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Title: Valladolid, Oviedo, Avila & Zaragoza
Author: Calvert, Albert Frederick
Language: English
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ZARAGOZA ***
THE SPANISH SERIES
VALLADOLID, OVIEDO, SEGOVIA
ZAMORA, AVILA, AND ZARAGOZA
THE SPANISH SERIES
_EDITED BY ALBERT F. CALVERT_
GOYA
TOLEDO
SEVILLE
MURILLO
CORDOVA
VELAZQUEZ
CERVANTES
THE PRADO
THE ESCORIAL
SPANISH ARMS AND ARMOUR
GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA
LEON, BURGOS, AND SALAMANCA
VALLADOLID, OVIEDO, SEGOVIA,
ZAMORA, AVILA, AND ZARAGOZA
_In preparation._
MADRID
GALICIA
EL GRECO
CITIES OF ANDALUCIA
MURCIA AND VALENCIA
ROYAL PALACES OF SPAIN
TAPESTRIES OF THE ROYAL PALACE
CATALONIA AND BALEARIC ISLANDS
SANTANDER, BISCAYA, AND NAVARRE
VALLADOLID, OVIEDO
SEGOVIA, ZAMORA
AVILA, & ZARAGOZA
AN HISTORICAL & DESCRIPTIVE
ACCOUNT, BY ALBERT F. CALVERT,
WITH 413 ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMVIII
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
PREFACE
The six cities of Spain which form the subject of the following pages
are little known to English travellers. Yet no one who would understand
the country can afford to pass them by. Not only are they compact of
artistic and architectural treasures, but within their walls much of the
history of the Spanish nation has been made. Oviedo--that little city
between the mountains and the sea, so far off the beaten track--was the
cradle of the monarchy, the residence and burial-place of its patriot
kings. For all men of Spanish blood it is holy ground. In Zamora we have
the typical city of the heroic age of Spain, the era of half-fabulous
heroes, whose personalities are made known to us only by folklore and
ballads.
Segovia and Avila are towns of the Reconquest, wardens, one might say,
against the redoubtable Moor. To the fancy their grass-grown streets
still re-echo with the tramp of armed men, with the ring of spears and
the word of command. The shadowy warriors of Oviedo and Zamora here
give place to the tall knight who stalks across the page of history,
ready to do battle with pagan Moor or Christian tyrant. But Avila
enshrines the holier memory of the sainted Theresa, greatest of Spanish
women, revered not least in the lands for whose conversion to her faith
she unceasingly prayed. And so we pass on, each town illustrating a
different stage of a great nation’s development.
In Valladolid, which preceded and subsequently nearly supplanted Madrid
as the capital of Spain, we are again on holy ground; for Cervantes
dwelt here, and here died the immortal Columbus. Zaragoza, the chief
city of a kingdom that influenced the destinies of powerful European
States when Castile was hardly known to the outside world, has ever been
a noble and important capital, boasting a glory which has been brightest
perhaps in its later days. To the citizens of Zaragoza was reserved the
honour of rejecting the Inquisition, to which other towns reluctantly
submitted, and just one hundred years ago she proved to an astonished
Europe that within her crumbling walls dwelt the old brood of
Numantia--that she was prolific still of heroes and heroines.
The prowess of Augustina would not indeed have come as a surprise to
those who knew her country well; nor could the most thoughtless of
travellers, after a survey of the memorials of genius and vitality which
these six cities contain, ever believe the greatness of the people to be
exhausted. Already Valladolid and Zaragoza throb with life and commerce.
But a few more years and the other cities, already stirring, will
pulsate with the spirit of young Spain, and the Phœnix, born a thousand
years ago at Oviedo, will renew its youth for the tenth time.
To Señor J. Lacoste my thanks are due for his courtesy in permitting me
to reproduce many of the photographs which find a place in this book,
and I have also to acknowledge the assistance rendered me by Mr. E. B.
d’Auvergne in the preparation of the text.
A. F. C.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. VALLADOLID 1
II. OVIEDO 38
III. SEGOVIA 59
IV. ZAMORA 86
V. AVILA 103
VI. ZARAGOZA 135
ILLUSTRATIONS
VALLADOLID
SUBJECT PLATE
General View of Valladolid, 1
General View of Valladolid, 2
The Bridge of Piedra, 3
La Acera de San Francisco, 4
The Town Hall, 5
The Old Parish Church, 6
House in which Christopher Columbus died, 7
House where King Philip II. was born, 8
The Royal Palace of Philip III., 9
Church of San Juan de Letran, 10
College of the Escoceses, 11
College of the Ingleses, 12
Interior view of the Library, 13
Interior of the Museum, 14
Façade of the Museum, 15
Museum: Back of a Choir Stall, by Berruguete, 16
Museum: Detail of the Choir Stalls of San Benito, 17
Museum: Several Fragments of Choir Stalls, by Berruguete, 18
Museum: Head of St. Paul, 19
Museum: Centre part of a Wooden Altar-piece, 20
Museum: Fragments of Choir Stalls, by Berruguete, 21
Museum: Fragments of Choir Stalls, by Berruguete, 22
Museum: Altar-piece carved in wood, 23
Museum: The Assumption of the Virgin, by Rubens, 24
Museum: St. Anthony of Padua and the Child Jesus, by
Rubens, 25
Museum: The Annunciation, by José Martinez, 26
Museum: The Holy Family, by Raphael, 27
Museum: St. Francis and a Lay Brother, by Rubens, 28
St. Joachim and the Virgin as a Child, by Murillo, 29
Provincial Museum: San Bruno, 30
Centre of the Façade of San Gregorio, 31
Detail of the Façade of San Gregorio, 32
Detail of the Façade of San Gregorio, 33
Left Angle in the Court of San Gregorio, 34
Gallery in the Court of San Gregorio, 35
Detail in the Court of San Gregorio, 36
Interior Gate of San Gregorio, 37
Façade of San Pablo, 38
Lower Part of the Façade of San Pablo, 39
Detail of the Portal of San Pablo, 40
Lower Central Part of the Façade of San Pablo, 41
Portal of San Pablo, 42
Detail of the Porch of San Pablo, 43
Detail of the Porch of San Pablo, 44
OVIEDO
General View, 45
Tower of the Cathedral 46
Principal Entrance to the Cathedral, 47
Principal Gate of the Cathedral, 48
Cathedral: View of the Interior, 49
Cathedral: The Retablo, 50
La Camara Santa, 51
Coffin in the Cathedral, 52
Old Tower of the Cathedral, 53
Cathedral: Oaken Ark, 54
Cathedral: Section, Plan, and Details of the Camara Santa, 55
Cathedral: Cross of the Angels, 56
Crosses and Caskets of the Asturias, 57
Cathedral: Cross of Victory, 58
A Capital, 59
Santa Maria de Naranco, 60
Santa Maria de Naranco, 61
Church of San Miguel de Lineo, 62
Church of San Juan de Priorio, 63
Church of San Juan de Priorio, 64
Details of the Churches of St. Clara, St. John, and Our Lady
de la Vega, 65
Details of Santa Maria de Valdedios, 66
Details of Santa Maria de Valdedios, 67
Details of San Juan de Amandi, 68
Details of San Juan de Amandi, 69
Details of the Church of Villaviciosa, 70
Details of the Church of Villaviciosa, 71
Plan and Section of San Salvador de Valdedios, 72
Details of San Salvador de Valdedios, 73
Details of the Churches of Priesca and Fuentes, 74
Details of Santa Maria de Villamayor, 75
Details of Santa Maria de Villamayor, 76
Details of San Adrian de Tunon, 77
Details of the Hermitage of Santa Cristina, 78
Details of the Collegiate Church of Covadonga, 79
Details of the Church of Ujo, 80
Details of the Church of Ujo, 81
SEGOVIA
General View from the Nievas, 82
General View, 83
The Roman Aqueduct, 84
The Alcazar and Cathedral from the Fuencisla, 85
General View from the Nievas, 86
Old Houses in the Plaza Mayor, 87
View of the Walls, 88
Aqueduct over the River Castilla, 89
The Cathedral, 90
View of the Cathedral, 91
View of the Cathedral, 92
Casa de los Picos, 93
Church of Santa Cruz, 94
Porch of the Church of Santa Cruz, 95
Church of Santa Cruz, 96
View of the Mint and the Parral, 97
Façade of the Parral, 98
Cloisters of the Parral, 99
General View of Turégano, 100
Turégano Castle, 101
General View of Coca Castle, 102
Another View of Coca Castle, 103
St. Andrew’s Gate, 104
The Arch of the Fuencisla, 105
Gate of Santiago, 106
The Alcazar before the Fire of 1862, 107
The Alcazar from the Hoyos Hill, 108
View of the Alcazar, 109
The Alcazar from the Caves, 110
Façade of the Alcazar before the Fire of 1862, 111
Details of the Church of the Parral, 112
Church of St. Nicholas, 113
View of the Church of Vera Cruz, 114
Porch of the Church of Vera Cruz, 115
Courtyard of the Marquis of Arcos’ House, 116
Façade of St. John, 117
Church of St. John, 118
San Juan de los Caballeros, 119
Church of St. Martin, 120
Porch of St. Martin, 121
Parish Church of St. Martin, 122
Details of the Church of St. Martin, 123
General View of St. Stephen, 124
Portico of St. Stephen, 125
Details of St. Stephen, 126
Church of San Lorenzo, 127
Church of San Lorenzo, 128
Lateral Façade of San Lorenzo, 129
The Church of San Lorenzo, 130
Details of San Lorenzo, 131
Interior of San Millán, 132
Interior of San Millán, 133
Arches and Eaves of San Millán, 134
Sectional Elevations of San Millán, 135
Details of San Millán, 136
Details of San Millán, 137
Details of San Millán, 138
Details of the Convent of Corpus Christi, 139
Interior of the Convent of Santo Domingo and Towers, 140
Painted Socles in the Tower of Santo Domingo, 141
Façade of the Convent of Our Lady de la Sierra, 142
Ruins of the Chapel of the Convent of Our Lady de la Sierra, 143
Interior of the Ruined Convent of Our Lady de la Sierra, 144
Porch of the Convent of Our Lady de la Sierra, 145
General View of the Roman Aqueduct, 146
The Roman Aqueduct, 147
The Roman Aqueduct, 148
The Roman Aqueduct, 149
The Roman Aqueduct, 150
The Roman Aqueduct, 151
The Roman Aqueduct, 152
A Dance in the Plaza del Pueblo de Nieva, 153
Enrique IV. conducting the Infanta Isabel through the Streets
of Segovia, 154
Group of Peasants of the Province, 155
Peasants of the Province, 156
Peasants of the Province, 157
Peasants of the Province, 158
Peasants of the Province, 159
Peasants of the Province, 160
Peasants of the Province, 161
Peasants of the Province, 162
Peasants of the Province, 163
Peasants of the Province, 164
Peasants of the Province, 165
ZAMORA
View of Zamora, 166
View of Zamora, 167
Walls and Postern Gate, 168
Stone Bridge over the Duero, 169
Bridge over the Duero, 170
View of the Cathedral, 171
Façade of the Cathedral, 172
Cathedral: Gate of the Bishop, 173
The Cathedral: East Front, 174
Cathedral: Gate of the Bishop, 175
Cathedral: Gate of the Bishop, 176
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela, 177
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela, 178
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela: Detail of the
Interior, 179
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela: Detail of the
Interior, 180
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela: Chancel, 181
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela: Example of the
Vaulting, 182
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela: Interior, 183
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela: Transept and
Nave, 184
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela: Detail of a
Window, 185
Ancient Cistercian Monastery of Moreruela: Transept Porch, 186
Santa Maria la Nueva: Detail of the Exterior, 187
Santa Maria la Nueva: Doorway, 188
Santa Maria la Nueva: Capitals of Recessed Windows, 189
Church of the Magdalen, 190
Principal Door of the Church of the Magdalen, 191
Plan and Sections of the Church of St. Peter, 192
Details of the Church of St. Peter (Nave), 193
House of The Cid, 194
Tapestry of the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century, 195
Painting in the Town Hall, 196
Painting in the Town Hall, 197
Painting in the Town Hall, 198
Painting in the Town Hall, 199
The Royal Escutcheon, 200
St. Ferdinand and King John II., 201
The Arms of the Town, 202
Queen Urraca and Aris Gonzalo, 203
Trophies of Arms and Armour in the Town Hall, 204
The House of the Momos, 205
Bridge of Rocobayo over the Esla, 206
Stone Quarries of the Town of Valderojo, 207
Earthworks of the ancient City of Toro, 208
North and Centre Gates of the Church of Toro, 209
Details of the Church of Toro, 210
Group of Peasants of the Village of Bermigo de Sayago, 211
Group of Peasants of the Village of Carbajales, 212
Peasants of the Village of Bermigo de Sayago, 213
AVILA
General View, 214
General View, 215
View of Avila, 216
Gate of the Alcazar, 217
Gate of San Vicente, 218
Gate of San Vicente, 219
Gate of San Vicente, 220
Gate of San Vicente, 221
A Street, 222
View of the Cathedral, 223
Exterior of the Cathedral, 224
Entrance to the Cathedral, 225
Plan of the Cathedral, 226
The Cathedral, 227
Side Door of the Cathedral, 228
Cathedral: Pulpit of Repoussé Iron Work, 229
Cathedral: Pulpit of Repoussé Iron Work, 230
Cathedral: Pulpit of Repoussé Iron Work, 231
Interior of the Cathedral, 232
Cathedral: Detail of the Interior, 233
Cathedral: Detail of the Choir, 234
Cathedral: The Choir, 235
Cathedral: Detail of the Choir, 236
Cathedral: Detail of the Choir, 237
Cathedral: Detail of the Choir, 238
Cathedral: Altar of San Segundo, 239
Cathedral: Altar of Santa Lucia, 240
Cathedral: Sepulchre of Don Juan d’Avila, 241
Cathedral: Tomb of El Testado, 242
Cathedral: Altar behind the Choir, 243
Cathedral: Silver Monstrance of Juan de Arfe, 244
Convent of Santo Tomas: Sepulchre of the Infante Don Juan, 245
Sepulchre of the Holy Martyrs Vicente, Sabina, and Cristina, 246
Interior of the Chapel of San Bernardo, 247
Church of St. Peter, 248
Entrance to the Church of St. Peter, 249
Church of St. Peter, 250
Details of the Church of St. Peter, 251
Exterior of the Church of San Vicente, 252
Basilica of San Vicente before its restoration, 253
Basilica of San Vicente before its restoration, 254
Basilica of San Vicente: North Façade, 255
Basilica of San Vicente: Principal Façade, 256
Basilica of San Vicente: Eastern Façade, restored, 257
Basilica of San Vicente: Façade, 258
Basilica of San Vicente: Central Gate, restored, 259
Basilica of San Vicente: Detail of the middle cornice, restored, 260
Basilica of San Vicente: Portal, 261
Basilica of San Vicente: Principal west entrance, 262
Basilica of San Vicente: Principal west entrance, 263
Basilica of San Vicente: General view of the Interior, 264
Basilica of San Vicente: Sepulchre of the Holy Martyrs, 265
Basilica of San Vicente: Detail of the Interior, 266
Porch of the Church of San Vicente, 267
Porch of the Church of San Vicente, 268
Porch of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 269
Section of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 270
Plan of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 271
Gate of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 272
Door of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 273
Interior of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 274
The Court of Silence in the Convent of Santo Tomas, 275
Convent of Santo Tomas: The Court of Silence, 276
Convent of Santo Tomas: The Court of the Kings, 277
Convent of Santo Tomas: Courtyard of the Infirmary, 278
Cloisters of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 279
Cloisters of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 280
Cloisters of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 281
Gate of the Cloisters in the Convent of Santo Tomas, 282
Choir of the Convent of Santo Tomas, 283
Convent of Santo Tomas: Details of the Choir, 284
Choir Stalls in the Convent of Santo Tomas, 285
Choir Stalls in the Convent of Santo Tomas, 286
Church of San Segundo: Statue of San Segundo, 287
Church of Santo Tomas: Sepulchre of the Infante Don Juan, 288
Church of Santo Tomas: Sepulchre of the Infante Don Juan, 289
Church of Santo Tomas: Sepulchre of the Infante Don Juan, 290
Gothic Gate in ruins, 291
Door of a Private House, 292
Calle de Pedro d’Avila, 293
Celebrated Window in the House of Pedro d’Avila, 294
Courtyard of the Polentinos’ Palace, 295
Portico of the Polentinos’ Palace, 296
Church of San Andrés and San Segundo, 297
Hermitage of San Isidro, 298
The Academy, 299
Camposagrado Palace, 300
Casa de la Baraganas, 301
Casa de la Torre, 302
Chapel of Mosen Rubi, 303
Palace of the Conde de Superunda, 304
Miniatures from the Avila Missal, 305
Miniatures from the Avila Missal, 306
Door of San Francisco, 307
A Roman Capital of the Church of San Francisco, 308
Latin-Byzantine Frieze in the Church of San Francisco, 309
Monastery of San Pedro at Arenas, 310
ZARAGOZA
General View from Cabezo-Cortado, 311
General View from Altabas, 312
General View from Altabas, 313
The Bridge over the Ebro, from the Ruins of San Lazaro, 314
The Bridge over the Ebro, from El Pilar, 315
General View of Zaragoza, 316
General View of Zaragoza, 317
General View of Zaragoza, 318
General View from the Portilla, 319
View of Zaragoza, 320
Calle del Mercado, 321
Paseo de Santa Engracia, 322
Cathedral of La Seo, 323
Cathedral of La Seo, 324
Glazed Tiles on the Walls of the Cathedral of La Seo, 325
Interior of the Cathedral of La Seo, 326
Cathedral of La Seo: View of the Transept, 327
Cathedral of La Seo: Detail of Transept, 328
Chapel of St. John in the Cathedral of La Seo, 329
Chapel of Gabriel de Zaporta in the Cathedral of La Seo, 330
Cathedral of La Seo: Reja bronze repoussé, 331
Sepulchre of Archbishop Don Lope de Luna in the Cathedral
of La Seo, 332
Central Dome of the Cathedral of La Seo, 333
Silver Monstrance in the Cathedral of La Seo, 334
Censer belonging to the Cathedral of La Seo, 335
Cathedral of El Pilar, 336
Cathedral of El Pilar, 337
Interior of Our Lady del Pilar, 338
Side Altar in Our Lady del Pilar, 339
Our Lady del Pilar: View of the Choir, 340
Our Lady del Pilar: Organ in the Choir, 341
Chapel in Our Lady del Pilar, 342
High Altar in Our Lady del Pilar, 343
Paintings on the Cupola of Our Lady del Pilar, 344
Our Lady del Pilar : Choir Stalls, 345
Our Lady del Pilar: Choir Stalls, 346
Our Lady del Pilar: Choir Stalls, 347
Our Lady del Pilar, by M. de Unceta, 348
Our Lady del Pilar, 349
Silver Salver in the Cathedral of El Pilar, 350
Vase in the Cathedral of El Pilar, 351
Church of the Magdalen, 352
Place and Church of St. Nicholas, 353
Portal of the Church of San Miguel, 354
Façade of the Church of Santa Engracia, 355
Church of St. Paul: Puerta del Cristo, 356
The New, or Leaning Tower, 357
Tower of the Calle de Antonio Perez, 358
Tower of San Miguel, 359
Tower of San Pablo, 360
Tower of the Trovador, 361
Ancient Wall and Buildings, 362
Statue of Pignatelli, 363
Courtyard in the House of Pardo, 364
Detail of the Courtyard in the House of Pardo, 365
Entrance to the Audiencia Palace, 366
Palace of the Provincial Deputation, 367
Courtyard in the Count of Argillo’s House, 368
Eaves on the House of the Conde de Argillo, 369
Courtyard in the Count of Argillo’s House, 370
House in the Plaza de San Carlos, 371
The Exchange, 372
Façade of the Exchange, 373
Interior of the Exchange, 374
Porch of the House of Zaporta, 375
Courtyard of the House of Zaporta, 376
Courtyard of the House of Zaporta, 377
Courtyard of the House of Zaporta, 378
Courtyard of the House of Zaporta, 379
Courtyard of the House of Zaporta, 380
Detail of the Courtyard of the House of Zaporta, 381
Court of the Provincial Museum, 382
Gallery in the Provincial Museum, 383
The Aljaferia or Citadel. Window of the Main Staircase, 384
Aljaferia: Interior of the Mosque, 385
Aljaferia: Interior of the Mosque, 386
Aljaferia: Interior of the Mosque, 387
Aljaferia: Details of the Interior, 388
Aljaferia: Details of the Interior, 389
Details of the Aljaferia, 390
Details of the Aljaferia, 391
St. Isabel and her Husband. Tapestry in the University, 392
View of the Barracks of the Aljaferia, 393
The Casa de la Infanta. ‘The Departure for the Fight,’ by
P. Gonzalvo Perez, 394
Gate of Our Lady del Carmen, 395
The Defence of Zaragoza in 1809, by Nicolas Mejia, 396
The First Siege of Zaragoza, by A. Ferrant y Fischermans, 397
Heroic Defence of the Tower of St. Augustine at Zaragoza in
the War of Independence, by C. Alvarez Dumont, 398
Heroic Combat in the Pulpit of the Church of San Augustin at
Zaragoza in 1809, by C. Alvarez Dumont, 399
The Maid of Zaragoza, by M. Hiraldez Acosta, 400
The Maid of Zaragoza, by Navarro y Canizares, 401
Arch from the Aljaferia Palace, now in the Archæological
Museum, 402
Arch from the Aljaferia Palace, now in the Archæological
Museum, 403
Provincial Museum: Detail of ‘The Mosque’ of the Aljaferia, 404
Provincial Museum: Corbels of Eaves, Gothic style, from the
old Custom House, 405
Provincial Museum: Corbels of Eaves, 406
Provincial Museum: Corbels of Eaves, Gothic style, 407
Provincial Museum: Corbels of Eaves, Pointed style, 408
Provincial Museum: Arab Capitals of the Aljaferia Castle, 409
Provincial Museum: Arab Capitals from the Aljaferia, 410
Provincial Museum: Arab Capitals from the Aljaferia, 411
The Story of Lucretia. A Plate from the work entitled
‘Mugeres Ilustres,’ translated from Boccaccio, 412
A Page from the work entitled ‘Example against the Deception
and Perils of the World,’ by Juan de Capua, 413
Valladolid, Oviedo, Segovia, Zamora, Avila, and Zaragoza
I
VALLADOLID
ITS STORY
Valladolid, a thriving, bustling place, as Spanish cities go, stands on
the rivers Pisuerga and Esgueva, a few miles above the confluence of
their united streams with the Duero. All round spreads the vast, dreary
plain of Castile, interrupted within sight of the town by a ring of low
hills. Trains thunder past from north, south, and west, keeping
Valladolid in close touch with Madrid, with France, with Portugal, and
with the rest of the world. The natural centre, this, of the old kingdom
of Leon and Castile, of which it was for a long time the political
capital.
