet were it possible to do so, few subjects would be more interesting. To me it always seems that the most precious property of all good art is its human and personal character. I have always had an especial pleasure in tracing out what appear to be such similarities between different buildings as seem to prove, or at least to suggest, that they were designed by the same artist; for, just as in painting, a work becomes far more precious if we know it to be really the handiwork of a Giotto or a Simone Memmi, so in the sister art a building is far more precious when we know it to be the work of an Elias of Dereham, an Alan of Walsingham, or an Eudes de Montreuil; and if we are able, as in their case to start with the knowledge that certain men did certain works, the interest of such investigations is at once manyfold enhanced.

This is precisely the point at which we have now arrived in regard to Spanish buildings; for the notices of their architects which I have given in various parts of this book are so numerous that I think I shall do well to collect them together in their order; and to sum up, as much as one can learn from the documents relating to them, as to the terms on which they carried on their work, and generally, indeed, as to the position which they held.

In the earliest period, and just when any information would have been more than usually interesting to us, I have been able to learn next to nothing of any real value as to the superintendents of Spanish buildings.

One of the first notices of an architect is that contained in an inscription in San Isidoro, Leon, to the memory of Petrus de Deo, of whom it was said, “Erat vir miræ abstinentiæ, et multis florebat miraculis;” and, what is even more to our purpose, he is said to have built a bridge. He “superædificavit” the church of San Isidoro, and, from the reference to his saintly life, one is inclined to suspect that he must have been a priest and probably a monk; if so, it is important to note the fact, inasmuch as almost all the other architects or masters of the works referred to in all books I have examined, seem to have been laymen, and just as much a distinct class as architects at the present day are. The expression “superædificavit” does not tell us much as to the exact office of Petrus de Deo; but the next notice of an architect is not only one of the earliest, but also one of the most curious; this is in the contract entered into by the Chapter of Lugo with their architect Raymundo of Monforte de Lemos, in A.D. 1129; and from the terms of his payment, which was to be either in money or in kind, it is clear that, whatever his position was, he could not leave Lugo, but was retained solely for the work there. The terms of the contract are very worthy of notice, and may be compared with some of the similar agreements with, the superintendents of English works, who frequently stipulated for a cloak of office and other payments in kind, though I doubt whether we know of any English contract of so early a date. It is clear from the payment of an annual salary, and an engagement for the term of his life, that Maestro Raymundo was distinctly an architect, not a mere builder or contractor; it seems that he was a layman, and that his son followed the same profession. The title given him in the contract, “Master of the works,” is, as we shall find, that which in course of time was usually given to the architect; though I am not inclined to think that it makes it impossible that he should also have wrought with his own hands. Indeed, the very next notice of an architect is of one who certainly did act as sculptor on his own works. This was Mattheus, master of the works at Santiago Cathedral. The warrant issued by the king Ferdinand II., in A.D. 1168, granted him a pension of a hundred maravedis annually for the rest of his life,[433] and, though the amount seems to be insignificant, the fact of any royal grant being made proves, I think, not only the king’s sense of the value of a fine church, but also somewhat as to the degree of importance which its designer may have attained to, when he was recognized at all by the king. On the other hand, when twenty years later the same man (no doubt) wrote his name exultingly on the lintels of the church doorway, which was only then at last finished,[434] there can be no doubt that he had been acting there both as sculptor and architect: and if, from a modern point of view, he lost caste as an architect, he no doubt gained it as an artist; and even now, if one had to make the choice, one would far rather have been able honestly to put up one’s name as the author of those doorways, than as the builder of the church to which they are attached. It will be noticed that here, just as at Lugo, the master of the works was appointed at a salary for his lifetime, and held his office precisely in the same way as do the surveyors of our own cathedrals at the present day.