The etymology of the name has perplexed historians not a little. The
most probable derivation is from the Arabic Belad-Walid, the valley of
Walid, or (as likely) of the Wali or governor. In Latin documents the
name is Vallisoletum, from which the poetical etymology, _vallis
odoris_, was ingeniously manufactured. Though a great many of the towns
in this part of Spain were founded on fresh sites on the resettlement of
the country in the ninth and tenth centuries, Valladolid can, with some
show of probability, claim a more remote origin. The contention of the
old writers that this was the town called Pintia, described by Ptolemy
as lying on the road from Caesaraugusta to Asturica, is to some extent
borne out by numerous remains, attesting the existence at this spot of a
Roman community of opulence and importance.
The earliest mention of the place since the Christian era occurs in the
Chronicle of Cardeña, where in the year 1072 it is referred to as one of
the two towns (Rio Seco being the other) offered to Doña Urraca by her
brother, Sancho, in exchange for Zamora. We may presume, therefore, that
it was already a place of some consequence. In 1074 it was handed over
by Alfonso VI. to Count Pedro Ansúrez, the companion of his exile at
Toledo. This noble plays the same part in its history as Count Raymond
does in that of Salamanca. The principal buildings, such as Santa Maria
la Antigua and the bridge over the Pisuerga, are ascribed to him. He
founded and generously endowed the collegiate church of Santa Maria la
Mayor, with the adjacent abbey, of which, in after years, infantes and
the sons of the most exalted persons were alone deemed worthy to be
abbots. The famous Bernard, Archbishop of Toledo, came to bless the
church, with the not less famous Alvar Fañez, who was Count Pedro’s
son-in-law. When good King Alfonso passed away, Ansúrez took the oath of
allegiance to his daughter, Queen Urraca, and to her husband, ‘The
Battler of Aragon.’ When the royal twain came to blows, the count
surrendered all the strongholds he held to the queen, and presented
himself to the king, saying that ‘with the hands, the tongue, and the
body which had paid him homage,’ he could do as he willed. Alfonso the
Battler let him depart unmolested, and he was laid to rest in 1118,
clothed in his armour, in the collegiate church he had endowed.
The lordship of Valladolid now passed to Armengol, son of Count Pedro’s
eldest daughter, by the Count of Urgel. Under his sway the city
prospered exceedingly. King Alfonso VII. chose it for the place of his
marriage with a Polish princess, and for several ecclesiastical
councils. Two more counts of the same name continued the dynasty of
Ansúrez till the year 1208; but of these the town saw little, for as
Counts of Urgel they were vassals of Aragon, and spent most of their
time in that kingdom. The last count left half of his Castilian
dominions to the Pope, the other half to his daughter Aurembiax, who was
believed to be the mistress of the King of Aragon. Alfonso VIII. of
Castile can hardly, therefore, be blamed for setting aside a disposition
which handed over the principal town in his kingdom to two foreign
potentates. In the year 1208, accordingly, the city was incorporated
with the monarchy. Soon after (1215) it became for the first time the
royal residence--that of the Queen-Regent Berenguela and her youthful
charge, Don Enrique I.; and in accordance with this precedent, two years
later, Fernando III. was crowned here, in the Plaza Mayor. Thenceforward
the town became the usual seat of the court, though an official capital
in the modern sense Spain did not possess till Philip II.’s time. The
last years of the thirteenth century saw the reins of government in the
hands of a native of Valladolid, the Queen-Regent, Maria de Molina,
widow of Sancho el Bravo. Her predilection for her own birthplace
practically extinguished the pretensions of Burgos to rank as capital,
and during her stormy regency Valladolid stood by her loyally. She was
not the least capable or intrepid of the many able women-rulers by whom
Spain has been so well served.
Though the seat of government, Valladolid was not wanting in the
turbulent, independent spirit characteristic of the Castilian cities. In
1328 a rumour spread abroad that the king’s Jewish treasurer, Joseph,
was about to carry off the Infanta Leonor, and to marry her to the
detested favourite, Nuñez Osorio. Sure enough the princess presently
appeared, mounted and attended by an escort, as if proceeding on a
journey. The citizens forced her to return to the palace, and clamoured
for the head of the treasurer. Leonor promised to satisfy them if they
would permit her to go to the Alcazar, or citadel, whither she contrived
to convey the trembling Hebrew concealed among her retinue. Safe inside
the fortress, Infanta and Jew set the mob at defiance, and sustained a
siege till relieved by the king. Comically enough, Alfonso dismissed his
favourite on the ground that he was the cause of these disturbances,
while the Infanta married the Prince of Portugal, whom she had been on
her way to meet when forced back by the crowd.
Women figure largely in the history of Valladolid. Here in the church of
Santa Maria la Mayor, Peter the Cruel was married to the hapless Blanche
de Bourbon, to leave her three days later. It was only by the entreaties
of his mistress, Maria de Padilla, that he could be persuaded to return
to his wife; but unable to overcome his repugnance to the poor princess,
he again abandoned her a few days after, this time for ever.
The convent of La Merced owes its origin to another case of erratic
passion. Donha Leonor Telles de Meneses had been torn from the arms of
her first husband, João Lourenço d’Acunha, by the King of Portugal, who
raised her to the throne. D’Acunha retired to Valladolid, where he was
buried in the church of Santa Maria la Antigua. In the course of time
Leonor’s second husband also died, and she also came to Valladolid,
possibly to see what had become of the first. Doubly a widow, she found
consolation in the affection of a knight named Zoilo Iñiguez, by whom
she had a daughter called Maria. Leonor’s experience of love and
matrimony led her at her death to charge her daughter’s guardian, one
Laserna, to dedicate the girl to religion, and to found a convent for
her special accommodation. Before this could be accomplished, Maria, who
believed herself to be a relation of Laserna, fell in love with his
nephew, and incontinently married him. On discovering the secret of her
origin, she so far complied with her mother’s wish as to build a
convent, in which Queen Leonor as the foundress was entombed.
About the same time, by order of Juan I., the old Alcazar, round which
the town had been built, was demolished to make room for the existing
convent of San Benito. The monastery of San Pablo became the residence
of the court during the minority of Juan II. That king may be said to
have lived here permanently, and to have confirmed Valladolid in its
dignity as capital of the realm. As such it was the scene of much
splendour and chivalrous display under the rule of the high-minded
favourite, the great Constable Alvaro de Luna. And it was in the little
Plaza del Ochavo, in the centre of the town, having run his course as a
true knight and a wise statesman, that he met his fate with the dignity
and composure which had distinguished him during his whole career.
The place of his execution was chosen by his enemies as precisely the
scene of his greatest triumphs. He was confined during his last night in
the house of his enemy, Zuñiga, where he passed the hours ‘in great
contrition and affliction of spirit.’ ‘The melancholy 2nd of June 1453
dawned,’ says Don Jose Quadrado, ‘and in the Plaza del Ochavo, which
then formed the principal square of Valladolid, loomed a scaffold draped
with black cloth, and above it a cross set with lighted tapers. On a
post was fixed the spike destined to receive the severed head. The
Constable was conducted to the spot by the streets of Francos,
Cantarranas, and Plateria, mounted on a mule with black trappings, and
preceded by a crier, whose violent denunciations drew from him only the
humble words, _Más merezco_ (“I deserve more”). Alighting on the side of
the church of San Francisco, and mounting the scaffold with firmness,
having knelt before the cross, he hesitated whether he should address
the people, when he perceived among the crowd his faithful page Moreles,
and Barrasa, esquire to Don Enrique. He told the latter to adjure his
master not to follow the example of the king, his father, in the way of
rewarding his servants; to the former he gave his signet-ring, which
the youth received weeping, not a few of the bystanders weeping loudly
also. “With my body they may do as they please,” he said on perceiving
the spike and divining its object; and baring his throat, and his hands
being bound with his own girdle, he offered his head to the executioner,
who a few seconds later held it up, dripping with blood, before the
horror-stricken people. The body remained exposed three, and the head
nine days, with a box beside it to receive alms. With these he was
buried among malefactors in the hermitage of San Andrés outside the
walls; but at the end of two months he was given a more decent sepulture
in San Francisco, where he lay till the rehabilitation of his memory and
his magnificent entombment thirty-one years later in the cathedral of
Toledo.’
The feeble and ungrateful king (Juan II.) survived his favourite little
more than a year, and died at the convent of San Pablo, which had been
his usual abode. Valladolid remained steadily loyal to his miserable
successor, Enrique IV., when scarcely another town in his dominions
would harbour him. Yet, strangely enough, it was in this city, in the
house of Juan Vivero (where the Audiencia now stands), that the king’s
sister Isabel, in defiance of his wishes, celebrated in secret, but with
great ceremony, her marriage with Ferdinand of Aragon. This was on
October 18, 1469--an auspicious night for Spain. But the city was too
full of Enrique’s partisans to afford a safe asylum to the newly-wedded
pair, who immediately betook themselves to Dueñas.
Valladolid, always on the side of authority, accepted ‘the Catholic
Kings’ on the death of Enriqùe, to the exclusion of Juana, whom a modern
writer inexplicably calls that monarch’s illegitimate daughter. She was
barred from the succession on the ground that she was not his daughter
at all. The vigorous but hardly beneficent rule of Ferdinand and Isabel
was celebrated in 1489 by eighteen persons being burned alive in the
Plaza Mayor, while a few years after the city was emptied of its Jewish
inhabitants. A whole quarter left tenantless, deserted homes, and
smoking human sacrifices marked the inauguration of the New Monarchy in
Valladolid. Yet the city prospered, and was too busy to notice the
worn-out adventurer, the Admiral of the Indies, the immortal Christopher
Columbus, who died within its walls on May 20, 1506. But all their
prosperity could not reconcile the sturdy citizens to the arbitrary
government of Charles V.’s regents. Valladolid threw in her lot with
the Comunidad. Her sons bled in the cause of liberty beside Padilla on
the fatal field of Villalar; and when the Flemish emperor proclaimed an
amnesty on visiting the city in 1522, many of her townsmen found
themselves among the three hundred specially excluded from its
operation.
Philip II. was born here on May 21, 1527; here he was married to his
first and Portuguese wife; here also she died in giving birth to his
luckless son Carlos. Yet it was this native of Valladolid who reduced it
to the rank of a provincial city, and in the year 1560 definitely
declared Madrid to be the _unica corte_, the official capital of Spain.
This measure has been variously criticised, but it is certainly
difficult to perceive the advantages which the new capital possessed
over the old, or over Toledo or Zaragoza. This loss of dignity was
followed by a more dreadful catastrophe. Valladolid was devastated by a
fire in the night of September 21, 1561, four hundred and forty houses
being destroyed, though only three persons lost their lives. The
silversmiths, for whom the city was renowned, saved their wares by
throwing them into the wells. The conflagration was caused by the
sparks blown from a fire lit by some beggars in the shadow of a wall.
Possibly the citizens were reminded of those other flames so frequently
kindled in their midst by the abominable Inquisition, when men and women
were roasted to death in the presence and with the approval of His
Catholic Majesty Philip II. The furious element was less destructive
than the Holy Office.
The city was practically rebuilt by order of the despot, and as a mark
of his favour he persuaded the Pope to erect it into a diocese in the
last years of the sixteenth century. His successor, with a judgment of
which he rarely gave proof, reinstated Valladolid in its rank of capital
of the monarchy, and resided here in the palace facing San Pablo (now
the Audiencia). Here Anne of Austria and Philip IV. were born. Cervantes
lived here in one of the houses in the Rastro behind the Campo Grande,
where he finished the first part of _Don Quixote_. His experience of the
city was unfortunate. He was, together with his family, imprisoned on
the charge of being implicated in a night brawl, wherein as a matter of
fact he had simply played the part of Good Samaritan. His brother wits
and the literati unceasingly assailed Valladolid as unworthy the
residence of the court, and after five years Philip III. was obliged,
professedly because the city was unhealthy, to restore Madrid to its
pre-eminence. The abandoned capital was hit very hard. Industry and
commerce languished, nothing but the religious vocation flourished. The
project of rendering the Duero and Pisuerga navigable for large vessels
was given up, and, to crown all, the Moriscos to the number of one
thousand were expelled, taking the silk industry with them. Inundations
and all sorts of calamities followed in quick succession. Whatever money
men earned in moribund Castile, they used to build churches and
convents. The city’s attachment to the Bourbon cause in the War of the
Spanish Succession disposed Philip V. to transfer the court hither a
second time; but the pre-eminence of Madrid was too firmly established
to permit this. The French invaders, a hundred years ago, found the
place ruined and stagnant. Since then Valladolid has awakened from her
sleep. The opening of the North of Spain Railway, and the establishment
here of the company’s loco-motive works, gave a great impetus to her
progress, and she is now an important commercial town, the centre of the
corn trade of Castile. No Spanish city north of the Guadarrama gives
such promise as Valladolid.
THE CITY
A city which was so long the capital of the monarchy--the city where
Columbus died and Cervantes lived--whose streets are haunted by the
immortal creature of Le Sage’s genius--can be no unworthy goal for a
pilgrimage. It has memories far more stirring than Madrid, which in
physiognomy it rather resembles. A cold, formal town it seems at first
sight, with modern-looking squares, straight streets, and severe,
imposing buildings; but behind these you find the old city of Juan II.
and Enrique IV., a labyrinth of tortuous lanes, gloomy palaces, and
ruinous monastic houses.
The handsome Accra de Recoletos, which looks across the spacious Campo
Grande--the city’s principal park--leads from the triumphal Puerta del
Carmen, commemorating the reign of Charles III., to the majestic Arch of
Santiago. We pass through, and presently reach the Plaza Mayor, now
called the Plaza de la Constitucion, the focus of the city’s life.
A minor Puerta del Sol, Ford calls this regular, symmetrically planned
open space, designed after the great fire of 1561 by Francisco
Salamanca. The houses enclosing it are of uniform architecture, with
three tiers of balconies in the three Grecian orders, capable, it is
said, of accommodating 24,000 spectators. The portico is supported by
massive granite columns of a bluish tinge, each a monolith. On the north
side is the ungraceful Ayuntamiento (Town Hall), with weather-vanes on
its towers and martial trophies surmounting the town clock. The space is
as lively and gay as any in Spain. The sun shines brightly, the birds
fly as freely overhead as across the innocent plains; here there is no
deeper shadow than elsewhere, no abiding gloom or ghostly chill. Yet if
ever a spot deserved to be called accursed it is this. Let us project
ourselves back into the past, to a bright morning in May in the year
1559. The balconies have not yet been built, but stands and tiers of
seats have been constructed round the Plaza. There is a grand display of
bunting, and the richest draperies are hung from the crowded
windows--silks and cloth of gold and silver, damasks and brocades. On a
daïs are seen the little prince, Don Carlos, and his aunt the Infanta
Juana. The civic dignitaries of the town are here, the craftsmen in
their liveries; but making the bravest show of all are the bishop and
the clergy, arrayed in full canonicals, as befits the solemn Act of
Faith at which they are about to assist. The square is packed with a
vast multitude--men have come from far and near to see this thing--and
people are pouring down the narrow streets, an unceasing stream. All
eyes are fixed on the platform in the centre of the Plaza, whereon
faggots and brushwood are neatly piled round fourteen pillars, and busy
varlets are bestirring themselves. A subdued murmur betokens the
approach of the procession. For the alguazils who clear the way, for the
horribly clad familiars of the Holy Office who stalk before, the
spectators have no eyes: the gaze of those thousands is levelled on the
fourteen men and women walking slowly to their awful doom. Were ever
creatures so shockingly grotesque? They wear a perfectly ridiculous
headgear, like an elongated nightcap, or a hat such as our grenadiers
wore in days gone by; a sort of smock covers their bodies, an ugly
flame-coloured garment, painted with figures of dancing and grimacing
devils. You can hardly restrain a smile. I’ll wager those gallants
yonder are cracking some clever jokes at their expense, for the Latin is
by nature a wag. We all know who they are, these wretches. Not long
before Valladolid was thrilled by the rumour that a Lutheran conventicle
had been discovered here in the heart of His Most Catholic Majesty’s
capital. A holy woman, suspicious of her husband’s orthodoxy, had
followed him one day, found him in the midst of this heretical assembly,
and denounced him to the Holy Office. That is the man, Juan Garcia, a
goldsmith whom all the townsmen have known and dealt with this many a
year. Where’s his wife? somewhere in the crowd, doubtless, praying for
his soul. Virtue like hers is worthy of heroines or devils. Most notable
of the heretical crew is the Doctor Cazalla, one of the king’s most
notable preachers; but the Holy Inquisitors are no respecters of
persons. They would drag you from behind the throne. The priest with the
Doctor is his brother Francisco. The woman is his sister, Doña Beatriz.