Much about the same time, in A.D. 1175, a most interesting document was drawn out, binding one Raymundo, a “Lambardo,”[435] to execute certain works in the cathedral at Urgel, in Cataluña. It is very difficult to say whether this Raymundo was the architect and builder, or only the builder, of the church, though I incline to believe he was both. He was to complete his work in seven years, employing four “Lambardos,” and, if necessary, “Cementarios,” or wallers, in addition; and in return he was to be paid with a Canon’s portion for the rest of his life. The mode of payment, the engagement for life, and the fact that there is no mention whatever of any materials to be provided by Raymundo, as well as the absence from the contract of any reference to a master of the works, lead, I think, to the conclusion that he was in truth the architect, but that he also superintended the execution of the works, and contracted for the labour.[436]

The next notice I find of an architect is in A.D. 1203, when the architect of Lérida Cathedral, one Pedro de Cumba, is described as “Magister et fabricator,” and there can be no doubt, therefore, that he not only designed but executed the work, which, as we go on, we shall find to have been a not very uncommon custom; but it is rare, nevertheless, to see this title of “Fabricator” given to the architect, who is usually “Magister operis,” and no more;[437] as, indeed, we see in the case of the successor of Pedro de Cumba, one Pedro de Peñafreyta, who is described on his monument by this title only.

In the thirteenth century we have the names of several architects, but nothing more than their names; and the only point which seems worthy of special note is that, so far as I can learn, none of them were ecclesiastics; whilst, from first to last, I have found no reference to anything like freemasonry. Indeed, on both these points, the history of Spanish architects seems to be singularly conclusive; and there can be little doubt that they carried on their work entirely as a business, and always under very distinct and formal engagements as to the way in which it was to be done.

In the fourteenth century the earliest notice is that contained in an order of the king, in 1303, dated at Perpiñan, and directed to his lieutenant in Mallorca, requiring him to go at once “cum Magistro Poncio” to Minorca, to arrange about the building a town wall, which the king wishes to have built with round towers, “sicut in muro Perpiniani;” and two years later the king writes again, “Item audivimus turrim nostram Majoricarum, ubi stat angelus ictu fulgens fuisse percussam et aliquantulum deformatam. Volumus quod celeriter sicut magister Poncius et alii viderint faciendum celeriter restauretur.”[438] Here it is, to say the least, doubtful whether Master Ponce was architect and adviser only, or also the mason who was to do the work. But this could not have been the case with the two architects of Narbonne, employed in the rebuilding of the cathedral at Gerona, one of whom was appointed in A.D. 1320-22 at a salary of two hundred and fifty sueldos a quarter, and under agreement to come from Narbonne six times a year. Here, whilst the old plan of making the architect enter into a kind of contract is adhered to, we seem to have a distinct recognition of a class of men who were not workmen, but really and only superintendents of buildings--in fact, architects in the modern sense of the word. About the same time, Jayme Fabre (or Fabra), a Mallorcan, seems to have been one of the greatest architects of his day, and to have given a very important impulse to the principal provincial development of architecture of which we see any evidence in Spain--that of Cataluña. From a contract entered into in A.D. 1318, between him and the Superior and brethren of the convent of San Domingo at Palma, in Mallorca, it seems that he was bound by an older agreement to execute the works of their church; and that he then promised to come back whenever required to Palma, from Barcelona, whither he was going to undertake another work at the desire of the king and the bishop. This “other work” was the cathedral, and here we know that Fabre was employed till A.D. 1339, when he and the workmen[439] of the church put the covering on the shrine which contained the relics of Sta. Eulalia, in the crypt. It is impossible to read the account of the completion of the shrine of Sta. Eulalia at Barcelona, without feeling that Fabre superintended a number of masons, and acted in fact as their foreman, though this is no reason whatever why he should not also have designed the work they executed. He seems to have carried on the two works at Barcelona and Palma at the same time; for, on the 23rd June, A.D. 1317, a year only after his agreement with the convent of San Domingo at Palma, he was appointed master of the works of Barcelona Cathedral, with a salary of eighteen sueldos each week, and payment of his expenses on his voyages to and from Mallorca. Soon after this time, in A.D. 1368, the fabric rolls of the cathedral at Palma, in Mallorca, record the name of Jayme Mates, who was “Maestro Mayor” of the work at Palma, and had a salary of twenty pounds a year, besides six sueldos a day for the working days, and two for festivals.[440]

In the same year we have the very interesting contract between the Chapter of San Feliu, Gerona, and Pedro Zacoma, the master of the works of the steeple; by this, it seems, he did not contract for the work, but had permission to employ an apprentice on it, and he was not to undertake any other work without the consent of the “Operarius,” or Canon in charge of the works, save a bridge on which he was already engaged. He was to be paid by the day, with a yearly salary in addition. I have given the contract at p. 332 of this volume. Zacoma is called in it the “Master of the work of the belfry.” He must have been employed constantly at the church, or it would not have been necessary to prevent his undertaking other works; and in such a building a man could hardly have been constantly employed, without absolutely working as a mason.

It may be thought that the “Operarius” was the real architect; but I find, at this time, that most collegiate and cathedral churches had a Canon whose special duty it was to make arrangements with the master of the works. Sometimes they are called “Canonigos fabriqueros,” at others “Obreros,” or else, as in this case, “Operarii.” Some examples of the application of these terms may be given to prove what I say:--In A.D. 1312, for instance, the Chapter of Gerona appointed two of their own body--one an archdeacon, the other a Canon--to be the obreros of their works.[441] In A.D. 1340 the “Operarius” was gathering alms in Valencia and the Balearic Isles for the works at Gerona Cathedral.[442] In an inscription of A.D. 1183, at S. Trophime at Arles, Poncius Rebolli is called “Sacerdos et operarius;” at Palencia, in A.D. 1321, there was an “Obrero,” or Canon in charge of the works, as he is described by Dávila.[443] In the inscription on a stone in the choir of Lérida Cathedral,[444] the two offices of the “operarius” and the “magister et fabricator” are contrasted, and the double office of the latter seems to make it impossible that the former can have been the architect. The fabric rolls of Exeter Cathedral contain, in A.D. 1318, a payment to the “Custos operis” for the adornment of the high altar: and, no doubt, he held the same post as the Operarius in Spain.

At the end of this century Juan Garcia de Laguardia was named “Master-mason” of the kingdom of Navarre, by a royal writ, at the wage of three sueldos a day. His title adds another to those already mentioned.

In A.D. 1391 Guillermo Çolivella undertook to make twelve statues of the apostles, at Lérida, at the price of 240 sueldos for each statue; and subsequently, in A.D. 1392, he is styled “Magister operis” of the see of Lérida, and “Lapicida,” and he had the superintendence of the stained glass windows which Juan de San Amat was making for the apses of the church, with the stories of the apostles.[445] He was evidently, I think, a builder, and yet held very much the office of a modern architect as superintendent of the whole work. Jayme Fabre describes himself as “Lapicida,” but was also the “Master of the fabric” at Barcelona; whilst Roque, who succeeded Fabre at Barcelona, was also called master of the works only, and received three sueldos and four dineros a day, besides a hundred sueldos a year for clothing.

Just about this period we have what appears to me to be a rather important reference to the separate offices of the architect and builder in the same work; for it seems that during the construction of the tower of the cathedral at Valencia, one Juan Franck acted as architect, with a succession of men as builders and contractors under him.[446] I confess I do not adduce this example with much confidence, inasmuch as one of them was Balaguer, whose mission to Lérida has already been mentioned, and who is moreover termed, in a contemporary document, an “accomplished architect.”

In the fifteenth century the notices of architects are more numerous, and their position becomes much more clearly defined.

In A.D. 1410 a contract was entered into by one Lucas Bernaldo de Quintana--master mason, as he is called in it--for the rebuilding of the church at Gijon in the Asturias. In this contract[447] there is no reference of any kind to plans, or to a directing architect or superintendent of any kind; but the dimensions and form of the building are all carefully described in such a way as to lead to the conclusion that the notary who drew up the contract had some sort of plan before him. It is said, for instance, “that the church is to be twenty-five yards long by twelve and a half wide, with three columns on each side, three vaults each with three ribs crossing them, and all the arches, pilasters, &c., as well as the door (which is to be twelve and a half feet high by eight wide), to be of wrought stone. There is to be a turret for two bells over the door, &c.” “Item, the ‘master’ is to be allowed to use the materials of the old church.” The contract was entered into on March 10, 1410, and the key of the building was to be delivered up on the 1st of May, 1411, and finally two sureties were bound with the contractor. The whole deed is so very formal and careful in its terms, that there can be no doubt that Quintana acted as architect as well as builder, for otherwise the name of the architect would necessarily have been mentioned.