Burn a woman? Ay, surely. There are four more, one of them a
serving-wench. That black-avised fellow is a mere Jew from Lisbon--there
is little sympathy for him. Then there are four gentlemen,
and--hold!--one has a gag in his mouth. It is the Bachelor, Antonio
Herrerruelo, an obstinate fellow, who will not recede one hair’s-breadth
from his heretical opinions or concede one iota. The sixteen that
follow interest us less. They have been reconciled with Mother Church,
and for them no worse fate is reserved than the confiscation of all
their goods and solitary confinement for life. Ha! one of them has
fainted. It is the youthful daughter of the Marqués de Alcañias, Doña
Ana Enriques. They say that one of this batch is an Englishman. Perhaps
he has seen Catholics hanged, drawn, and quartered in his own land, and
can forgive the Spaniard.
The learned Dominican in the pulpit reads the sentences of the Holy
Tribunal of the Inquisition, and we may be sure his voice shakes with
paternal tenderness when _he absolves_ those who are passing into the
shadow of perpetual imprisonment. As for those fourteen others--the
Church has done with them, and in sorrow, not in anger, she hands them
over to the secular arm.
Now who will face the flames? for even the secular arm is merciful at
the eleventh hour. Thousands of eyes are strained towards the scaffold.
What is passing? Cazalla is making a farewell speech. Is he obdurate?
No; from mouth to mouth the rumour runs that he professes penitence,
that he abjures his errors. His brothers, the women--look at their
blanched faces!--mutter some such words. Their necks are encircled by
the collars of the garrote--they stand on the well-laid pyre. But it is
not lighted yet. Swiftly the executioner steps from one post to the
other. A quiet turn of the screw, and the souls of the heretics have
fled, and the flames may have their corpses.
But he with the gag, Herrerruelo? We watch him breathlessly. At all
admonitions he simply shakes his head. The executioner even hesitates to
fire the pile. He has his hand on the spring of the garrote. A word from
the heretic, and he will be dead, unscorched, instantaneously. It is
useless. Herrerruelo will not speak that word. The fire is lighted. The
logs crackle and blaze. We can hardly see the victim’s form. No groan
nor sigh escapes him. But on his face, says one close to him, is stamped
the extremest sadness that ever human being knew. Is it for yourself,
Castilian of the old Roman mould? Nay, rather, I think, for your country
which you see perishing beside you slowly but inevitably on the pyre of
fanaticism and superstition.
It is over. The integrity of the faith of Spain has been vindicated. But
the heroism of Herrerruelo soon finds imitators. His wife follows him to
the flames a few years later. Philip II. himself comes to assist at a
superb act of faith which demands another holocaust. He solemnly swears
to defend the faith and to enforce the decrees of its tribunal. ‘And you
leave me to burn?’ is the bitter reproach a Veronese gentleman among the
doomed men dares to address to the king. ‘Ay,’ says Philip, ‘I would
bring the wood myself to burn my own son were he a heretic.’ There was
thus something of the Roman spirit on both sides. The brave Italian’s
fortitude so inspires a fellow-sufferer that he leaps gaily into the
flames, calling for wood, more wood.
The shame of the Inquisition rests not on the Spanish people. The
citizens of Valladolid were kept in check on these dreadful occasions
only by large bodies of troops. Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, dared
not go forth without an armed escort of two hundred and fifty men. The
Spaniards of to-day, with few exceptions, refer to the institution with
expressions of abhorrence, startling even to Protestant ears. But it
must be admitted that some writers more or less half-heartedly attempt a
defence. Don J. M. Quadrado observes that the Holy Office saved the
country from the horrors of religious wars, to which the obvious
rejoinder is that the wars of religion, judged by their results, proved
less disastrous to France, Germany, and Switzerland, than the policy of
repression proved to Spain, and that the religious unity of other
countries, such as Italy and Austria, has been preserved with
comparatively little physical suasion.
We will leave the Plaza Mayor, this bright place with such gloomy
memories, and see what monuments Faith has raised of a more honourable
and durable kind. We cross the prettily named Place of the Golden
Fountain, and the Plaza del Ochavo, where Alvaro de Luna died, and a
little farther on find the Cathedral of Valladolid.
This church was begun in 1585, by order of Philip II., and replaced the
old Iglesia Mayor founded by Pedro Ansúrez. The work was intrusted to
Herrera, the architect of the Escorial, but his plans were never fully
carried out, and the cathedral remains to-day unfinished, and also
unfortunately marred by Churriguera and his disciples. The style of
Herrera very eloquently expressed the temper and spirit, if not of the
Spain of his day, certainly of his sovereign. The model of the church is
to be seen in the muniment room. It is cruciform, the nave and transept
to be flanked with aisles and chapels, the crossing to be surmounted by
a dome, and a tower to be at each of the four corners. Only one of the
towers was ever finished, and that collapsed in 1841; it is now being
rebuilt. Street, who is very severe on all non-Gothic buildings in
Spain, says that ‘nothing could ever cure the hideous unsightliness of
the exterior. Herrera’s west front was revised by Churriguera in the
eighteenth century, and cannot therefore be fairly criticised; but the
side elevation remains as Herrera designed it, and is really valuable as
a warning. Flying buttresses were, of course, an abomination; so in
their place he erected enormous solid buttresses above the aisles to
resist the thrust of the nave vault. They are shapeless blocks of
masonry, projecting about forty feet from the clerestory wall, and
finished with a horrid concave line at the top.’
The interior is not wanting in majesty and massiveness. Only the nave,
with its aisles and chapels, has been completed. The huge piers carry
bold arches, separated by a broad cornice from a plastered and panelled
groined ceiling. The walls are destitute of ornament, but over the
arched entrances to the chapels runs an open gallery with balustrades.
The aisles have been obstructed by ‘provisional chapels,’ which Herrera
would have indignantly swept away; and the choir, which he intended to
place behind the High Altar, is now placed so as to block the best view
of the nave. The Capilla Mayor, placed in the crossing, is in bad taste,
with innumerable doors and tribunes piercing its walls. One cannot but
agree with the Spanish writer who says that nothing is wanting to
destroy the impression of ‘a grand whole,’ which Herrera was especially
anxious to create.
The choir stalls, mostly from the convent of San Pablo, were designed by
the architect, and display some fine inlay work. The remainder are in
the Gothic style, and come from the old church. The chapels contain
nothing worthy of note, except a picture by Lucas Jordaens, and the tomb
of Count Pedro Ansúrez, whose remains were brought here from the church
he founded. A very poor effigy represents the hero, whose merits are set
forth in rhymed verse.
In the sacristy is one of the finest specimens of the metal-work for
which Spain has always been renowned. The solid silver monstrance, by
Juan de Arfe, is 6½ feet high, and weighs upwards of 150 lbs. It is in
the shape of a temple in four stories, two of which are octagonal, and
two circular. Statuettes of Adam and Eve, and a relief of the mystery
of the Conception, adorn this exquisite work, for which the artificer
received 44,000 reals.
Adjacent to the cathedral are some remains of the Iglesia Mayor, founded
by Pedro Ansúrez, and rebuilt in the reign of St. Ferdinand. A doorway,
still standing, and the various scattered pillars are in the Romanesque
style, but there are also traces of Gothic work. A cloister existing at
the end of the sixteenth century is described as one of the finest in
Spain, containing many sculptures, all coloured, and tombs of notable
people. Part of this cloister has gone to form a room called the
Library, but that it still contains books I was unable to ascertain.
The Iglesia Mayor is said to have been built at the same time as the
church of Santa Maria la Antigua, on the other side of the square, and
both by Count Ansúrez. Comparing conflicting testimony, and the opinions
of various architects, the conclusion would appear to be that the church
was founded before the Count’s time (for it is mentioned in documents as
far back as 1088, and was in his day called the Ancient), and that the
existing fabric dates mainly from the reign of Alfonso IX.
(1230-44)--not from the time of the alleged restorer, Alfonso XI. Santa
Maria is, beyond doubt, the most interesting church in the city. Its
lofty steeple, with tiled roof and semicircular windows in all its four
stages, is one of the few prominent landmarks of the wayfarer to
Valladolid. The side apses are Romanesque, but the nave terminates in an
apse, Gothic in style, and pierced with lancet windows. The buttresses
taper off into graceful finials, with crockets and gargoyles. The main
apse and transept are both pierced near the roof with an elegant
openwork balustrade. The steeple is thoroughly Lombard in character.
The interior exhibits an interesting blending of the Romanesque and
Gothic styles. On the outer door, defaced by a modern portico, formerly
hung the knockers wrenched off the gates of the Mezquita at Cordova by
the first Count Armengol. The mouldings of the arch are Romanesque, but
Gothic is the beautiful groining of the interior. At the west end of the
church is a gallery for the choir, with stalls and organ. In the days
when this was built churches were built for the laity, and the clergy
did not insist on taking up the greater part of the nave, as they did in
after years. The chapel of the Counts of Cancelada contains some good
paintings. The most valuable accessory is, however, the reredos by the
celebrated Juan de Juni, begun in 1551 and finished in 1557. The work
betrays an extraordinary degree of skill and vigour, but it is
over-elaborate and in parts fantastic.
On the north this venerable church is flanked by a very beautiful
Romanesque cloister of fourteen semicircular arches in three bays. The
shafts, says Street, are moulded and wrought in imitation of the coupled
columns of early Italian artists. This cloister, together with the
steeple, makes up the most picturesque group of buildings in Valladolid,
and is well worth careful preservation, if not restoration.
We will visit the University on the south side of the square another
time, and will now thread our way northwards to the Plaza de San Pablo,
a very interesting site. At the corner of the Calles de las Angustias
and San Martin is the house where the Andalusian painter Alonso Cano is
said to have killed his wife. He fled (so we are told) in consequence to
his native city of Granada, where he became a prebendary of the
cathedral, and executed his finest work. The church of San Martin is a
very ordinary seventeenth-century structure; but it was founded soon
after the resettlement of the city, and preserves its steeple, in the
same style as that of Santa Maria la Antigua, and dating from about
1200. There was a baseless story that this was originally a Moorish
watch-tower.
The Dominican monastery of San Pablo was founded in 1276 by Queen
Violante, the rebellious consort of Alfonso XI. Maria de Molina showered
favours on the community, whose friendly rivals, the Franciscans, were
established in the Plaza Mayor. Later on, as we have said, Juan II. made
the building his home, and died here in 1454--near to, if not in, the
odour of sanctity. Here, too, the Cortes often used to sit. The present
building may be considered the creation of Cardinal Juan de Torquemada
(not the notorious Inquisitor), whose death took place in 1468. The
façade was constructed in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and
restored in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries; it is a debased
late-Gothic style, the main object of the architects being evidently to
multiply evidences of their skill. In this they succeeded, for no one
can question the merit of the execution. The riotous exuberance of the
decoration renders a description difficult. The doorway is placed within
an arch of a curious waved line. On either side are shown saints of the
order, standing on pedestals, with pinnacle-like canopies above them.
Above the arch is an indifferent relief of the Coronation of the Blessed
Virgin, attended by Cardinal Torquemada with his patron saints, the
Baptist and the Evangelist. All this part of the decoration is enclosed
within an ugly flattened arch. Above is the figure of Christ Enthroned,
and on each side of Him a trefoil arch containing the figures of the
Four Evangelists. These arches frame windows with exquisite traceries,
such as fill the circular window above the Christ. The upper part of the
façade is in three stages, each filled with figures of saints and
heraldic devices. ‘Every vacant space,’ says Street, ‘seems to have a
couple of angels holding coats-of-arms, so that it is impossible not to
feel that the sculptor and the founder must have had some idea of heaven
as peopled by none with less than a proper number of quarterings on
their shields, or without claim to the possession of _Sangre Azul_.’ The
arms displayed on the lower part of the façade are not, however, those
of Torquemada, but of the Duke of Lerma, the favourite of Philip III.,
by whom the church was restored. Here he celebrated his first Mass in
the year 1618, having sought refuge in the church from the cares of
state, or the disappointments of a courtier’s life; and here, too, he
was ultimately buried. The church was plundered and dismantled by the
French during the Peninsular War, and the interior is now inaccessible
to visitors.
On the other side of the Plazuela is the palace built by Lerma on the
site of the house where Don Carlos was born, and sold by him to Philip
III. for thirty-seven million maravedis. The façade is simple, not
undignified, and adorned with the royal arms over the doorway. The
patio, or inner quadrangle, is decorated with busts of the Roman
emperors and the arms of the old provinces of Spain. Here, says Ford,
Napoleon took up his quarters on that memorable visit to Spain which at
once altered the complexion of affairs. The building is now the
Audiencia, or Law Court.
Philip II. was born in the house at the corner of the square and the
Calle Cadesa de San Gregorio, and baptized in the church of San Pablo.
Except for its associations, the house is uninteresting.
Next to San Pablo is the Colegio San Gregorio, built by Alonso de
Burgos, Isabel the Catholic’s Confessor, in remembrance of his student
days at the former establishment. The work, elaborate as it is, occupied
only eight years--1488 to 1496. The architect, Matias Carpintero, for
some unknown reason committed suicide before its completion in 1490. The
façade of the main entrance resembles that of the older foundation. The
design displays more originality, but the execution is by no means as
good. The lintel and jambs of the square doorway are decorated by a
relieved pattern of fleur-de-lys, and enclosed within an arched canopy
of fanciful outline. On either side of the doorway are statues of wild
men--possibly an allusion to the discovery of America--and over the
lintel a relief represents the founder kneeling before the patron saint.
From the canopy, twisted tapering pillars soar upwards and divide the
upper stage into three parts. The middle one is occupied by the relief
of a pomegranate tree springing from a basin, and sheltering children
and birds among its branches; it supports the coat-of-arms of Ferdinand
and Isabel. The lateral divisions contain figures supporting
escutcheons, the whole being ‘even more extremely heraldic in its
decorations’ than San Pablo. The open-work, cusping at the top, looks as
if made of coarse wicker-work, and is happily fast disappearing under
the corrosive effects of frost and rain. The interior of San Gregorio
wearies the eye with its excess of heraldic decoration. The inner
court, notwithstanding, is noble and spacious, with a double gallery of
six arches on each side springing from spirally-fluted columns. The
fleur-de-lys appear on the arms of the founder; the yoke and sheaf of
arrows are the well-known devices of the Catholic kings. The chapel was
stripped by the French of all of value that it contained, including the
sepulchral effigy of Alonso de Burgos. The college is now one of the
municipal buildings.
The secularised church and convent of San Benito on the west side of the
town were founded by Juan I. on the site of the old Alcazar, in
reparation for a Benedictine house destroyed by his father. The actual
fabric was commenced in 1453, and hardly completed three centuries
later. The plan of the church reminds one of Santa Maria la Antigua. The
interior is lofty and impressive. There are two choirs--one in the
western gallery, and the other, as usual in Spain, in the middle of the
church, and enclosed by brick walls. The church was very strongly built,
and is, appropriately enough, occupied by the military.
In the church of La Magdalena is buried Bishop Pedro de la Gasca, who
recovered Peru for the monarchy from the clutches of Pizarro. His tomb
in the centre of the transept was chiselled by Esteban Jordán in 1577.
The other churches of Valladolid hardly repay a visit. We may now turn
our attention to the University, close to the Antigua Church. Founded in
the eleventh century, this institution rose into importance only on the
decline of the University of Salamanca. The statues of its
patrons--Alfonso VIII., Alfonso XI., Juan I., and Enrique III.--surmount
the grotesque and extravagant façade, which is in the worst baroque or
Churrigueresque style. Older and more interesting are the English and
Scots Colleges. The former was founded by Sir Francis Englefield in 1590
or thereabouts, for the education of young Englishmen for the Catholic
priesthood. The Scots College is an analogous institution, founded by
Colonel Sempill at Madrid in 1627, and transferred hither in 1771. The
Irish College is at Salamanca. Both seminaries are still resorted to, to
some extent, by youths from the United Kingdom, though a novitiate in
Valladolid might not seem an adequate training for parochial work in
English cities or Highland glens.
Sculpture is the art that has been least cultivated in Spain.
Exceptional interest attaches, therefore, to the Museum of Valladolid,
which contains a valuable collection of the works of native sculptors,
or rather carvers. The building itself is the old College of Santa Cruz,
built in 1486 by the famous Enrique de Egas, and intended by the
founder, Cardinal Mendoza (_el tercer Rey_) to harbour impoverished
genius. The exterior is surmounted by a balustrade, and strengthened
with buttresses tapering into pinnacles. The principal façade is a fine
example of Plateresque work, with much that is Gothic about the detail.
The coats-of-arms of the Catholic kings and of the founder appear, of
course, in the decoration, and the cardinal is shown adoring the cross
upheld by St. Helen. The inner court is surrounded by a triple tier of
galleries, with semicircular arches, octagonal pillars, and elegant
balustrades.
Within these walls have been collected treasures from the demolished,
dismantled, and disused churches, convents, and palaces of the city,
many of the objects now here having been removed from their original
positions by the French and left behind them in the hurry of flight.
Here we find the retablo executed between 1526 and 1532 for the church
of San Benito by Alonso Berruguete. Street, who disliked all the works
of the Renaissance, denounced this altarpiece in unmeasured terms; but
no impartial critic can deny the beauty of certain of the figures,
notably those of Abraham and St. Sebastian. In the museum may also be
seen the choir stalls from the same church, carved by the master in
1528--ten years before he designed the _silleria_ of Toledo. The work
displays marvellous imagination and great delicacy in the execution.
The genius of Juan de Juni, who was living at Valladolid in 1570, is
best represented by his wooden statue of the Dead Christ, from the
convent of San Francisco. So ghastly is the realism of this figure, that
looking at the rigid limbs--more like those of a gladiator than of the
Crucified--we feel that corruption is about to take place, and avert our
eyes in horror. One is tempted to hold one’s nose, as Murillo is said to
have done while contemplating a canvas by Valdes Leal. Not less vigorous
and infinitely more attractive is the noble statue of St. Bruno by the
same sculptor.
Gregorio Hernandez was the last of the trio of carver-sculptors who
lived and worked at Valladolid. He was an indefatigable and prolific
worker, and never doubted that the sole mission of art was to serve the
purposes of religion. He died in 1636, in Juni’s old house, at No. 37
Calle de San Luis. He is well represented in this museum. St. Teresa is
perhaps his best work, but shows his want of vigour as compared with his
two predecessors. It was Hernandez who unfortunately set the example of
draping statues with nets and fabrics, since followed with such unhappy
results.
Few artists on canvas, or in stone or wood, have so well expressed the
evil passions of the mob as the unknown sculptor of Christ bearing the
Cross. The multitude is composed, of course, of local types--of those
ferocious bravos and audacious picaros who abounded in Spain at that
time, and whose ugliest characteristics are here caught and rendered
with astonishing realism. A different genius is exemplified by the
beautiful statues in bronze gilt of the Duke and Duchess of Lerma, which
once decorated their tombs at San Pablo. They were begun by an Italian,
Pompeio Leoni, but completed, it is believed, by another hand.
The pictures in the museum are not of great importance. The Assumption
and two other works by Rubens are in bad condition, and almost surpassed
in interest by some pleasing productions of the modern Spanish school.
Not far from the museum is the house where Columbus died (No. 7
Cristobal Colon). He came hither on his return from his last voyage in
1504, and languished here, absolutely neglected by the cold-hearted
Ferdinand, for eighteen months. From Philip and Joanna he hoped to
obtain a fuller recognition of his services, and upon their landing in
Spain he sent them the assurance of his homage and respect. Philip
acknowledged this in a generous and kindly spirit--an act which,
together with his oft-expressed disapprobation of the Inquisition,
should be remembered to the handsome Burgundian’s credit. But on the
21st May 1506, Columbus went on a longer voyage than any he had made to
the Indies--to the undiscovered country whence no traveller returns. He
left two sons--Hernando, who, like his father, lies in the cathedral of
Seville, and Diego, the ancestor of the present Duke of Veragua.
The house of Cervantes, of which I have already spoken in the historical
chapter, is in the Calle de Miguel Iscar, leading from the Acero de
Recoletos to the Mercado.
Interesting old houses are not uncommon in Valladolid. Besides those
already mentioned are the Casas del Cordon and de los Duendes, built in
part in the reign of Juan II.; the palace of Fabio Neli, the great
patron of art and letters in Valladolid, with its classical doorway; the
archiepiscopal palace, once the residence of the Marquises of
Villasante; and the house of the unfortunate Calderon, minister of
Philip III., in the Calle de Teresa Gil. Berruguete’s workshop may be
seen near the convent (now barracks) of San Benito.
These memorials of the city’s golden age having been inspected, you may
ruminate on its past and future (for Valladolid _has_ a future) in the
beautiful shaded promenades by the Pisuerga or beneath the trees of the
Magdalena park; and thus refreshed may possibly be ready to investigate
the archives of the kingdom at Simancas, seven miles away. Considerable
time and patience will, however, be required, since the collection
consists of upwards of thirty-three millions of documents, arranged in
eighty thousand bundles.
II
OVIEDO
The province of Asturias is, for all men of Spanish blood, holy ground.
Its fastnesses sheltered the last little remnant of the nation which
refused to bow before the foreign yoke, its mountains proved an
impregnable bulwark against the invader. At Covadonga, Spain, beaten to
her knees, with broken sword and buckler, struck back wildly,
despairingly. Her adversary recoiled; in that instant she recovered her
breath, and, rising to her feet, pressed him steadily, stealthily,
irresistibly backwards. Asturias was not the cradle, but the asylum of
the Spanish nation. Here, to use familiar expressions, she found
salvation in the last ditch; she was saved at the eleventh hour.
How dreadful was the peril of the nation we may understand when we read
that the coast of Asturias itself was overrun by the Moors, and that a
Muslim governor ruled at Gijon. Only a few glens in the wild Cantabrian
mountains can boast a soil never profaned by the tread of the infidel.
Oviedo can claim no such distinction. The ground on which she stands
was, beyond all doubt, within the Moorish dominions. And she was not, as
it is a very common error to suppose, the first capital of the reborn
monarchy. It was at Cangas de Onis that Pelayo held his primitive court,
and to Pravia, nearer the ocean, that Silo transferred the seat of
government. Not till the reign of Alfonso the Chaste (791-842) did
Oviedo become the capital of the infant monarchy.
The town was younger even than the kingdom. It sprang up round a
monastery founded by King Froila I. on the spot where in 760 the Abbot
Fromistano had dedicated a humble church to St. Vincent. Before the
monastery was built, the first stones were laid of the famous basilicas
of the Salvador and of Saints Julian and Basilissa. Alfonso was born
here, and partly out of affection for his native place, partly perhaps
from an aversion to the capital of his enemy, Mauregato, he established
his court here, beside the churches he loved. He girded the town with
walls, and raised the bishop to the rank of primate of his dominions.
Sovereign of two of the smaller provinces of Spain, he is said to have
been emulous of the splendour of his contemporary Charlemagne. He
endeavoured to restore the state of the old Gothic court. He revived the
laws, the customs, and the ritual of his ancestors, and imported
precious woods and marbles from afar for the embellishment of his little
capital. His successors imitated not only the ceremonial and luxury of
the Byzantine Emperors, but also their intriguing and methods of
punishment. Putting out the eyes was as popular a means of ridding
oneself of an opponent at Oviedo as at Constantinople. Alfonso el Magno
avenged himself in this way on his four brothers, Veremundo, Nuño,
Odoario, and Froila, whom he detected conspiring against him. Veremundo,
notwithstanding, escaped to Astorga, where the inhabitants espoused his
cause and defended him against his brother. Another conspiracy proved
more successful, and Alfonso was driven from the throne by his own son.
One day the dethroned sovereign presented himself before his successor
and craved a boon. It was to lead the Asturian hosts once more against
the infidels. The request was granted, and victory, as it had always
done, attended the old king’s banners. And he had no sooner laid aside
his arms, than, crowned with laurels in place of a diadem, he passed
away at Zamora, December 20, 910.
The dominions of Alfonso were dismembered at his abdication, and Oviedo
for the brief space of twenty years remained the capital of the kingdom
of Asturias alone. Ramiro II. reunited the monarchy, and at the same
time transferred the capital to Leon. Oviedo became again the temporary
seat of government, when Al Mansûr’s ever-victorious host swept over
Spain, submerging all the Christian conquests, and breaking only against
the impenetrable barrier of the Asturias. Leon was not restored to its
rank till the reign of Alfonso V. (999-1027). This second period of
residence of the kings at Oviedo was marked by the miraculous
intervention of Heaven on behalf of an innocent man--if the chroniclers
may be credited. Ataulfo, Bishop of Santiago, was accused of enormous
crimes, and, having been summoned to the court, was condemned on
insufficient evidence by Veremundo II. to be exposed to the fury of a
wild bull. The prelate, strong in the knowledge of his innocence,
celebrated Mass, and presented himself in the arena clad in his
pontifical vestments. The furious animal entered, and lo! at once
prostrated himself before the devoted man, offering his head and horns
to be caressed. Nay, more, he threatened the spectators with his fury.
Amid the plaudits of all, the holy bishop withdrew, and retired to a
church in the valley of the Pravia, where he died in the odour of
sanctity. Oviedo was known as the city of the bishops, as it was the
residence of a great many prelates whose Sees were _in partibus
infidelium_--that is to say, had passed under the control of the Moors.
The history of the city, and indeed of the province, from the tenth
century onwards, is of scant interest. Asturias was erected by Alfonso
VII. in 1153 for a brief space into an independent kingdom in favour of
the Infanta Urraca, his natural daughter by a lady of the province; but
on her death it was reunited to the monarchy of Castile and Leon. Oviedo
was too remote from the scene of the long campaign against the Muslims
and from the later seats of government to take any prominent part in the
nation’s affairs. But it did not escape the assaults of the French in
the Peninsular War. The town was remorselessly sacked by General Bonnet,
in spite of a resistance not unworthy of the posterity of Pelayo’s
unconquerable warriors.
A quiet, clean city, swept unceasingly by wind and rain, Oviedo at
first sight recalls but faintly its glorious past. Yet when we look
carefully about us, we find that time has been kind to those early
sanctuaries which were the cause of the town’s existence, and which have
merited for it the title of ‘the holy.’ Approaching more as a pilgrim
than a critic, in no sceptical frame of mind, you will find few places
in Spain more deeply interesting. And though it is neither the oldest
nor the most interesting architecturally of the local monuments, your
steps will turn at once to the Cámara Santa, attached to the
cathedral--the Palladium of Spain.
In the seventh century (so runs the legend) when the hosts of Khosru
threatened the Holy Land, an ark or coffer, worked by the disciples of
the Apostles and full of relics of ineffable sanctity, was conveyed by
pious hands to Egypt. Thence it was transported to Cartagena, thence to
Toledo; and when that city in its turn was menaced by the ever-advancing
Saracen, it was taken by King Pelayo to the cave of Monsagro, ten miles
from Oviedo. When the chaste king and his architect, Tioda, re-erected
the basilica of San Salvador, founded by Froila, in the year 802, a
chapel dedicated to San Miguel, and now called the Cámara Santa, was
built expressly to receive this venerated reliquary.
This sanctuary is now approached from the south side of the cathedral by
a flight of twenty-two steps, built in the sixteenth century. We reach
first the chapel, or ante-cámara, restored if not entirely constructed
in the reign of Alfonso VI. (1072-1109), and representing the highest
pitch of development reached at that time by Romanesque art in Spain.
The roof is groined, and supported on each side by six columns built
into the wall. Each column consists of two pilasters, rising from high
pedestal bases, and supporting the statues of two Apostles. These
figures are expressive, though rude, and the draperies are graceful and
natural. At their feet are fantastic animals. The capitals of the
columns are richly and beautifully carved with foliage, and with
compositions representing scenes from the life of the Saviour and
combats between men and lions. The capitals of the small pillars at the
corners of the pedestals are also curious and delicately carved. Over
the door are three heads in relief, of Christ, the Virgin, and St. John,
early Romanesque work once painted and then disfigured by whitewash. The
pavement of hard _argamasa_, or tessellated work, resembles, as Ford
remarks, Norman-Byzantine works in Sicily. Beneath is a crypt, or lower
chapel, dedicated to St. Leocadia.
At the far end of the Ante-cámara is the Relicario, the sanctuary
actually constructed by Alfonso the Chaste. It measures about 19½ by 17
feet, and consists of a single low vault with traces of paintings, and
lighted by a little window in the arch spanning the entrance.
Enclosed within a railing is the _Arca_, a chest of oak, 7½ feet long by
3¾ broad, and thinly plated with silver. A Latin inscription of four
lines on the lid goes to prove that this was the work, not of Alfonso
the Chaste, but of Alfonso VI., a conclusion warranted also by the
Arabic inscription in Kufic characters, in praise of the Most High,
running round the chest--a form of decoration not introduced into
Christian work till after the fall of Toledo. On one face of the ark are
reliefs of the Twelve Apostles within niches, with the Four Evangelists
at the angles, and the figure of Christ, supported by angels, in the
middle. On one side are reliefs of the Nativity, Adoration of the
Shepherds, and the Flight into Egypt; on the other the Revolt of Satan,
the Ascension, and the Apostles. The subject of the reliefs on the cover
is the Crucifixion.
What this ark contains is a matter for pious speculation. It is reckoned
rash and impious to attempt to solve the mystery; and it is related that
when Bishop Sandoval y Rojas, after much prayer and fasting, placed the
key in the lock, he experienced such horror that his hair rose erect and
knocked off his mitre! It is extraordinary that Bonnet’s soldiers did
not attempt to solve the mystery.
On the cover of the Arca are placed smaller reliquaries, beautiful
specimens of silversmith’s work, which some may think of more interest
than their contents. These, according to tradition, are the following:
two thorns from Christ’s crown, and one of the deniers for which he was
sold; a piece of St. Bartholomew’s skin; some drops of blood which
exuded from a crucifix profaned by the Jews; a fragment of the rod of
Moses; one of St. Peter’s sandals; a fragment of the True Cross; and
certain ivory tablets dated 1162.
Other precious relics are exhibited in the chamber, among them the
winding-sheet of the Saviour, in a superb box of gold and blue enamel.
The Cruz de la Victoria was carved of plain oak and carried as a
standard by Pelayo at Covadonga; it is now encrusted with gold and
brilliant enamels--work executed, as the inscription records, at Gauzon,
near Oviedo, in the year 908. Another cross, styled the Cruz de los
Angeles, dates from the times of Alfonso the Chaste, for whom it was
made, it is said, by two angels disguised as goldsmiths. This precious
relic is in the shape of a Maltese cross, is set with gems _en
cabochon_, and encrusted with gilt filigree-work. In the centre is set a
precious ruby. On the arms is inscribed the date of the making (808
A.D.) and an anathema on whomsoever should steal it. It is certainly
remarkable that this inscription should contain nothing about the
supernatural workmanship of the cross!
* * * * *
The cathedral built by Tioda by order of Alfonso the Chaste was pulled
down in the twelfth century. The foundation of the existing edifice may
be attributed to Bishop Gutierre de Toledo, who flourished about 1390.
The work was continued zealously by his successors, but was not
altogether completed till the sixteenth century was half gone. The west
front is flanked by towers, only one of which, as so often happens in
Spain, has been raised above the general roof-level. The southern tower
is of singular dignity and beauty. It rises to the height of 224 feet,
and is divided into five stages, of which three are above the level of
the aisles. The massive piers on which the structure rests are continued
upwards in the form of buttresses along the corners, and are fluted,
moulded, and enriched with canopies, crockets, and ornaments of the most
elaborate and at the same time tasteful character. The windows are of
three lights, with good traceries, above the archivolts appearing a kind
of trefoil ornament. The third stage is girt by a beautiful parapet. The
fourth stage is rather Renaissance than Gothic in treatment. It is
flanked by tapering finials, and constitutes the belfry. Here is hung
the bell named after King Vamba, which dates from 1219. On the topmost
stage rises the graceful steeple, thickly encrusted with crockets, and
flanked by pinnacles which seem to be a reproduction of it in miniature.
No more beautiful church steeple than this is to be seen in Spain, or
indeed in Europe. Repeated restorations, notably in 1521 and 1728, have
fortunately left its fairy-like symmetry unimpaired.
The tower, however, unquestionably dwarfs the rest of the front, which
is composed of a fine portico of three arches, the middle one being the
highest. This central porch is flanked by statues of Alfonso the Chaste
and King Froila. Despite these, and the canopied niches in the
buttresses, the whole front presents a bare and forbidding aspect, not
devoid, it must be conceded, of majesty. The portico was evidently only
intended to be the base of the towers, of which, as we have seen, one
only has been erected.
The interior is harmonious and pleasing. The nave is about twice the
height of the aisles, with which it communicates through pointed arches.
The piers are lightly fluted and encircled by simple fillets of foliage.
Above the arches runs a gallery with a graceful balustrade, and pointed
openings divided by mullions and containing good traceries. The
clerestory windows are tall and of six lights, the mullions being bent
so as to form tracery. On the south side they are filled with good
stained glass; the northern windows are filled up. The transepts are
spacious and lighted by wheel windows. There is no lantern over the
crossing.
The chancel occupies a pentagonal apse at the east end of the nave, lit
with five stained-glass windows. The retablo, dating from 1440, but
since restored, is indifferent. The subjects of the reliefs are taken
from the life of Christ. Near the High Altar are the tombs of various
bishops, and a fine kneeling effigy of Bishop del Villar, who is buried
at Segovia. The pulpits are of gilt iron. In the Renaissance chapels
behind the chancel is the tomb of Bishop Gutierre.
In the transept is a rudely sculptured figure of Christ, believed to
date from the twelfth century. The shells sculptured on the capital of
the pillar, against which it stands, refer to the pilgrims who
frequented this famous shrine.
The choir stalls are richly carved with caprices and scenes, ‘ill
according,’ remarks a Spanish writer, ‘with the sanctity of the place.’
But the backs of the lower seats bear representations of Biblical
characters, which, like the canopies above, are exquisitely carved. The
organs are Churrigueresque, and the gorgeous Gothic trascoro is in
hardly better taste. The chapels date mostly from the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, and contain nothing of interest, except the
alleged body of St. Eulalia of Merida.
Communicating with the north transept is the Capilla del Rey Casto. This
chapel, founded by Alfonso the Chaste, was entirely rebuilt in the
eighteenth century by a bishop named Melaz in the worst baroque style.
This was the pantheon of the early kings of Asturias, and some tombs,
probably containing their remains, are certainly here; but the
inscriptions are merely the result of guess-work. Only one sarcophagus
can be identified, and that, it appears from the inscription, is the
resting-place of one Ithacus. Who this personage was, and what he had
done to merit sepulture in the royal vault, are riddles to which history
supplies no answer.
The cloister, begun in the fourteenth and finished in the fifteenth
century, is in good Gothic style. The pointed arches looking on the
court are divided by four or five slender shafts, which support elegant
tracery. Among the statues that of Alfonso XI. Is the best preserved.
The capitals and corbels are curiously and richly carved with such
subjects as King Favila hunting the bear, the duel of Froila, and what
Mr. O’Shea very rightly calls ‘a series of comical pictorial reviews of
the times.’ There are many tombs in the cloister, belonging to various
epochs, mostly earlier than the fourteenth century. They are of all
styles, but Don J. M. Quadrado points out that the epitaphs are almost
uniform in style. The famous Bishop Pelayo’s tomb (died 1153) is here.
The chapter-house is a fine specimen of thirteenth-century architecture.
The archives adjoining contain some documents and codices of the
greatest value. Here is preserved the _Libro Gotico_ of the twelfth
century, a beautifully illuminated manuscript, throwing light on the
costumes and customs of that day.
The other churches founded by Alfonso the Chaste and his predecessors in
the town itself have either been demolished or so often restored,
rebuilt, and renovated, that they cannot be considered worth a visit.
The earliest foundation of all, San Vicente, was modernised in 1592, and
is interesting as containing the bones of the Abbot Feijoo, a man
greatly esteemed by his contemporaries for his learning and sanctity
(died 1764).
The Gothic church of San Francisco, now attached to a hospital, was
founded by Fray Pedro, a companion of the great Francis of Assisi
himself. This is the burying-place of the great family of Quirós, which
claimed, in a not very reverent distich, to rank in point of dignity and
antiquity next to the Divinity (‘Después de Dios, la casa de Quirós’).
In the chancel lies Gonzalo Bernaldo de Quirós the Older, the youthful
friend of Enrique of Trastamara, who died, wearing the religious habit,
in 1575. Within a sepulchre upheld by lions which bear escutcheons
crossed by the bar sinister, are the ashes of another Gonzalo Bernaldo,
a distinguished illegitimate scion of the house. He is shown clad in
armour, and at his feet a dog--symbolical, possibly, of the fidelity and
tenacity with which he watched over the interests of his family during
the minority of its chiefs. Close by is the vault of the house of
Valdecarzana; a modern inscription informs us that during the interment
of one of that family, a live cow must be present in the church--why or
wherefore not being stated.
The church of Santa Maria de la Vega, outside the town, was the chapel
of a Benedictine nunnery founded by Gontroda, mistress of Alfonso VII.,
who took the veil here in 1154. She was joined in her retirement, it is
believed, by her daughter Urraca, sometime Queen of Navarre, and
afterwards of Asturias. A century later another interesting penitent
sought an asylum here: Doña Sancha Alvarez, mistress of the greatest
noble in Spain, Rodrigo Alvarez de Asturias. The two ladies’ tombs lie
close together. The sarcophagus of Gontroda is adorned with Romanesque
reliefs of birds, and of hounds chasing deer, in curiously crude and
conventional attitudes; Sancha’s tomb shows Gothic influence, and is
sculptured in low relief. The epitaphs extol the virtues and amiability
of the departed ladies.