It was in A.D. 1415 that the Valencian authorities sent their architect on a tour of inspection among church steeples in Cataluña, and as far as Narbonne, on the other side of the Pyrenees, in order that they might be sure of a good design for their own; but this is a very rare, if not an unique, instance of such a proceeding. In the year following the Junta of Architects was assembled at Gerona, and we have in it the first example of that habit so common in this day, of consulting bodies of men, instead of trusting in one skilled man, which from this time forth seems to have been extraordinarily popular in Spain. Incidentally, the records of the proceedings of this Junta are valuable, as giving the names of many architects and the works on which they were then engaged; but they are still more valuable as showing how decided and independent of each other in their opinions these men were. All of them probably were architects; but it is observable that all but two call themselves “Lapicidæ;” that two of them held somewhat inferior offices--one being the “Socius” of the magister operis, and the other, “Regens,” in the place of the master. Another is “Magister sive sculptor imaginum;” and two only--Antonino Antigoni and Guillermo Sagrera--call themselves masters of the works. Their answers seem to prove that they were all men of considerable intelligence, but at the same time generally disposed, just as a similar body would be now, to declare rather for the usual than the novel course. It is to their credit that they all maintained the perfect practicability of the work proposed, and the judgment of the Chapter seems to have been as much influenced by economical considerations as by artistic, seeing that a majority of the architects decided against the proposed plan on artistic grounds, whilst some of them said that it would certainly be the least costly. It was intended at first that two of the architects consulted should be asked to prepare a plan for the work; but this does not seem to have been done after all, the plan of the master of the works at the cathedral having been agreed to and carried into execution.

There cannot be a shadow of doubt that at the beginning of the fifteenth century most of the superintendents of buildings, in Cataluña at any rate, were sculptors or masons also. Their own description of themselves is conclusive on this point; at the same time their answers are all given in the tone and style of architects, and it is quite certain that, had there been a superior class of men--architects only in the modern sense of the word--the Dean and Chapter would have applied first of all to them. The answers which these men gave ought to be carefully read, as they are valuable from several points of view. Several of them seem to speak of some recognized system of proportioning the height of a building to its width; one of them suggests using light stone for the vaulting; and another, Arnaldo de Valleras, was evidently anxious to supplant the existing master of the works, and announced what he would do if the works were intrusted to him. I cannot help thinking that they had before them the plans of Guillermo de Boffiy, and that the similarity of the suggestions made by some of them as to the position of the windows and the proportions of the work are to be taken as an evidence of their desire to affirm what he had proposed.

In the same year in which this Junta of architects assembled at Gerona, one of their number--Guillermo Sagrera--was acting as the architect of the church of S. John, Perpiñan, a building which is still remarkable for the enormous width of its nave. Ten years later he contracted for the execution of the Exchange at Palma, in Mallorca, according to plans which he presented, and upon certain specified conditions, from which it appears very clearly that Sagrera was both builder and architect, being bound to find scaffolding and all materials. The only difference one can see between Sagrera and an ordinary builder or contractor of the present day is, that he presented the plans himself, and that there is no trace whatever of any architect or superintendent over him. It is doubted by some whether this mixture of the two offices of builder and architect was ever allowed in the middle ages; but this agreement (of which I give a translation in the Appendix) is conclusive as regards this particular case, and we may be tolerably sure that such a practice must have been a usual one, or it would hardly have been adopted in the case of so important a building.

Sagrera seems to have remained a long time at Palma, but having quarrelled with his employers there, and his dispute having been carried before the King of Aragon, at Naples, for settlement, the completion of the work was intrusted to one Guillermo Vilasolar, “lapicida et magister fabricæ,” who bound himself on March 19th, A.D. 1451, to complete the works which had been commenced. Two of the clauses in this agreement are worth quoting; they are as follow:--

1st. “That I, the said Guillermo Vilasolar, am bound to execute within the next coming year all the traceries and terminations or cornices which I have to make in the six windows of the said Exchange of Felanix stone, in the following form:--The traceries of two of the said windows according to the design which I have delivered to you, and the traceries and the cornices of the remaining four windows just as they were commenced by Master Guillermo Sagrera, formerly master of the fabric of the said Exchange; which traceries and cornices of all the said six windows I am bound to make entirely at my own cost, with all necessary scaffolding, stone, lime, gravel, and wages for the complete finishing of the said traceries and cornices.

“Item.--That for making all the said traceries and cornices as described, in the said six windows, you, the said honourable guardians, shall be bound to give and pay of the goods of the college to me, the said Guillermo Vilasolar, two hundred and eighty pounds of Mallorcan money in the following way, viz.: fifty pounds down, and the remainder of the said two hundred and eighty pounds when the said traceries and cornices to the said six windows shall have been executed.”