* * * * *
The two most interesting monuments in the district are the ancient
churches of Santa Maria de Naranco and San Miguel de Lino, both outside
the walls. The former was rebuilt by Ramiro I., and is, therefore, well
over a thousand years old. Attached to it were a palace and baths, every
trace of which has long since disappeared. The architecture presents
curious local peculiarities. The church is situated on a slope, and is
composed of a single nave resting on a crypt or substructure. The only
entrance is by a porch on the north side, which is on the level of the
nave and approached by steps. The whole exterior is severe and simple,
strong buttresses running up the walls to the sloping roof. In the west
front three stages may be distinguished: the lowest is formed by the
substructure entered in the middle by a round arch; above this the nave
terminates in a portico of three round arches, which spring from four
palm-like pillars with Corinthian capitals; in the middle of the third
stage is a window of three lights, also round arched. The interior has
remained practically unchanged since Ramiro’s day. The chancel and choir
occupy opposite ends of the nave, and are raised by one and three steps
respectively above the level of the flooring. Both are shut off by three
round arches, the middle one being higher than the others; and an arcade
of closed arches runs along the side-walls of the nave. These arches are
rudely constructed, and rest upon, rather than spring from, octagonal
capitals, quaintly carved with figures of priests and lions. The columns
are composed each of four engaged shafts, of the same pattern as those
of the western portico. The ribs of the waggon-vaulted ceiling spring
from corbels, beneath which are reliefs representing the two orders of
society in Asturias in the ninth century--knights engaged in combat, and
toilers carrying loads. Under these again are circular medallions,
filled with conventional foliage, and having in the centre reliefs of
lions and birds. The church was probably intended to be open at both
ends, as it is now, that the congregation assembled on the hillside
might be able to assist in divine worship. It is one of the most
valuable architectural monuments of Spain.
The little basilica of San Miguel de Lino was built near Santa Maria by
King Ramiro about the year 850. The name was originally _de ligno_,
_i.e._ of the wood, and was derived quite possibly from a fragment of
the True Cross preserved here. Here we have a cruciform church in
miniature, with transepts, lantern, and apsidal chapels, of a height
which seems out of proportion to their other reduced dimensions. The
apsidal chapels formed a semicircle at the foundation, but have been
squared off since. The roofs are tiled and pitched. The buttresses
resemble those of the Naranco church. The walls are pierced, here and
there, with windows of three lights, with round arches, columns spirally
fluted, and columns cut into leaves; above these is an elaborate
geometrical tracery, suggestive of Moorish influence. The jambs of the
round-arched western porch are rudely carved with curious groups. One of
these is irresistibly grotesque. A man is shown balancing himself with
his hands on the top of a pole and his legs in the air, exactly like the
familiar monkey on a stick of our childhood; with head downwards, he
grins into the jaws of a lion, which stands on its hind legs agape with
surprise or indignation. Behind the gymnast another man appears to be
indulging in some sort of dumb-bell exercise. This amazing composition
is averred by some authorities to represent the martyrdom of a saint!
The floral designs which border it are skilfully, even delicately,
executed.
The chancel is on a lower level than the nave, which is reached on each
side by a flight of steps, in a chapel projecting from the transept. The
lantern has one of the earliest attempts at a domed roof, now
unfortunately concealed by a later flat ceiling. The columns and arches
are Byzantine in style, and the capitals carved with rosettes in
medallions and strapwork. The nave is waggon vaulted and lower than the
transept.
* * * * *
The modern buildings of Oviedo present few features of interest. The old
walls have almost entirely disappeared, and few of the palaces or
noblemen’s houses date further back than the seventeenth century. The
University, founded in 1608 by the executors of Archbishop de Valdés, is
a dignified building in the classical style--such as one might see in
any fair-sized town in southern Europe. The Ayuntamiento, uninteresting
in itself, contains a charter granted by the sixth and confirmed by the
seventh Alfonso. Those who have had the opportunity of studying it say
that it illustrates the transition from Latin to Spanish--just as the
history of Oviedo illustrates the development of the Goth into the
Spaniard.
III
SEGOVIA
The ancient and beautiful city of Segovia occupies one of those sites
which men would have chosen for the building of towns as soon as towns
ever came to be built. We may therefore be sure that the roots of the
city’s life lie very far back in the past--an assurance confirmed by the
name, which bespeaks an Iberian origin. Mediæval writers mentioned this
as among the towns built by the fabulous King Hispan, whose name, with
those of his relatives, Iberia and Pyrrhus, is always introduced to
explain a mystery or to adorn a tale. To the Romans the place was known
as Segobriga; and that it was a flourishing and important colony the
great aqueduct, the most famous of its monuments, remains to this day to
attest. We may assume the town under the Roman yoke was happy, for it
had no history--at least, nothing of it has reached us. There were
bishops on these barren heights in early times, for they are referred to
by name as attending councils at Toledo in the sixth and seventh
centuries. At the time of the Mohammedan conquest, a hermit called Fruto
rallied the Christians in the fastnesses of the mountains and kept alive
in them the Christian faith and traditions. This holy person was the
brother of the martyrs Valentin and Engracia, whom the Moors put to
death. This the hardened infidels did, the chroniclers assure us, in
spite of miracles which might have converted Mohammed himself; for the
Segovian saints cleft mountains asunder with the stroke of a knife, and
produced fountains from the solid rock with the touch of a wand; while a
mare, to whom the Eucharist had been offered as food, dropped on her
knees in adoration. It is clear that in after years the Christians of
Segovia enjoyed the liberty of worship that the Muslims of Spain
everywhere conceded to their subjects; for we hear of a bishop, Ildered,
governing his flock here in the year 940. In the following century it
was included within the dominions of the Amir of Toledo, and on the
downfall of that monarchy was annexed to the growing kingdom of Castile.
Like Salamanca and Avila, Segovia was repeopled at the instance of Count
Raymond of Burgundy, chiefly by Gallegos from the north-west. It
received its first charter from Alfonso VI. in 1108. Thereafter its
citizens were always to be found in the fighting line. Tradition avers
that Madrid was recovered from the Moors by the Segovians; and their
chiefs on that glorious occasion were Dia Sanz and Fernán Garcia, whose
descendants for many years after divided the government of the city
between them. But the chronicles register a very black stain on the
city’s fame: the assassination by the townsfolk of Alvar Fañez, the
illustrious brother-in-arms of Alfonso VI., at Easter, 1114. Four years
later, the Segovians took the side of Alfonso VII. against his mother,
Queen Urraca, and were rewarded by the reconstitution of their town into
a bishopric.
The history of Segovia differs little from that of other Castilian
towns. Its citizens shared the glories and the hardships of the
ceaseless campaigns against the Moors, and did not hold aloof from the
equally numerous civil wars that distracted the kingdom. In 1295 they
refused submission to the young king, Fernando IV., and his mother,
Maria de Molina. The brave queen forced her way into the town, and found
the gates shut behind her. Undismayed, she harangued the stubborn
townsmen. ‘Open your gates,’ she cried, ‘and I will go with my son to
more grateful and obedient towns; where vassals are less easily deceived
by intriguers, and where mother and son are not separated!’ The people
were moved by her reproaches, and, admitting the king, escorted both in
triumph to the Alcazar.
The minority of Alfonso XI. (1320) was attended by sanguinary disorders
in the streets of Segovia. Every church and house became a fortress, and
the rival factions stormed and laid siege to each other’s strongholds
within the narrow compass of the city walls. In 1368 the nobility held
the Alcazar for Enrique of Trastamara, whilst the commons held the town
for Pedro the Cruel; but the Gracious King, after the death of his
half-brother at Montiel, visited Segovia and won all hearts. A hundred
years later the town was distinguished by its loyalty to the wretched
Enrique IV., who here betrayed his own daughter, Juana, by a
reconciliation with his sister, Isabel. Not content with this, he
appeared in the streets, leading by the bridle the palfrey of the woman
who denied his own child’s legitimacy.
The townsfolk, at the beginning of the reign of Charles V., threw in
their lot with the Comuneros; but the Alcazar throughout the rising was
held by the royal forces. The King-Emperor and his successor, like
their predecessors, frequently sojourned in the old palace-fortress.
Later on, it was often used as a state prison. The famous Ripperdá, the
Dutch adventurer, passed a portion of his captivity here; and the
Marquis of Ayamonte was confined here prior to his execution in 1648.
The establishment of the court permanently at Madrid, and the building
of La Granja by Philip V. in 1721, diminished the importance of Segovia
as a royal residence. In few countries have the larger provincial towns
loomed more conspicuously in the past than in Spain, and in few are they
nowadays more decayed and bloodless. Segovia remains, as Antonio
Gallenga described it, ‘an unmatched picture of the Middle Ages. You
read its history on the old city walls with their eighty-three towers;
in the domes and belfries of its churches; in the bare and blank ruins
of its deserted monasteries; in the battlemented towers of its noble
mansions.’
The town stands high and bravely on the mountains, its flanks washed by
two clear streams, Eresma and Clamores. The towers and domes rise
sharply against the clear sky, high above the surrounding hills; an
island of the air Segovia seems as you catch sight of her from the
dusty plains of Old Castile. Even as clouds in their fantastic
formations take the semblance of far-away cities, so at certain hours
from afar off you might take this to be just such a cloud-town. And when
you draw nearer you find the valleys are cool and green, and that the
tall trees flourish here and do not wither as in the plains round Burgos
and Valladolid.
* * * * *
Coming from La Granja, the first you see of Segovia’s wonders is
fittingly by far the oldest. The aqueduct dates, it is believed, from
Trajan’s reign, and is the most considerable of the Roman remains of
Spain. In the Middle Ages, like most other classical works, it was
attributed to diabolical agency, and is still often called El Puente del
Diablo. Beginning at the Fuente Fria in the Sierra Guadarrama, ten miles
away, with many zigzags it passes over hill and dale, and at last spans
the deep valley before the city, and is carried across the streets to
the Alcazar. It is built of granite with black veins, hewn in great
blocks, which are pieced together without mortar or clamps. Every block
is visible on one side or another. For the distance of nine hundred
yards the aqueduct is carried on one hundred and nineteen arches,
varying in height from twenty-three to ninety-four feet. For a third of
this length the arches are in two tiers. The work is devoid of
ornamentation, except for the remains of a cornice. All is not Roman
work. The aqueduct was partially demolished in the eleventh century
during a siege by the Moors, and when Queen Isabel the Catholic
determined to restore it, thirty-six arches between the convents of La
Concepcion and San Francisco had fallen in. The restoration of these was
intrusted, on the recommendation of the Prior of El Parral, to a young
monk of that house, named Fray Juan Escovedo, who performed his
difficult task with remarkable skill. Indeed, it is not easy to
distinguish the Spaniard’s work from the Roman’s. Escovedo died in 1489.
The only reward he received for his labours was the timber of the
scaffoldings.
Some of the arches have been for centuries embedded in the city walls.
The work, though severe and imposing, is not perhaps equal to the Pont
de Gard, or even to certain other Roman remains in Spain. Yet nothing
could be more curious, or, in a sense, more picturesque, than the views
of the quaint old houses framed by its arches, or grander than these as
seen from San Juan, or towering above the Plaza Mayor. Their height is,
of course, magnified by the hovels clustering at their bases, in
comparison with which the aqueduct appears rather the work of Cyclopes
than of men. And through these arches, as through a gate of triumph, we
pass into the mediæval city.
Yet this is not the only monument of classical antiquity in Segovia. The
rude figure of Hercules about to slay the Erymanthine Boar was
discovered in the interior of the tower of Santo Domingo el Real, which
became the property of the Dominican nuns in 1513. The demigod, to whom
the foundation of so many Spanish cities has been ascribed, was no doubt
worshipped here.
* * * * *
This ancient town of warlike people is surrounded by high walls, reared
by the settlers of Count Raymond in the eleventh century, though the
Alcazar, the ‘Casa de Segovia’ (adjoining the fine old Puerta de San
Juan), and the ‘Tower of Hercules’ just mentioned, all forming part of
the enceinte, may have been in the first instance of Roman origin. The
wall is strengthened by bastions and towers of various shapes--square,
round, and polygonal--some with brick archings and ornamental courses
of brick and plaster. The wall and towers preserve their battlements.
The ‘allure,’ or rampart walk, is in parts so narrow as hardly to permit
of safe walking. Among the most picturesque gates is that of San Andrés.
It lies between two towers, one square, the other larger and polygonal,
and crowning the very edge of the declivity; from one to the other runs
a gallery, supported by a semicircular arch. This gate was restored by
Ferdinand and Isabel, and at one time afforded ingress to the Jewry of
Segovia. The masonry of the adjoining wall resembles that of the
aqueduct close by, and may possibly be a fragment of the Roman
fortifications.
Segovia, we are often reminded, looks like a ship in full sail towards
the west; and the Alcazar is at the prow. Whether or not it occupies the
site of a Saracen or Roman work, there can be no doubt that the present
structure was founded by the conqueror of Toledo, Alfonso VI., at the
end of the eleventh century, and was remodelled and enlarged by Juan II.
in the fifteenth. Much of it is now entirely modern, the interior of the
fabric having been completely restored after the fire of 1862. For all
that, this citadel of Segovia remains a fine typical castle of Castile,
the castle-land. The massive Torre de Juan Segundo forms the east part
of the building. Its four sides are furnished with the bartizans
characteristic of Spanish castles, which spring out of the wall at about
half its height, and rise considerably above the battlements. Between
them runs a machicolation carried on corbels. The windows in this
magnificent tower are sheltered by quaint stone canopies; and the whole
façade is covered with plaster, on which Gothic tracery has been stamped
with a mould as at the Alhambra. The interior is vaulted, and has three
floors.
Around the inner court were disposed the royal apartments, which indeed
still exist, though the fire and consequent restoration have shorn them
of most of their beauties. Don J. M. Quadrado, who saw them before the
catastrophe, declares they were of magical splendour. A curious story is
associated with the Sala del Cordon. In 1258 the learned king, Alfonso
X., discoursing at the Alcazar as was his wont with a party of sages,
remarked, like Lafontaine’s Garo, that if the Creator had consulted him
he would have turned out a better world; others have it that he declared
his belief that the earth revolved round the sun, and not the sun round
the earth. Whatever he said, he was rebuked for his profanity by Brother
Antonio, a Franciscan. But the king hardened his heart. That very night,
as he lay in bed, a thunderbolt came crashing through the ceiling, and
sent him quaking and beseeching absolution to the feet of the friar. In
memory of this event he decorated the walls of this apartment with the
cord or girdle of St. Francis, which perhaps as a member of the lay
‘Third Order’ he was entitled to wear.
Passing through the handsome Sala del Trono, we reach the Sala de los
Reyes, adorned before the conflagration with an ancient and valuable
series of effigies of the early kings of Leon and Castile. From one of
the windows Pedro, a son of Enrique II., fell out of the arms of his
nurse, and was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. The woman, rather
than face the king’s anger, threw herself after her charge and met the
same fate.
The part of rock at the western extremity of town and citadel is
defended by the strong Torre de Homenage, which was held for Isabel the
Catholic by Andrés de Cabrera in 1476 when the rest of the fortress had
been seized by the partisans of Juana. In 1507, on the contrary, it
offered a vigorous resistance to the same Cabrera, to whom, however,
the garrison surrendered on May 15. The tower is surmounted and
strengthened by seven turrets. The irregular disposition of these
_cubos_ and _torreones_ (round towers and bartizans) round the four
sides of a keep is a peculiarity of Spanish military architecture. Here
they used to be crowned with peaked roofs of slate, probably like those
that lend such a bizarre appearance to the palace at Cintra. This
feature, like the plaster-work on the façade, shows distinct Moorish
influence, and encourages the belief that the castle was modelled on
that of the Muslim lords of Toledo.
We have seen how important was the part played in the history of the
kingdom by this grand old citadel. I must not forget to mention that Le
Sage places here the scene of the confinement of Gil Blas before his
marriage; but as is well known, the author of the most famous of
picaresque romances never set foot south of the Pyrenees.
* * * * *
The space to the east of the Alcazar was formerly occupied by the old
cathedral, built in the twelfth century, and totally destroyed by the
Comuneros in 1520. It was determined to erect the new cathedral on a
more convenient site, and on the 8th June 1522 the Bishop, going in
procession, laid the foundation-stone of the existing building on the
west side of the Plaza Mayor. The plans were drawn by Juan Gil de
Hontañon, and are very similar to those of the new cathedral at
Salamanca, of which Hontañon was architect, though he is said to have
used another’s designs. Street thinks (and few will disagree with him)
that this is the finer cathedral of the two, chiefly because its eastern
end is semicircular and not square. It is one of the very latest Gothic
cathedrals, and is on the whole a beautiful building in fine warm-hued
stone. The plan is that of an oblong, rounded at the eastern end; or, to
be more precise, it includes a nave with aisles, into which on both
sides open chapels placed between flying buttresses, and a chevet with
seven polygonal chapels. The choir occupies the customary position in
the middle of the nave. A cupola, 220 feet high, rises over the
crossing. The length of the church is given as 330 feet, the breadth as
158 feet, the nave being 44 feet across, the aisles 30 feet.
The west front is divided by buttresses into five compartments,
corresponding to the nave, aisles, and rows of chapels, both in width
and in elevation. The three entrances are enclosed within pointed
arches. The ornamentation is restrained and pure. At the southern corner
the front is flanked by a square tower 345 feet high and 35 feet in
area, with six rows of windows enclosed within arcades and all blinded
except those of the belfry. The angles of the platform are adorned with
pinnacles, and the tower is surmounted by an octagonal clock-story.
Higher than the Giralda of Seville and broader than the Tower at Toledo,
this structure is a matter of legitimate pride to the Segovians.
The rest of the exterior closely resembles that of Salamanca--‘the same
concealment of the roofs and roof-lines everywhere,’ laments Street. The
outside of the chevet exhibits an excess of ornamental work; it is, in
fact, a forest of pinnacles. On the south side the façade is partly
hidden by the cloister and sacristies.
The interior is bright and altogether pleasing. The columns are massive
and gracefully moulded, and the arches lofty. The nave and aisles are
lighted by windows filled with beautifully-coloured glass. There is no
triforium, but instead a balustrade in the flamboyant style in front of
the clerestory of the nave.
The lantern or cupola over the crossing, and the gorgeous reredos behind
the High Altar, are quite out of keeping with the general aspect of the
church. The chancel is enclosed by three very fine iron screens, quite
Plateresque in character, though executed in 1733. The majority of the
stalls in the choir were designed for the old cathedral, half a century
at least before its destruction. The organ on the Epistle side, now
enclosed in an eighteenth-century case, also came from the old church,
and was the gift of Enrique III. The rich marble retablo at the west end
of the choir was given by Carlos III., and enshrines in a silver
reliquary the ashes of the local martyrs, Fruto and his brethren.
The chapels are not specially interesting. Those in the chevet are
exactly alike, and furnished like those in the aisles, for the most
part, with seventeenth-century retablos. In one (Nuestra Señora del
Rosario) is buried Doña Maria Quintana, who ended a dissipated life in
the odour of sanctity on August 16, 1734. Her epitaph runs: ‘Hic vespere
et mane et meridie laudes Deo reddidit, et vitandi crimina zelo preces
et lacrymas Juges effudit; hic quam intra chorum psallere secum
prohibuit, extra chorum fructuose psallere Spiritus docuit; hic tertio
ab obitu die nondum rigida membra, à juncturis suis jamdiu separata
quiescunt ossa. An forsan post mortem etiam prophetabunt?’ The chapel
of St. Hierotio was dedicated to that saint by Bishop Escalzo under the
false impression that he was the founder of the see. The Capilla de la
Piedad (fifth in the left aisle) is remarkable for a fine Descent from
the Cross, a retablo with colossal and expressionful figures, painted by
Juan de Juni in 1571. In the same chapel is a painting by Alonso Sánchez
Coello, the Apparition of Christ to St. Thomas, spoilt by injudicious
re-touching.
On the south side of the cathedral is the cloister, which belonged to
the old church, and was reconstructed here in beautiful flamboyant style
by Juan Campero in 1524. It is entered by a fine Gothic doorway, in the
Consuelo chapel (wherein is the noble tomb of Bishop de Covarrubias). On
the cross-vaulting of the cloister may be seen the arms of Bishop Arias
Dávila. We notice the monuments of three of the architects--Rodrigo Gil
de Hontañon (died 1577), and his successors, Campo Agüero and Viadero.
In the chapel of Santa Catalina at the foot of the West Tower are
contained the remains of little Prince Pedro, with his painted and
gilded effigy. The superb monstrance preserved in this chapel was
designed in 1656 by Rafael González. At the northern aisle of the
cloister may be read this inscription: ‘Aquí está sepultada la devota
Mari Saltos con quién Dios obré este milagro en la Fonzisla. Fizo su
vida en la otra iglesia, acabó sus dias como Católica Cristiana, Año de
1237.’ (Here is buried the devout Maria Saltos, with whom God performed
a miracle at Foncisla. She passed her life in the other church, and
finished her days as a Catholic Christian in the year 1237.) ‘The other
church’ was of the Hebrew persuasion, to which Maria belonged. Accused
of adultery, and condemned to die by the elders of her community--which
was a self-governing body in Spain within certain limits--she was cast
from the Peña Grajera, the Tarpeian Rock of Segovia. At the supreme
moment she was heard to invoke the Virgin of the Christians, and reached
the ground unharmed. She was baptized, and died, as the epitaph
testifies, a devout Catholic. The incident may be ranked with the
remarkable, if not miraculous, escape of the Catholic secretaries at
Prague, known as the Fensterstürz.
The chapter-house, adjacent to the Western Tower, is a very splendid
apartment, paved with marble, upholstered with crimson velvet, and
containing some good engravings, mostly Flemish. An elegant staircase
leads to the library above.
* * * * *
At the back of the cathedral is the Plaza Mayor, one of the most
picturesque squares in Spain. The Ayuntamiento with its Doric columns
looks strangely out of place, surrounded as it is by old houses with
projecting upper stories and wooden loggias of a Gothic, almost German
character. The church of San Miguel may be attributed to Hontañon or one
of his assistants. It replaces an earlier structure, in the porch of
which the town council used to meet. In the north transept is an
interesting triptych, where St. Michael is represented weighing souls.
Hard by, at the corner of the Calle Ancha and Calle de los Huertos, is
the old mansion of the Arias Dávila family, with a tall square turreted
tower, adorned in its lower stages with diapered plaster. Near the
church of San Martin are another fine tower belonging to the Marquis de
Lozoya, and the house (now a book-shop) of Juan Bravo, one of the three
leaders of the Comuneros.
The church of San Martin is approached by a flight of steps, and
encircled on three sides by a cloister or portico, which was used in the
twelfth century, at all events, as a burial-ground. The west porch is
bold and original, with statuary in the jambs of the doorway, and
capitals carved with birds in couples. The church was originally
apsidal, but has been frequently restored. The Bravos and Rios, two
prominent families of Segovia, are buried here; and the tomb of Gonzalo
de Herrera and his wife in alabaster is in a chapel on the left-hand
side. The church is surmounted by a modern cupola over the crossing, and
by an ancient tower placed, oddly enough, over the middle of the nave.
Near the Puerta de San Martin is the Casa de los Picos, which was
acquired and rebuilt in the fourteenth century by the family of Hoz. It
seems once to have been known as the Jews’ House, till in the sixteenth
century its façade was rebuilt with the extraordinary facetted stones
from which it derives its present name. While in this neighbourhood, the
few poor remains of the palace of Enrique III. should be inquired for.
Where the Calle Real opens into the Plaza Mayor is situated one of the
most interesting churches in Segovia. Corpus Christi Church was till the
year 1410 a Jewish synagogue. In that year a rabbi obtained from the
sacristan of San Facundo a consecrated Host as a security, it is said,
for a loan. The street where this impious transaction took place is
still known as Mal Consejo. The Jews attempted to profane the Sacred
Wafer in their synagogue, but were scared by awful portents, and
confessed their crime. Their place of worship was forfeited, apparently
at the suggestion of St. Vincent Ferrer, and consecrated as a Catholic
church. It bears a strong likeness to Santa Maria la Blanca at Toledo.
The nave and aisles are separated by horseshoe arches springing from
fir-cone capitals, above which runs a series of blind windows. The
ceiling is of wood. The transept and dome have been added since the
adaptation to the purposes of Christian worship. The sacristan will
point out the crack in the wall which occurred at the moment of the
attempted sacrilege.
Santa Trinidad, on the north side of the Plaza Mayor, is a Romanesque
church of the San Martin type. It is adjoined like the latter by a
portico, also used once as a place of sepulture. The apse is lit by
three windows, below which are others now only to be seen from the
interior. A lane leads from this church to San Nicolás, close to the
walls. Here the two apses are each lit by a single window, and over the
smaller of the two is raised a low tower with two round-arched belfry
windows. The secularised church of San Facundo exhibits similar
characteristics. It contains a not very valuable museum.
Segovia is a Paradise for the ecclesiologist, but so many of the
churches differ only in the smallest particulars from the San Martin and
San Millán type that a description of each would be tedious. An
exception must be made as regards San Esteban, opposite the Episcopal
Palace, famous for its Romanesque tower, the finest work of the kind in
Spain. The base of the tower is as high as the nave; the remaining five
stages are adorned on each side with graceful arcaded windows. The
angles are splayed off, and up the middle runs a shaft. The tower is
surmounted by a pinnacle, evidently a later addition, and in very bad
style. The external cloister of San Esteban is the most beautiful in the
town.
In the disused church of San Juan de los Caballeros are buried the
founders of the two great houses of Segovia, Fernán Garcia and Dia Sanz,
averred by tradition to have been the conquerors of Madrid.
The finest specimen of these early Romanesque churches is to be seen
outside the south wall. San Millán is said to have been founded by the
Counts of Castile in the tenth century, but the present fabric dates
from the twelfth. The church consists of a nave, aisles, and external
cloisters on each side, all ending in eastern apses. There is a low,
square lantern over the crossing, and a modern square tower at the east
end of the north cloister. The west front is very simple and pierced
with a round-arched door and four windows. The arches of the cloister
spring from finely sculptured capitals on double shafts. Street calls
attention to a local peculiarity in the design of the north and south
doors. ‘Their jambs consist of shafts set within very bold, square
recesses; and the number of orders in the arch is double that of those
in the jamb, they being alternately carried on the capitals of the
shafts, and upon the square order of the jambs. The effect is good....’
The interior is well preserved, but daubed all over with whitewash and
plaster. The church is barrel-vaulted, but may once have had a flat
timber roof. The capitals of the massive columns are carved with very
large and striking figures of men and animals. The corbels are adorned
with masks and caprices, very skilfully chiselled.
* * * * *
Two other exceedingly interesting churches are also outside the city
wall, in the valley of the Eresma. Descending by a very steep path from
the Alcazar to the junction of the two streams, and passing an arch in
the baroque style, we reach Fuencisla--the bubbling rock, from which
water filters. Here a cypress marks the spot where Maria del Salto
alighted uninjured from the crag above. The neighbouring church, built
in 1613, contains the shrine of the wonder-working Virgin of the
Fuencisla. It possesses a fine reredos and iron pulpit. In the convent
of the Discalced Carmelites are preserved the head and body of the
famous St. John of the Cross, the spiritual guide of St. Teresa, and one
of the world’s greatest mystics. You may also see the pictured Christ
which, it is alleged, spoke to the saint, bidding him ask a favour; John
asked, as a devout Spaniard of that time might have been expected to do,
for more suffering and humiliation. The cave in which he retired to pray
may also be visited.
Proceeding up the valley of the Eresma, we notice the old Casa de
Moneda, or Mint, built in 1586, which down to 1730 coined all the money
of Spain. Above it lies the curious little church of Vera Cruz, built in
1204 by the Knights Templars, more or less on the model of the church
of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. It would be difficult to convey a
clearer idea of the peculiar conformation of this structure than by
Street’s description: ‘The nave is dodecagonal, and has a small central
chamber enclosed with solid walls, round which the vaulted nave forms a
kind of aisle. This central chamber is of two stories in height, the
lower entered by archways in the cardinal sides, and the upper by a
double flight of steps leading to a door in its western side. The upper
room is vaulted with a domical roof which has below it four ribs, two
parallel north and south, and two parallel east and west, and it retains
the original stone altar arcaded on its sides with a delicately wrought
chevron enrichment and chevroned shafts. The upper chapel is lighted by
seven little windows opening into the aisle around it. A slab indicates
the position of the supposed sepulchre. The room below the chapel has
also a dome, with ribs on its under side. On the east side of the
building are the chancel and two chapels, forming parallel apses, to the
south of which is a low steeple, the bottom stage of which is also
converted into a chapel. The chapel in the centre of the nave is carried
up and finished externally with a pointed roof, whilst the aisle is
roofed with a lean-to abutting against its walls. There are pilasters at
the angles outside, small windows high up in the walls, and a fine
round-arched doorway on the western side.’ The sepulchre is placed on
the upper story, as at Jerusalem, where the hill of Calvary has been
included within the church. Note the red crosses recalling the original
owners, and the fast disappearing paintings on the retablo in the
chancel. The portion of the True Cross formerly preserved here was
removed to Zamarramala in 1663, when the old Templars’ Church was
abandoned so far as religious rites were concerned.
Not far off, in a desolate spot once described as a terrestrial
paradise, stands the church of El Parral, the chapel of a suppressed
monastery of the Hermits of St. Jerome. It was founded in 1447 by the
famous Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, on the ground where he had
defeated three antagonists in a protracted duel. The architects were
Juan Gallego and the brothers Guas of Toledo. The plan of the church is
unusual. The transept is very broad from east to west, and projects but
little beyond the nave. The chancel is shallow, and its lateral walls
run slant-wise to the eastern angles of the transept. Most churches of
the Order of St. Jerome, according to a Spanish writer, were built this
way. The effect is good. The nave is practically covered by a western
gallery, and has but few windows; whereas the transept and chancel are
flooded with light through six tall lancet windows with statues of the
Twelve Apostles in their jambs. The contrast of light and shadow is very
striking and beautiful. The choir or western gallery is carried on
graceful arches and is handsomely panelled. Over the north-western
chapel of the transept is the organ loft. The reredos behind the High
Altar, in five stages separated by columns, was painted in 1553 by Diego
de Urbina. The tombs of the founder and his wife lie on either side of
the chancel. Their kneeling effigies, though sadly damaged and defaced,
remain among the most beautiful examples of Spanish sculpture. Equally
deserving of praise is the tomb of the Marquis’s natural daughter, the
Countess de Medellin, in the south transept. The exterior of this church
is not remarkable. The west front is pierced by a good double door, and
‘adorned’ with two huge square coats-of-arms; it is flanked by a square
tower pierced by rounded windows in the belfry story.
Near to a cave where St. Dominic was accustomed to mortify the flesh,
the Catholic Sovereigns built the church and convent of Santa Cruz, on
the site of the first monastery of the order. The church has been truly
described as a debased copy of El Parral. The western doorway is
elaborate. Over the door, enclosed within a trefoil arch, is a
Deposition from the Cross, with Ferdinand and Isabel kneeling on either
side. Above, their escutcheons are displayed on either side of the
crucifix. The retablo by Herrera, with which Philip II. endowed the
church, was burnt in 1809, the fire irretrievably damaging the whole
interior. Santa Cruz has now been converted into a charitable asylum.
Following the line of the city wall, we pass the church of San
Lorenzo--a good example of the local style--once surrounded by thriving
looms, and re-enter the town by the Plaza del Azoguejo, a picturesque
space where the citizens love to forgather in the shadow of the mighty
aqueduct.
IV
ZAMORA
Zamora on the Duero is one of the most picturesque towns in Spain, and
one of the most celebrated in its annals. It is not well known to
foreigners, probably on account of it being so difficult of approach.
Few places bring back so vividly the stirring past of Castile.
The town stands above the Duero on a rocky ridge, the castle and
cathedral occupying the western extremity. The river is spanned by a
bridge of seventeen arches, defended near either end by a high
gate-tower. If the approach is quaint and mediæval, the view from this
point is even more so. Towards sundown, the spirit of the Middle Ages
seems to inform the town--all is sombre, fierce, strong, and venerable.
The country round seems little better than a desert. From the walls
above eyes seem to be scanning the horizon for the first gleam of
hostile lances. Zamora belongs to the days when towns, like men, always
wore armour. To-day she is broken and war-worn and old; but if her
sword is rusted and her shield broken, she may well boast it was in the
service of Spain.
As we jolt over the old bridge, above the weirs of the Duero, and climb
the steep street that leads into the town, we need no consultation of
the records to tell us that we are here in the old Castile of the
knightly days, that we shall find few memories of artists and poets, few
of statesmen and great rulers, but many of hard fighters and holy
priests. Zamora is constantly mentioned in the _Romancero_. We can
imagine that it was a town towards which Don Quixote would have been
drawn, but he only spoke of it as famous for bagpipes. Like Burgos and
Valladolid and Salamanca, it was the creation of the mediæval time, and
we hear first of it in the ninth century. Alfonso I., or his son Froila,
took the town from the Moors. Thereafter, for many years, it continued
to change hands. The Day of Zamora, famous in Spanish song and story
(July 9, 901), when nearly seventy thousand Moors were slain or
captured, assured the possession of the town to the Christians. In this
terrific engagement Bernardo del Carpio is supposed to have won his
spurs, though (if he ever existed, or the battle really took place) he
must have been a hundred years old at the time! Soon after this victory
the citizens clamoured for a spiritual shepherd, and a hermit named
Atilanus was given them as bishop. Certain episodes of his youth began
to trouble the prelate’s mind, and at the end of ten years he laid aside
the pastoral staff, and declared himself unworthy of his office. He went
on a pilgrimage, having thrown his episcopal ring into the Duero,
proclaiming that he would not return till it was restored to him as a
sign that God had pardoned him. All in the least familiar with folklore
will, of course, know what happened next. Like the ring of Polycrates,
like the ring in the arms of Glasgow, the bishop’s amulet was found in
the body of a fish served up to him at supper. The relief of the good
man at this unmistakable evidence of the Divine forgiveness, his return
to his See, and the rejoicings of the inhabitants may be inferred and
imagined. Atilanus was canonised by Urban II. in the eleventh century.
Of another tremendous victory said to have been won before the walls of
Zamora in 939 over the pertinacious Moors we need not speak further, for
it is more than probable that the fight never occurred here at all, but
at Simancas. There can, however, be no doubt that the place fell before
the irresistible Al Mansûr in 981, in spite of the brave resistance of
the commandant, Domingo Sarracino. The Moors repeopled the town, which
was governed by one Abu-l-Was el Tojibita. It was labour wasted so far
as they were concerned, for Zamora was soon, and finally, recovered by
the Spaniards. And now we come to the episode which has secured the town
so prominent a place in the annals and legendary lore of the country.
Fernando I., King of Leon and Castile, in response to the importunities
of his children, on his deathbed divided his dominions between them. To
his eldest daughter, Urraca, he gave Zamora, to her sister, Toro. The
disposition of his estates made, the dying king invoked the vengeance of
Heaven on whomsoever should disturb it; and all present, except his
eldest son Sancho, responded, Amen. It was not long before this prince
(now King of Leon and Castile) showed his dissatisfaction with what
Ford, with a touching faith in the sanctity of primogeniture, calls this
unjust division. Toro was soon surrendered by Doña Elvira, and, very
shortly after, the stout-hearted Urraca beheld from these walls the
hosts of Castile beleaguering her little principality. With Sancho’s
army was the Cid. With him, the chroniclers assure us, the Infanta was
in love. If so, these tender sentiments were not allowed to interfere
with the vigour of the attack and defence, which were both conducted
with ferocious determination. The siege had lasted seven months when a
personage called Bellido Dolfos, the son, delightfully enough, of Dolfos
Bellido, sought an audience of the king. He had fled from Zamora, he
said, to escape the vengeance of Urraca’s minister, Arias Gonzalo; and
he would show the king the secret postern in the walls by which he had
escaped, and by means of which the town could be taken. This audience
appears to have taken place very close to the walls, for we are told
that the citizens cried out to Sancho, adjuring him to have nothing to
do with Dolfos, who had committed four acts of treason already. These
well-meant hints, naturally enough, confirmed Sancho’s confidence in the
stranger. On the morning of the 7th October 1072 the two went forth to
reconnoitre the walls. Dolfos took advantage of the king in an unguarded
moment, and stabbed him in the back. He then promptly ran towards the
postern. The Cid, seeing him run, suspected something amiss, and
mounting Babieca gave chase; but alas! he had forgotten his spurs, and
the assassin made good his escape. Sancho was carried back to the camp,
and before he expired attributed his destruction to his father’s curse.
The siege was prosecuted with greater vigour than ever by his captains.
Don Diego Ordoñez denounced the citizens, without exception of persons,
as felon knaves. Arias Gonzalo and his four sons took it upon themselves
to vindicate the honour of the town in five successive duels with the
Castilian. Three of the Zamoran champions were slain by Ordoñez, but he
was jerked out of his saddle by his dead adversary’s wounded horse, and
the combat was declared by the judges to be at an end. The venerable
Arias Gonzalo thus preserved one of his sons, and Castile her champion.
The accession of Alfonso VI. to his murdered brother’s throne restored
peace to the distracted kingdom, and left the Infanta in enjoyment of
her little state.
Zamora is still encircled with massive walls, strengthened with numerous
round towers. The name of Urraca’s Palace is given to a house, old
enough to all seeming, close to one of the gates opening near the
northern end of the Paseo de Valorio; this gateway is flanked by two
bastions, and above it may be seen the bust of Princess Urraca, with
the inscription much defaced--
‘Afuera, afuera Rodrigo
El soberbio castellano!
Acordórsete debiera
De aquel buen tiempo pasado,’ etc.
These verses from the _Romancero_ are supposed to have been addressed by
the Princess to the Cid, and allude, presumably, to the love-passages
between them. The postern through which Dolfos escaped may be seen in
the wall farther towards the west. The site of the Cid’s house is also
pointed out. The tiny hermitage of Santiago in the Vega marks the spot
of the assassination, and a battered cross on a pillar some distance
outside the town commemorates Sancho’s exclamation that he would never
be king till he was lord of Zamora.
The castle from which perhaps Urraca and Arias Gonzalo looked across at
Sancho’s camp is at the western extremity of the town. During the civil
wars that disturbed the reign of Alfonso el Sabio, it was held for the
king by Doña Teresa Gomez, wife of Garci Perez Chirino. Her youngest
child was captured by the rebels, and to save his life she surrendered
the fortress. At the time of the disputed succession following the
demise of Enrique IV., the castle was held by the Portuguese in the
interests of Juana ‘la Beltraneja,’ who held her court here for a brief
season. The garrison resisted many determined assaults, and capitulated
on honourable terms only after the battle of Toro, February 1476. In
after years, and especially during the Peninsular War, the stronghold
was adapted to the requirements of modern warfare, and has lost, in
consequence, much of its mediæval character.
Hard by is the cathedral, far away from the centre of the town. When the
See was restored by Alfonso VI., Gerónimo, the Cid’s confessor, was
appointed to it; but he was soon translated to Salamanca (or else Zamora
was carved out of that See), and was succeeded by another Frenchman,
Bernard, a namesake and countryman of Bernard, Archbishop of Toledo.
These foreigners introduced the Romanesque style, of which Zamora must,
in its primitive state, have been a noble example. The building was
completed in 1174. To that period belongs the grand square tower at the
west end of the north aisle--the most conspicuous landmark of the
vicinity--with its three upper stories pierced on each side with one,
two, and three windows respectively. The tower was designed for defence
as well as ornament. Over the crossing rises a dome of beautiful
construction, very Oriental in character, with turrets surmounted by
smaller cupolas and pierced with rounded windows at its angles. Seen
from within, this dome is of the ‘half-orange’ type, the ribbing of the
vault giving it very much the appearance of the sections of the fruit.