So that here again, just as in the case of Guillermo Sagrera, we have a mason contracting for his work, and himself making the drawing according to which it is to be done.

After his quarrel with the authorities at Palma, Sagrera seems to have undertaken work for the King in the Castel Nuevo at Naples, for which he used stone from Mallorca, and where he was styled “Proto-Magister Castri Novi.” His work at Palma seems, from the accounts I have been able to obtain, to have much resembled that of the Lonja at Valencia, which I have described and illustrated in this volume.

In A.D. 1485, when Calahorra cathedral was rebuilt, an architect seems to have been so formally appointed, that the words used appear to me to be quite worth transcribing here: “Miércoles á ocho dias del mes de junio, año á nativitate Domini, millessimo quatorcentessimo octuagessimo quinto cœpit ædificari Capella mayor S. Mariæ de Calahorra. Composuerunt primum lapidem Johannes Ximenes de Enciso decanus, et Petrus Ximenes archidiaconus de Verberiego, et ego Rodericus Martini Vaco de Enciso, canonicus ejusdem ecclesiæ, et artium et theologiæ magister, dedi duplam unam auri in auro, dicens hæc verba magistro Johanni ædificatori principali prædictæ capellæ; accipite in signum vestri laboris, et en protestationem, quod Dominus Deus ad cujus gloriam et honorem ecclesia et capella ista fundari incipit, implebit residuum ad preces gloriosæ Virginis Mariæ matris suæ, et Sanctorum martirum Hemeterij et Caledonij, in quorum honore fundata est ecclesia. In quorum testimonium supradicta manu propria subscripsi. Rodericus artium et theologiæ magister.”

It is remarkable that in the case of so important a city as Seville there is no mention of an architect to the cathedral before A.D. 1462, in which year Juan Norman was appointed, with Pedro de Toledo as assistant (“aparejador”) till A.D. 1472, when the Chapter appointed three “Maestros Mayores” or principal masters, to the end that the work might go on faster: but it seems, as might be expected, that these men were none of them architects, for in A.D. 1496 the archbishop, being at Guadalajara, was persuaded that it was not well to trust such ill-informed persons, as their employment would end in loss to the fabric, and so he called in one Maestro Jimon, who went to Seville and was made Maestro Mayor until A.D. 1502.

The works at the Parral, Segovia, A.D. 1472-94, afford another example of an architect acting also as contractor for the work; and about the same time a monk of this convent, Juan de Escobedo, superintended the repair of the aqueduct, and was afterwards sent to the Queen (Isabella) to report to her on the state of various buildings in Segovia.

In 1482 Pedro Compte, of Valencia, said to be “Molt sabut en l’art de la pedra,” was the architect of the Exchange at Valencia--a building evidently copied to some extent from Sagrera’s Exchange at Palma; and at a later date he was employed upon some water-works for the keeping up the waters in the Guadalaviar at Valencia. He held the post of Maestro Mayor of the city, with an annual salary. In him we seem to have not only an architect and engineer, but one of so much character and influence as to hold important posts, being “alcaide perpetuo” as well as Maestro Mayor of the city.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century the new cathedral at Salamanca was commenced, but only after a vast amount of consultation among architects. The king had to order Anton Egas of Toledo, and Alfonso Rodriguez of Seville, to go to Salamanca and decide upon the plan for the church, and these two men drew up a joint plan which they presented to the Chapter; two or three years later, nothing having been done in the mean time, a Junta of nine architects was assembled, who jointly agreed on a very elaborate report, detailing all the parts and proportions of the church; and their report having been presented, the Chapter forthwith proceeded to elect a master of the works.[448] Rodrigo Gil de Hontañon was appointed; and by his will, dated in May, A.D. 1577, it appears that he had a house rent-free, as well as his salary of 30,000 maravedis a year.[449] He had also liberty to undertake other works; for, a few years later, he designed the cathedral at Segovia, and by his will it seems that he had several other churches in hand, in some of which it is evident that he acted as contractor, as he complains bitterly of the difficulties he had been put to by the large sums he had paid for the work at the church of San Julian at Toro, without being repaid by the authorities. It is remarkable that the works at Salamanca were examined from time to time by two architects, who reported whether Hontañon was following the instructions laid down for his guidance by the Junta, and this supervision rather leads to the inference that the design was not made by Hontañon, but prepared for him; and that it was necessary, as it is nowadays, to employ some one to see that he executed his work properly. The curiously exact terms of the report of the Junta, which specifies the height, thickness, and proportions of all the walls in the church, could not have been adopted as they are unless the Junta had some plans before them when they drew up their report, and on the whole I think it probable that the plan which Egas and Rodriguez prepared formed the basis on which they proceeded. This plan is still said to be preserved in the archives, and it would be very interesting to see how far it agrees with the church which has been erected.[450]