In the sharp fringe of ornament at the angles, Street saw the very
earliest kind of suggestion of a crocket, and was of opinion that ‘we
have in England no monument of the middle ages which is one whit more
precious.’
The cathedral has no west front, and its exterior is, it must be
confessed, a veritable patchwork of different styles. The Puerta del
Obispo, facing the Episcopal Palace, in the south transept probably
dates from the twelfth century. The main entrance is through a
four-ordered arch with three shafts in each jamb. The capitals are
roughly moulded and have abaci. Over the lateral doorways (now closed
up) are rudely-carved reliefs, with dragons and floral devices
introduced into the decoration. The two odd-looking rosette-like
ornaments above seem to be models of the interior of the dome. Above the
three doors runs a gallery of five recessed arches, and over this again
a blocked-up window.
The northern entrance, surmounted by a modern clock-tower, is,
incongruously enough, in the classical style, with a rounded arch. The
interior of this interesting little cathedral is impressive. We are at
once struck with the width of the piers (seven feet across) as compared
with that of the nave, which is only twenty-three feet. The arches here
are in the Pointed style. The aisles are lower than the nave, and
supported by broad massive buttresses. There being no western portal,
that end of the church is occupied by chapels, which give a very
singular effect to the building.
The High Altar and chancel are in the Gothic style, and owe their
construction to the absentee bishop Diego Meléndez Valdés, who ruled the
See between 1496 and 1506. His arms, five fleurs-de-lys, may be seen on
the railings. The retablo, with its jasper columns and gilded capitals,
is modern. The subject is the Transfiguration. In the precinct of the
High Altar is buried Count Ponce de Cabrera, one of the Emperor
Alfonso’s most distinguished lieutenants. The Altar is in the late
Gothic style, and must have been erected three centuries after the
Count’s death. There are good wrought-iron pulpits on each side of the
chancel.
The choir was also the work of Bishop Valdés. It occupies the bays west
of the crossing as usual in Spanish churches, but the bad effect of that
position is here greatly relieved by the piercing of the western screen
or _trascoro_ with two elliptical doorways, between which is a painting
representing Christ surrounded by the Blessed. The fittings of the choir
are very interesting, and of the same age as the screens. The backs of
the lower range of stalls are carved with low reliefs of thirty-eight
personages of the Old Dispensation, from Abel to Nebuchadnezzar,
Caiaphas, and the Centurion. In their hands are scrolls containing
texts, very cleverly chosen, of which a list is given in Neal’s
_Ecclesiologist_, and reprinted in Street’s _Gothic Architecture in
Spain_. The execution is rude, but expressive and painstaking. The upper
stalls are adorned with full-length reliefs of saints, confessors, and
martyrs of the New Dispensation, which are more delicately designed and
finished. Above runs a canopy, sculptured with animal forms. The
enormous metal lectern and the Bishop’s Throne, with its tapering spire,
are fine examples of Gothic work.
The chapels are not of special interest. That on the middle of the
western wall is dedicated to San Ildefonso, but is more generally known
as the Capilla del Cardenal, after its founder, Don Juan de Mella, who
died in 1467. This prelate’s brother, Alonso de Mella, was the founder
of a sect which seems to have resembled the Anabaptists of Westphalia;
he was expelled from Castile, and took refuge at Granada, where he was
put to death by the Moors. The retablo, by Gallegos, is in six
divisions, the subjects being: San Ildefonso receiving at Toledo the
chasuble from the hands of the Blessed Virgin, the Discovery of the
Relics of St. Leocadia, the Veneration of the Relics, and (above) the
Crucifixion, the Baptism of Christ, and the death of John the Baptist.
This chapel contains the tombs of the Romero family. In the adjoining
sacristy are some interesting battle-scenes from Old Testament history.
The chapel of San Juan Evangelista was built with funds bequeathed by
Canon Juan de Grado (1507), whose fine alabaster tomb is surmounted by
his recumbent effigy, accompanied by a priest and an angel. Above the
canopy is an exquisitely chiselled composition representing the
Crucifixion, with expressive statues of the Apostles Peter and Paul;
within is a curious but admirable genealogy of the Blessed Virgin, at
the base of which is the recumbent figure of an old man, wearing a
crown, and representing possibly one of the early patriarchs. The
Capilla de San Miguel is of less interest. It contains the
sixteenth-century tombs of the canons de Balbas. Of the side-chapels,
the most notable is that of San Bernardo, rebuilt in the sixteenth
century.
In the sacristy is preserved a remarkable silver monstrance, six feet
high, attributed by Ford to Enrique de Arfe. The stand is of later
construction, and dates from 1598. On the upper part the local saint,
Atilanus, may be seen, seated with the Saviour and the Virgin.
The original cloisters were burnt in 1591, and rebuilt in the present
Doric style in 1621 by Juan de Mora.
Under the town walls, close to the cathedral, is the little Romanesque
church of San Isidoro, noticeable for its extremely narrow windows, some
mere slits in the masonry.
We pass down the long lane-like street which leads into the town, and
which in the sixteenth century was the scene of desperate conflicts
between the Mazariegos and Monsalves, the Montagues and Capulets of
Zamora. The first church passed is that of San Pedro, rebuilt by Bishop
Meléndez Valdés, and containing the revered ashes of St. Ildefonso,
which were discovered here under miraculous circumstances in the year
1260. The relics of St. Atilanus are also preserved here. Nothing
remains of the primitive Romanesque structure, except a little apse on
the Epistle side, and a closed-up doorway in the left wall. The
originally-distinct nave and aisles were thrown into one at the
restoration, and form overhead one immense span. The sacristy contains
some interesting objects--sacred vessels and altarpieces of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Presently we reach the second most interesting church in the town, La
Magdalena, a small Romanesque work, said on rather doubtful authority to
have been built by the Templars about 1312. The southern doorway is very
large in comparison with the edifice. It is deeply recessed between
massive buttresses, and formed by a rounded arch with shafts curiously
moulded and twisted. Street speaks of this as a very grand example of
the latest and most ornate Romanesque work. The carving on the arches is
very rich. Above is a large rose window, resembling those in our own
Temple church. The interior of the church is architecturally but not
æsthetically more interesting than the exterior. The nave has a flat
wooden ceiling. The apse is groined, and the chancel has a waggon-vault.
The stone pulpit against the north wall is a notable piece of work, but
attention at once becomes riveted on the large canopied tombs at the
entrance to the chancel. Both are square-topped, with round arches and
capitals very purely and vigorously carved. They are generally asserted
to date from the thirteenth century, but an inscription over one
describes it as the sepulchre of one Acuña and his wife, who died in the
fifteenth century. ‘The effect of this monument,’ says Street, ‘filling
in as it does the angle at the end of the nave, is extremely good; its
rather large detail and general proportions giving it the effect of
being an integral part of the fabric rather than, as monuments usually
are, a subsequent addition.’
Another canopied tomb against the north wall undoubtedly dates from the
earlier period. The capitals of the three twisted shafts are carved with
the forms of wyverns fighting. The tomb is closed by a stone on which is
a large cross. The occupant--believed by some to have been a Templar--is
shown on his deathbed, while above him his soul--represented by a winged
head--is borne away by angels. This interesting work may be attributed
to a native sculptor acquainted with the art of France and Italy.
Santa Maria la Horta (or de la Huerta), near the river, was modelled,
like the Magdalena, on the cathedral. Apart from its architectural
peculiarities--the western tower, narrow windows, waggon-vaulting of the
chancel, etc.--it is of interest on account of the retablos and
paintings in its chapels. Here, as at the very similar church of San
Leonardo, the roofing of the nave is not flat but arched, which goes to
support Don J. M. Quadrado’s belief (opposed to Street’s) that the flat
roof of La Magdalena is an innovation.
The church of San Juan in the Plaza Mayor is in the Flamboyant style.
Its most curious feature is a Christ Crucified near the west door,
surrounded by human skulls built up in the form of a cross. Hard by is
the early Gothic church of San Vicente, with a noble square tower in
three stages, and a fine west front.
In a town like Zamora only two kinds of buildings were
esteemed--churches and fortresses. Time has spared few important civil
monuments. The only ancient house of note is that styled the Casa de
los Momos, of which I give an illustration. The heavy stones forming the
arch suggest a Castilian architect. The building dates from the
sixteenth century, as the enormous coat-of-arms over the entrance might
have prepared us to expect. The Ayuntamiento, or Town Hall, in itself
devoid of interest, contains some good paintings by Ramon Pedro y
Pedret, illustrating the history of the city. It will be seen that
Zamora, like almost every other Spanish town, is entitled ‘most noble
and loyal’ (_muy noble y leal_). It is a sombre, fascinating place,
where the past is more easily recoverable by the fancy than in many
cities more richly endowed with ancient monuments.
V
AVILA
Like Stratford-on-Avon, like Assisi, this sombre city in the mountains
of Castile is the shrine of a single pre-eminent personality. To the
Spaniard Avila is essentially the city of the great saint--of Santa
Teresa, the greatest, perhaps, of Spain’s many great women. And the fame
of the saint and, therefore, of the city, has spread far beyond the
limits of the country in which she was born, and indeed outside of the
church to which her every faculty was devoted. To those (and they are in
the large majority) who approach Avila as pilgrims, it may seem idle to
tell anything of its story unconnected with her. At Assisi you wish to
hear only of Francis, and who cares aught for the Stratford of an
earlier day than Shakespeare’s?
But Teresa was the product of Avila, and to the making of her character
all the experience and emotion of her ancestors had contributed. Those
who would rightly understand her must know something of the breed from
which she sprang.
The city is one of the forty-three said to have been founded by
Hercules. It is mentioned, indeed, by Ptolemy, but we know nothing of
its history previous to the reconquest of this part of Castile by
Alfonso VI. Avila, like Salamanca and Segovia, arose from the ashes of
the Moorish empire, and was repeopled and probably rebuilt by the Count
Raymond of Burgundy. To him we owe those venerable walls, stern yet
beautiful in their ruddy granite, that girdle the city round. But these
served, at a very early date, to keep out other than the infidels. The
annalists tell us that the knights of Avila, returning one day from a
foray, found that the Moors had ravaged the neighbouring country and
carried off a multitude of prisoners and much booty. Without hesitation
the enraged gentlemen gave chase, and though the enemy were in vastly
superior numbers, they overtook and routed them at Barbacedo, recovering
most of the spoil and a good deal of additional treasure. But, on their
return to Avila, the ungrateful commons closed the gates against them,
and refused admittance to the deliverers of their own wives and children
unless they were given a large share of the booty. The indignant
knights refused to surrender the guerdon of their swords, and entrenched
themselves in the suburbs. Peace was restored only on the intervention
of Count Raymond, who expelled the churlish townsmen and intrusted the
government of the city to the knights. During the whole of the twelfth
century the bitterest animosity continued to prevail between the
descendants of these antagonists.
Heroines are common in Spanish history. When the town was unexpectedly
besieged by the Almoravides in the absence of nearly the whole male
population, the women garrisoned the walls wearing the men’s helmets,
and compelled the enemy to withdraw. The leader of these Amazons was
Jimena Blásquez, wife of the governor, Fernán Lopez. Her female
descendants were privileged, in remembrance of this event, to speak and
to vote at the council board in the same way as men.
Jimena’s kinsman, Nalvillos, was as unfortunate in love as he was
fortunate in war. One day he saw Ayesha Galiana, the beautiful daughter
of the late Moorish king of Toledo. Desperately enamoured, he forgot his
own betrothal to Galinda Arias, and that the fair infidel had been
promised to her countryman, Jenina Yahya. With the favour of the king he
overcame all these obstacles, and made Ayesha his wife. But she could
forget neither her old faith nor her old love. Nalvillos’ deeds of
prowess failed to win her heart; and one day he returned to Avila from a
victorious expedition to find that the bird had flown. She had returned
to her first love, Yahya, who had raised the standard of revolt at
Talavera. The furious Castilian stormed the town, slew the Moor, and
penetrated to his faithless wife’s bower, only to find her expiring from
a self-inflicted wound. Nalvillos lived many years after, and fought and
won many battles. He rose to great distinction in the service of his
sovereign, but we never hear of his marrying again.
It was in this town, that styles itself _del rey_, _de los leales_, _de
los caballeros_, that the boy king Alfonso VIII. was placed by the
Regent, Don Manrique de Lara, to protect him from his uncle, Fernando of
Leon. But the class rancour of Avila was not unknown to Fernando, who
stirred up the people of the suburbs against the _serranos_, or
aristocratic townsfolk, promising them a share in his new town of Ciudad
Rodrigo. The knights were victorious, and do not seem to have conducted
themselves with great generosity towards the vanquished.
The inveterate hostility of the commons did not tend, as it might be
expected to have done, to unite the threatened ranks of the patricians.
These prosecuted bitter feuds among themselves, different families
striving desperately for the mastery. One faction, on being expelled
from the town, took refuge in a neighbouring castle, where they were
surprised and cut to pieces by the Moors.
The place was regarded, notwithstanding, as the safest asylum for the
boy-kings who so often appear in the pages of Castilian history. During
his minority, Alfonso XI. remained in the custody of the bishop till the
pretenders to the regency had adjusted their claims to his lordship’s
satisfaction. In the Civil War of 1367 Avila was on the right side--that
of Enrique II.--and suffered severely in consequence at the hands of the
Black Prince’s marauding hordes. Here at the Puerta del Alcazar took
place, at the instance of Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo, the mock
deposition and degradation of Enrique IV., represented by an effigy, and
the proclamation of his eleven-year-old son as king. Yet in 1474 the
fickle city displayed every sign of grief and remorse on the
unfortunate monarch’s death.
In the disputed succession that ensued Avila sided with Queen Isabel.
Possibly as an expression of royal gratitude, the convent of Santo Tomás
was chosen for the first seat of the Tribunal of the Inquisition; and in
1491 three Jews, professing the faith of their fathers to the last, were
roasted to death in the Mercado Grande.
Avila was the seat of the Supreme Junta of the Comunidad from July to
September 1520. The rebellious temper of her citizens found expression
in Philip II.’s reign in some anonymous placards, posted in the streets,
reflecting on the king’s policy. The royal vengeance was indiscriminate
and drastic. The Vicar of Santo Tomás was stripped of his sacerdotal
functions, Don Enrique Davila was imprisoned for life in the castle of
Turegano, and Don Diego Bracamonte perished on the scaffold. This king’s
successor inflicted the _coup de grâce_ on the luckless town by
expelling its large and industrious Morisco population. Avila never
recovered her prosperity. She remains an example of the wholly
destructive policy of the Spanish Hapsburgs. Not only was the country
ruined by the expulsion of the Jews and Moriscos, but these exiles were
not able to transplant their industry to some other clime. With their
expulsion so much productive and industrial power was absolutely lost to
the world. The wealth acquired by the Inquisition at the expense of its
victims, or rather what was left of it, ultimately found its way into
the State coffers on the establishment of the new order of things a
century ago.
Avila ‘of the Knights’ was, before all else, a fortress. When the walls
were built, churches and suburbs were left outside the enclosure, that
the military advantages of the height on which the old town stands might
not be lost. These walls of dark-red granite girdle Avila to-day,
unbroken, formidable, intact. They rise so high that they shut out from
view all that they enclose, except the towers of the cathedral. Near San
Vicente the masonry is fourteen feet thick, and forty-two feet in
height. Flanking defence is provided by eighty-six elliptical
towers--thirty on the north, twelve on the west, twenty-five on the
south, twenty-one on the east. These rise above the crenellated parapet
at places by eighteen feet. The ten gateways are formed by two towers
being brought together and connected with arches. The most impressive
gates are the Puertas del Mercado and de San Vicente, the former
admitting to the scanty remains of the old Alcazar, the latter facing
the church of San Vicente. In both cases the flanking towers are
connected at the level of their platforms by a high, arched and
crenellated gallery. The actual gateway is defended by a portcullis, and
the usual apertures for thrusting out lances, beams, etc. One of the
gates, now walled up, was known as the Puerta de la Mala Ventura, in
memory of a baseless tradition that it was the scene of the massacre by
Alfonso el Batallador of certain Avilese nobles who had been given him
as hostages for the little King Alfonso VII. of Castile. Nearly all the
gates open on to squares or places of arms. A leisurely walk round these
grand old walls is one of the most agreeable experiences of a journey in
Spain, and carries the mind back to the days when knighthood was in
flower. From their strength it is easy to see how the town could have
been held by a limited number of Caballeros against the commoners of the
suburb outside. There seems no reason to doubt that the walls were, as
tradition avers, built by Raymond of Burgundy in the last decade of the
eleventh century. Eight hundred men were employed upon them daily
during nine years, under the direction of a Roman, Cassandro, and a
Frenchman, Florin de Ponthieu.
* * * * *
Built into the city wall at its eastern end is the noble cathedral of
San Salvador, founded according to some by Fernán Gonzalez, Count of
Castile, and begun a second time in 1091 by Alvár Garcia of Estella in
Navarra. It is, perhaps, the finest example extant of the
fortress-church of the Middle Ages. The oldest part is the apse, which
makes a pronounced bastion or projection in the city wall. The external
walls probably date from Alvár Garcia’s time, but the rest of the church
must be from one to two centuries later.
The church consists of a nave, aisles, projecting transepts and a
chevet, which has semicircular chapels built into the town wall and
double aisle. The chevet is, architecturally, perhaps the most
interesting part of the structure. Nothing at all is to be seen without
of the chapels, over which is carried the ordinary rampart walk or
allure; behind this rises a second battlemented wall, from which we look
down on to the aisle roof of the chevet and clerestory of the central
apse. This end of the cathedral appears from the exterior simply as an
unusually massive round tower projecting from the wall. The west front
is flanked by two towers, only one of which--the northern--is completed.
This is a notable and fortresslike structure, recalling similar work in
England. The strongly-defined buttresses finish in pinnacles, and are
outlined at the angles with a ball enrichment, which is also to be seen
on the pointed arches over the belfry windows. The windows themselves
are round-arched, as are also those now filled up in a lower stage of
the tower. The entrance is comparatively modern. On either side is the
figure of a wild man with shield and mace--strange guardians of a
church! On the spandrils of the arch are the figures of Saints Peter and
Paul. The middle stage of this front is occupied by a curious
retablo-like composition. In the various compartments are the figures of
Christ and different saints, sheltered by ugly canopies; and surmounting
this work is an extravagant and tasteless acroterium, displaying the
arms of the Chapter. Behind and above this is the older and infinitely
more graceful west window within an elliptical arch, and with delicate
though elaborate traceries.
Very much finer is the north porch, admitting not to the transept but to
the nave. The elliptical arch has on each side six jambs, each of which
is adorned with the figure of an apostle resting on the capital of a
pilaster and sheltered beneath a canopy. The five orders of the arch are
sculptured with reliefs of angels and prophets, alternating with
wreaths. In the centre of the tympanum is the seated figure of Christ;
and around Him, arranged in four horizontal divisions, are compositions
representing the Betrayal and Last Supper, the Coronation of the Virgin,
and the Angelic Choir. Street recognises in this doorway the work of the
architect of the portals of the cathedrals of Leon and Burgos. Before it
are two lions couchant on pedestals, chained to the walls. The porch
dates from the fourteenth century. Above it is a canopy begun in 1566,
and intended to form a kind of triumphal arch. Crowning all is seen the
figure of the Redeemer.
The north transept is pierced by a fine wheel-window of sixteen
divisions. The windows of the clerestory are very large, and placed
between great double flying buttresses. Since 1772 the upper and lower
traceries have been blocked up, for a reason not apparent to the modern
observer. The windows of the transept escaped this treatment, and are
filled with good stained glass.