But, on the other hand, there is a report upon the state of the works in A.D. 1523, given by Cean Bermudez, which tends to confirm Hontañon’s position as a real architect.[451] It is signed by three architects, Juan de Rasinas, Henrique de Egas, and Vasco de la Zarza. They go into the question of the height to which the vaults ought to be carried, they say the walls are built properly, and, finally, that they were shown a plan of Juan Gil de Hontañon’s for some alteration of the work, and that in their opinion it is good, and they have, therefore, signed it with their names.

There are other instances at this time of the assemblage of Juntas of architects, of which one or two may properly be mentioned here; one of these was in reference to the Cimborio of the cathedral at Zaragoza which fell in A.D. 1520, when a number of architects were at once called together to advise as to its reconstruction; and again, in the same way, when the Cimborio at Seville fell, in A.D. 1511, several architects were consulted, and after they had reported, one of them--Hontañon, the fashionable architect of the day--was selected to manage the execution of the work.[452]

At this late date we have, I believe for the first time, the singular description of a man as “master maker of churches.” This occurs in the contract entered into by Benedicto Oger, of Alió, for the erection of a church at Reus. From the terms of the contract Oger seems to have been a mason: he was to have three others with him, and was bound not to undertake any other work. And if the authorities desired it they were to have his work examined by another “master,” though whether by one of his own grade, or a superior man, does not appear.

Another contract of a somewhat similar kind was entered into in A.D. 1518 by Domingo Urteaga for the erection of the church of Sta. Maria de Cocentaina, in Valencia. He bound himself to go with his wife and family to Cocentaina, where the town was to give him a house rent free. He was to do all that a “master” ought in the management of such a work, without attending to other works, and was to receive each day for himself five sueldos, and was to provide two assistants and two apprentices, the former to have three sueldos each, and the latter one and a half. He was to be every day at the work, having half an hour for breakfast, and an hour for dinner in winter, and an hour and a half in summer. Here again, though Urteaga was evidently only a foreman of the works, there is no reference to any superintendent or architect, and nothing is said about any plans which are to be followed. I conclude, therefore, that in this case too the foreman of the masons was really the architect.

In addition to the men I have here rapidly mentioned, there were many others whose work was confined to the design and execution of certain portions of buildings; such a one was Berengario Portell, “lapicida” of Gerona, who in A.D. 1325 entered into a contract for the execution of the columns of the cloister of Vique cathedral, and who is commonly said to have executed the columns and capitals for the cloister at Ripoll also. Such, in later days, was Gil de Siloe, who both designed and executed the monuments at Miraflores; and such, though in a less eminent position, were the various woodcarvers, decorators, painters on glass, makers of metal screens, and the like, the names of a great number of whom are still preserved in the volumes of Cean Bermudez.[453]

There is also another officer who ought not to be forgotten here--the “aparejador” or assistant of the architect--clerk of the works as we should call him. About his office there is no doubt, but it will have been observed that some men who held it--as e.g. Juan Campero--have at other times acted as architects or contractors, which is precisely what might be expected.

There are a few but not very important cases of competition among artists recorded in the work of Cean Bermudez; but generally they seem to me to have been rather competitions for the execution of work than for its design. Such, for instance, was the competition for the execution of the monument of D. Alvaro de Luna and his wife in Toledo cathedral, when the design of Pablo Ortiz was selected.[454] Cristóbal Andino is said to have competed unsuccessfully with other men, in A.D. 1540, for the execution of the iron screens of Toledo cathedral. Cean Bermudez speaks also of a competition among architects as to the rebuilding of Segovia cathedral;[455] but I doubt whether his statement can be depended on.

* * * * *

The result at which we arrive after this résumé of the practice of Spanish architects is certainly that it was utterly unlike the practice of our own day. Whether it was either better or worse I can hardly venture to say; it seems to me, indeed, to be of comparatively little importance whether an architect is paid as of old by the year, or as now by a commission on the cost of the works; probably the difference in amount is seldom serious; but on the other hand it is possible that where special contracts are made the sums paid are not always the same, and so the absurd rule by which at present the best and the worst architect both get the same amount of pay for their work is avoided; one result of this rule is, that the architect of the highest reputation, in order to reap the pecuniary reward to which he is entitled, is tempted to undertake so much work that it is impossible for him to attend to half of it, and so in time, unless he have an extraordinary capacity for rapid work, his work deteriorates, and his reputation is likely to suffer.

The other old custom common in Spain--of architects contracting for the execution of their own works--does not seem to deserve much respect; yet one cannot but see that it was a natural result of the universal feeling and taste for art which seems to have obtained in the middle ages; and though it would now certainly be mere madness to ask any chance builder to execute an architectural work, there are undoubtedly many builders who are at least as well fitted to do so as are a large number of those who, without study or proper education, are nevertheless able, unchallenged by any one, to call themselves architects.

On the whole, then, it is vain to regret the passing away of a system which is foreign to the nature and ideas of an artistic profession such as that of the architects of England now; though if these old men, whose art and whose interests pulled opposite ways--seeing they were architects and contractors--did their work so honestly that it still stands unharmed by time, we may well take great shame to ourselves if the rules for our personal respectability, about which we are all so jealous, are yet in practice so often compatible, apparently, with a system of shams and makeshifts, of false construction and bad execution, of which these old architect-builders were almost wholly guiltless.

The questions between ourselves and them, when simply stated, are these--Whose work is best in itself, and whose work will last the longest? If these questions cannot be answered in our favour, then it is absurd to protest vigorously against the practice which we see pursued by such men as Juan Campero, Martin Llobet, Juan de Ruesga, Guillermo Sagrera, or Pedro de Cumba, and we shall do well to admit, whenever necessary, that he is the best architect who designs the best building, whatever his education; though it is undoubtedly true that he is most likely to be the best architect who is the best taught, the most refined, and the most regularly educated in his art.

It is often, and generally thoughtlessly, assumed, that most of the churches of the middle ages were designed by monks or clerical architects. So far as Spain is concerned, the result at which we arrive is quite hostile to this assumption, for in all the names of architects that I have noticed there are but one or two who were clerics. The abbat who in the eighth or ninth century rebuilt Leon cathedral is one; Frater Bernardus of Tarragona, in A.D. 1256, another; and the monk of El Parral, who restored the Roman aqueduct at Segovia, is the third; and the occurrence of these three exceptions to the otherwise general rule, proves clearly, I think, that in Spain the distinct position of the architect was understood and accepted a good deal earlier than it was, perhaps, in England. In our own country it is indeed commonly asserted that the bishops and abbats were themselves the architects of the great churches built under their rule. Gundulph, Flambard, Walsingham, and Wykeham, have all been so described, but I suspect upon insufficient evidence; and those who have devoted the most study and time to the subject seem to be the least disposed to allow the truth of the claim made for them. The contrary evidence which I am able to adduce from Spain certainly serves to confirm these doubts. I was myself strongly disposed once to regard the attempt to deprive us of our great clerical architects as a little sacrilegious; but I am bound to say that I have now changed my mind, and believe that the attempt was only too well warranted by the facts. In short, the common belief in a race of clerical architects and in ubiquitous bodies of freemasons, seems to me to be altogether erroneous. The more careful the inquiry is that we make into the customs of the architects of the middle ages, the more clear does it appear that neither of these classes had any general existence; and in Spain, so far as I have examined, I have met with not a single trace of either. I am glad that it is so; for in these days of doubt and perplexity as to what is true in art, it is at least a comfort to find that one may go on heartily with one’s work, with the honest conviction that the position one occupies may be, if one chooses to make it so, as nearly as possible the same as that occupied by the artists of the middle ages. So that, as it was open to them--often with small means and in spite of many difficulties--to achieve very great works of lasting architectural merit, the time may come when, if we do our work with equal zeal, equal artistic feeling, and equal honesty, our own names will be added to the list, which already includes theirs, of artists who have earned the respect and affection of all those whose everyday life is blessed with the sight of the true and beautiful works which in age after age they have left behind them as enduring monuments of their artistic skill.

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