The nave is 130 feet long and 28 feet broad. The arches are supported
by piers of four pilasters, the capitals of which show Romanesque
influence. The aisles are only about half the height of the nave, and
are 24 feet wide. Their pitched roof formerly admitted light into the
nave through the triforium, now blocked up.
The outer walls of the chevet, as we have seen, are the most ancient
part of the fabric, but the seven chapels formed within the thickness of
the wall are of later date. The extraordinary beauty of this part of the
church is due to the division of the ambulatory into two by a series of
tall, slender columns carrying some excellent groining. The outer or
recessed aisle is narrower than the inner, an inequality corrected very
skilfully at the opening into the south transept by an imperceptible
deviation in the line of columns. Very little light penetrates through
the narrow slits in the chapel walls into this sombre, beautiful arcade.
Behind the reredos of the High Altar sleeps the learned bishop, Don
Alonso Fernández de Madrigal, surnamed el Tostado and el Abulense, who
died in 1455. The prelate, who was one of the most prolific writers that
ever lived, is shown in alabaster writing at a desk. The framework of
the tomb is adorned with reliefs of the Adoration of the Magi and
Shepherds, of the Divine and Cardinal Virtues, and of the Eternal
Father. This noble work has been variously ascribed to Berruguete and to
Domenico Fancelli, whose more famous performance we shall see in the
church of Santo Tomás.
In the chapel of Santa Ana is buried Don Sancho Davila, Bishop of
Plasencia, who died in 1625. Most of the tombs in the chapels of the
chevet belong, however, to the thirteenth century, though the dates on
most of them are merely conjectural, and were inscribed in the sixteenth
century by a prebendary of the cathedral.
The High Altar is backed by an elaborate retablo of the age of the
Catholic Kings. It is divided into three stages, and was painted by
Pedro Berruguete (father of the more famous Alonso), Santos Cruz, and
Juan de Borgoña (father of Felipe). To the two first-named may be
attributed the ten panels of the lowest stage, representing Saints Peter
and Paul, the Four Evangelists, and Four Doctors of the Church, and the
Transfiguration, Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, and
Presentation in the Temple, in the second stage. To Borgoña we may
ascribe the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging, Crucifixion, Descent
into Hell, and Resurrection, in the third stage. To the right and left
of the church are two beautiful Renaissance retablos in alabaster,
illustrating the lives of Saints Secundus and Catharine, and two
tasteful gilt iron pulpits. The light reaches the High Altar through two
rows of thirteen windows, the lower ‘round-arched, of two
horseshoe-headed lights divided by a shafted monial,’ and the upper
‘round-headed, broadish windows, with jamb-shafts and richly-chevroned
arches.’ The fine stained glass is the work of Albert of Holland
(1520-1525).
The choir was placed in the easternmost bay of the nave in 1531. The
_trascoro_ or back of the choir is adorned with reliefs of the Adoration
of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Presentation;
smaller panels represent other scenes from the history of Christ and the
Blessed Virgin. The frieze with its fourteen figures of prophets is the
finest part of the work. The choir stalls were begun in 1527 by Juan
Rodrigo, and completed by Cornelius of Holland in 1536. The carving is
of varying merit. The upper panels appear to portray the martyrdoms of
different saints, episodes in whose lives are shown on the panels below.
The ornamentation of the columns and friezes is profuse and delicately
done.
In the south transept is the fine tomb of Don Sancho Davila, Bishop of
Sigüenza, who died in 1534, and near him that of a namesake, whose
effigy is clad in armour. This knight died before the walls of Alhama in
a combat so furious that his scattered limbs had afterwards to be
collected and pieced together by his friends. A curious tomb is to be
seen near by: the figures of a knight in armour and an ecclesiastic
repose on black coffins, the sides of which are sculptured with
escutcheons upheld by woolly-haired savages; a monkey is seen pulling
the negroes’ hair. In the chapel of San Miguel, at the north-west end of
the nave, is an interesting tomb of the thirteenth century, representing
a funeral, whereat the anguish of the mourners contrasts strikingly with
the stoical indifference of the clergy.
The gorgeous chapel of San Segundo at the south-east of the apse,
outside the town wall, was founded in 1595 by Bishop Manrique, on the
model, it is said, of the Escorial. Magnificence, rather than good
taste, characterises this chapel and its furniture. Frescoes by
Francisco Llamas illustrate the life of the saint, whose ashes are
contained in a Churrigueresque tabernacle. On the opposite side of the
apse, but within the wall, is another excrescence, the Velada chapel,
completed in the eighteenth century.
The sacristy is an ornate Renaissance structure, richly gilded and
painted. The alabaster retablo over the altar of St. Barnabas is the
work of a genius whose name unfortunately has not been handed down. The
chamber also contains some curious fifteenth-century paintings relating
to the life of St. Peter. Here may be seen the superb monstrance of Juan
de Arfe, dated 1574, and therefore among his earliest works.
The cloister on the south side of the cathedral was built in the early
sixteenth century on the site of an earlier one. There was an attempt
made at the same time to restore, more or less at haphazard, all the
tombs and epitaphs left from earlier times. At the angles are chapels,
one of which, the Piedad, contains some good stained glass and
iron-work. East of the cloister is the spacious apartment called the
Cardinal’s Chapel, after Cardinal Davila y Mujica, whose tomb it
contains. Here met the Junta of the Comuneros. The fine stained glass in
the windows shows the skill of Juan de Santillana and Juan de
Valdevieso, two famous glass-workers of Burgos.
In some respects more interesting than the cathedral, and probably more
ancient, taken as a whole, is the Romanesque church of San Vicente,
outside the walls, near the Segovia gate. It marks the site of the
martyrdom of Vicente and his sisters, Sabina and Cristeta, who had taken
refuge here to escape the persecution of Dacian, at the beginning of the
fourth century. Their religion having been discovered, they were again
apprehended, and put to death by their skulls being battered against the
rocks. Their bodies were left unburied, but a great serpent came out of
a hole near by and protected them from insult. A Jew approached the
spot, led by spiteful curiosity, and was seized by the monster, which
wound its coils about him. The terrified Hebrew invoked the name of
Christ and was released. He was baptized, and secretly gave the martyrs
honourable burial, subsequently raising a church over the scene of their
martyrdom. So runs the tradition. These dissenters from the state
religion of the Roman Empire are remembered and revered to this day, and
magnificent fanes are rightly raised over their graves. Their ashes are
preserved in reliquaries more costly than royal thrones, and kings kneel
before their shrines. But no monuments are erected, no reverence paid
to the equally high-minded and courageous dissenters from the state
religion of the Spanish monarchy, who perished in the flames kindled by
the Inquisition. The very city which delighted to honour Vicente and his
sisters, and recorded its detestation of the lawful authority that put
them to death, was the seat of the dreadful tribunal of Torquemada and
the scene of cruelties worse than any perpetrated by the Romans.
The basilica raised by the converted Jew was swept away by the Moors,
and the relics of the martyrs seem to have been transported elsewhere.
They were recovered, at least in part, at the time of the resettlement
of the city, and the present church was built by St. Ferdinand in 1252
to contain them; though parts of the fabric certainly seem, despite the
absence of documentary evidence, to date from a century earlier. The
church is built on sloping ground, the difficulties of the site being
admirably overcome. The plan is cruciform, the nave and aisles
terminating in apses. The crossing is surmounted by a square lantern,
and the western front flanked by steeples. An open cloister runs along
the outside of the south aisle.
The western front is very beautiful. The southern tower or steeple wants
a third or upper story, which was added to the north tower only in the
fifteenth century. The second stories are arcaded, and splayed at their
angles. On the third gable-like story of the north steeple are hung the
bells, one of which bears the date 1158. These towers open only into the
westernmost bay of the nave, which forms the porch of the church,
opening on the outside with a high-pointed arch, and into the interior
through a superb double doorway. Street speaks of this porch as follows:
‘The whole effect is fine, and the light and shade admirable and well
contrasted; but the charm of the whole work seemed to me to lie very
much in the contrast between the noble simplicity and solid massiveness
of the architecture generally, and the marvellous beauty and delicacy of
the enrichments of the western doorway, which is certainly one of the
very finest transitional works I have ever seen.’ The shaft dividing the
doors is sculptured with a figure of Christ seated on a pedestal.
Statues of the twelve Apostles occupy the jambs. Over each door a round
arch springs from luxuriantly carved capitals, flanked by the heads of
bulls and lions. The tympana are occupied with representations of Dives
and Lazarus, and the Release of a Blessed Spirit. The round arch which
encloses the whole portal exhibits a marvellous profusion of delicate
and rich ornamentation. A Spanish writer truly observes that the foliage
looks as if the faintest breeze would stir it; the beasts seem ready to
spring, and the birds as if, with the least effort, they might
disentangle themselves and fly from the branches. Over the arch is a
parapet and string-course, and a round-arched window opening into the
nave.
The church is usually entered by the south door opening into the aisle
beside the transept. The seven orders of the archivolt are almost devoid
of ornament, but the capitals are carved with curious figures of wild
beasts fighting. The monogram of Christ on the keystone of the innermost
arch is rare in Castilian churches, and the rude sculptured figures on
the capitals are very primitive and unsymmetrical. On one of the jambs
the Virgin and the Angel Gabriel are sculptured; on another a curious
mitred personage representing, it is believed, one of the ancestors of
the Messiah.
This porch is older by two centuries than the cloister running along the
south side of the church. It is in twelve semicircular arches, with a
buttress between every three. Made of purple granite, it contrasts
strikingly with the sandstone of the main edifice.
The north front is very plain and severe. The massive buttresses excited
the enthusiasm of Street. The north door is of corresponding simplicity.
Beside it, as at the side of the south door, are a couple of tombs,
which seem to prove that the space round the church was at one time used
as a burial-ground.
The eastern end is the most interesting part of the building. The
central apse is larger and loftier than the adjoining apses. All three
are divided perpendicularly by slender engaged shafts, terminating in
capitals under the eaves; and horizontally by carved or moulded
string-courses. The central apse has three round-headed windows; the
lateral apses, two each. The capitals and corbels are everywhere very
finely carved. There are few better examples of Romanesque work in the
Peninsula. The square lantern is pierced on each side with a three-light
window of Gothic design. At its angles it is surmounted by stone
crosses.
The interior is impressive and thoroughly Romanesque. The piers are
square, and rest on round bases. The capitals are carved with oak
leaves. The arches are semicircular, and the vaulting pointed. Between
two string-courses runs a triforium of round-arched openings, the
windows of the clerestory being likewise rounded and of one light. The
windows of the aisles have been closed up. The church is undergoing
extensive repairs. The piers of the lantern seem to be of later date
than the foundation of the church, and seem to indicate that the
original lantern had at one time fallen in. The interior is octagonal,
and pierced with four lancet stained-glass windows. On the chancel side
is a fine fourteenth-century painting of the Crucifixion, with the
Virgin and Disciples.
The interior of the central apse is occupied by the High Altar, with an
ugly baroque retablo which unfortunately conceals the graceful windows.
The shrine of San Vicente and his brethren is placed on the south side
of the crossing. In the ages of faith this was an object of
extraordinary sanctity. Men were sworn on the tomb, and it was
universally believed that the arms of those who bore false witness
thereon withered away. The practice was forbidden by law under Ferdinand
and Isabel. Notwithstanding, grave doubts existed as to the actual
whereabouts of the martyrs’ bodies. To set the matter at rest, the
Bishop Martin de Vilches, in the reign of Enrique III., decided on a
thorough examination of the tomb. Having celebrated Mass, he caused the
sarcophagus to be opened. Dense vapour immediately issued forth, and the
bishop thrust in his hand, to withdraw it a second later, convulsed with
a violent pain, and covered with blood. He proceeded no further with the
investigation, and ordered the tomb to be closed, satisfied that it
contained the holy relics. The imprint of his blood-stained hand was
left on a tablet placed inside the arches on which the sarcophagus
rests. This appears to date from the thirteenth century, and is carved
with interesting reliefs. The baldachino covering it is carried on four
bold columns, and was added by Bishop de Vilches, whose arms it bears.
The figure at the apex appears to represent San Vicente.
In the south transept is a tablet with an inscription declaring that
there lie the remains of the Jew who gave the martyrs decent burial.
Close by is the shrine, executed by Francisco de Mora, of San Pedro del
Barco, a saint of absolutely unknown antecedents, and mentioned as far
back as 1302.
The crypt has been modernised. On it may be seen the rock on which the
tutelary saints suffered martyrdom, and a miraculous image, called
Nuestra Señora de la Sotteraña, which is obviously far from possessing
the antiquity its devotees claim for it.
* * * * *
Characteristics very similar to San Vicente are exhibited by the church
of San Pedro in the picturesque Mercado Grande. Dating from the latter
part of the twelfth century, we find here also the apsidal east end, the
square lantern, and the entrances at the west end and beside the
transepts. The western porch is very fine, and above it is a very
beautiful wheel-window. The north doorway is more richly sculptured, and
is later than the rest of the fabric. There are a few points of
difference between this church and that previously described. There is
no triforium, and the clerestory windows are of a single light, and much
larger than those of the nave. As at San Vicente, the apsidal chapels
have been spoilt by injudicious painting. In the transept are the tombs
of the rival families of Blasco Jimeno and Esteban Domingo,
distinguished by shields of six and thirteen bezants respectively. The
church is in every respect a noble edifice, but loses interest after you
have visited the almost identical basilica of San Vicente. Nor will
your attention be long engaged by the modern monument to the illustrious
natives of Avila in the centre of the market-place, crowned by the
statue of Santa Teresa. Here took place in 1491 the _auto da fé_ of the
Jew, Benito Garcia, found guilty of murdering a Christian child, and
stealing a consecrated Host for the purpose of sacrilegious rites. It
should be added that no particular child could be put forward by the
prosecution as having been murdered, and the suppositious victim went
down to posterity simply as the Niño de la Guardia--la Guardia being the
village where the crime was supposed to have taken place. The body was
conveniently assumed to have been taken up to heaven. Its disappearance
did not benefit the luckless Hebrews, two of whom, before the execution
of Garcia, were torn to pieces by red-hot pincers.
* * * * *
The town proper having always been regarded as an acropolis, the greater
number of churches are situated outside the walls. Several of these,
like those already described, are of considerable interest. The doughty
Nalvillos is said to lie beneath the flags of the church of Santiago.
San Andrés is an interesting Romanesque structure, spoilt, however, by
the addition of an incongruous sacristy. To the north-west of the town,
near the river (Adaja), is the curious little sanctuary of San Segundo,
with a wooden roof, and rather suggestive of Norman architecture. It
marks the spot whereon fell an unfortunate Saracen, who was pushed over
the turret above by the sainted Secundus. Some of the ashes of that
muscular Christian are preserved here, beneath the fine alabaster statue
which represents him kneeling with an open book before him. The
sanctuary is believed to occupy the site of the earliest Christian
church of Avila. The actual edifice is not nearly so old as the ruined
and abandoned church of San Isidore, now fast crumbling away.
* * * * *
One of the most important monuments of the city is the church of the
Dominican monastery of Santo Tomás (now used as a missionary college).
It was founded in 1478 by Doña Maria Davila, wife of a Viceroy of
Sicily, and completed in 1493. Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor,
interested the Catholic sovereigns in the work, and the cost was met by
the confiscated property of Jews and heretics. The cloisters and
conventual buildings are devoid of interest. The west front is in a poor
late Gothic style, and distinguished by richness rather than beauty.
The two massive flanking buttresses are outlined with a ball ornament,
and end in eaves, corbel tables, and paltry pinnacles. Beneath the gable
is a huge escutcheon, and beneath this again a round window. The doorway
is within a deep porch; the archivolt is pointed and elaborately fluted
and carved; on either side of the doorway are statues of saints of the
Dominican order beneath canopies. The interior is more interesting. The
chancel is almost square, the transept short; and, curious to relate,
not only is the choir placed in a gallery in the western nave, but the
altar is correspondingly elevated at the eastern end. Street thought the
effect of this arrangement very fine, an opinion which all are not
likely to share. The reredos is tastefully carved and painted. The choir
stalls are good, as usual in Spain, particularly the royal chairs, which
have splendid canopies, and bear the device of the yoke and sheaf of
arrows.
Interest here, however, centres mainly in the superb Renaissance
monument to the Infante Juan, eldest son of Ferdinand and Isabel, who
died at Salamanca in 1497, aged nineteen. Ferdinand, to soften the blow,
caused his wife to be informed that he and not the prince had perished;
and such, in Isabel’s temperament, was the excess of conjugal over
maternal affection, that her relief when the real state of things was
revealed to her enabled her to bear the loss of her son with comparative
composure. The tomb was the work of Domenico Alessandro the Florentine,
specimens of whose skill we have seen in the cathedral. At the corners
of the sarcophagus are eagles; the sides are covered with reliefs of the
Virgin and the Baptist, and of the Cardinal and Theological Virtues. On
the edge of the upper slab are carved escutcheons, angels, trophies, and
garlands. The recumbent effigy of the prince, crowned, and with sword
and mantle, is marvellously well done. The sculptor has expressed
adolescence in stone. This rightly ranks among the finest works of art
in Spain. Hardly inferior is the tomb of Juan Davila and his wife, Joana
Velazquez de la Torre, the prince’s attendants, also by the Florentine.
Don Juan is shown clad in somewhat fantastic armour; a page kneeling at
his feet holds his helmet. Sphynxes are placed at the corners of the
sarcophagus, the sides of which bear medallions representing St. James
destroying infidels, and St. John the Divine in a cauldron of boiling
oil.
In the sacristy is a tomb more impressive than either of these, but in
a very different sense. A plain slab covers the body of Tomás de
Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of Spain. He lies here in the temple reared
on the fortunes of the men and women he had plundered and burned. There
is no inscription to tell us who rests here; but Torquemada is as little
likely to be forgotten as Attila or Nero. Few things in Avila create a
deeper, sadder impression than the tomb of this strange, sinister
priest.
* * * * *
His was one phase of the religious temperament, not perhaps more
difficult of comprehension to us modern northerners than Teresa’s. We
execrate the one and revere the other, and understand neither. Still, we
know enough to see that the Inquisitor and the Nun stand respectively
for what is worst and best in the Spanish character. And, happily, the
woman’s fame has far outshone the man’s.
We may assume that no one who visits Avila is ignorant of the leading
events in her career, or needs to be told what manner of woman she was.
What we have to do is to follow her footsteps through her native city.
The house in which she was born on March 28, 1515, has been converted
into an ugly church (Nuestra Seráfica Madre Santa Teresa de Jesus). The
exterior is in the baroque style. The room in which she first saw the
light is now a chapel in the worst taste, and contains her rosary,
sandals, and even one of her fingers. It was from this house that she
stole away with her brother Lorenzo, determined to seek martyrdom at the
hands of the Moors. Here she indulged in those ‘worldly conversations’
and that light reading which to her carefully polished conscience in
after years appeared fraught with such dire peril. Here her vocation was
born; and to this house she returned from the cloister in after years to
watch by the deathbed of her father, Alonso de Cepeda.
It was in the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation, north of the city,
that Teresa took the veil on All Souls’ Day 1533. Nothing remains of the
structure as it was in her day. More interesting is the convent of ‘Las
Madres,’ which occupies the site of the first foundation of the reformed
order. The poor chapel of St. Joseph gave way in 1608 to the present
handsome church designed by Francisco de Mora, who spared the tomb and
chapel of Teresa’s brother, Lorenzo. Other fine monuments are those of
Bishop Alvaro de Mendoza, and of Francisco Velazquez and his wife. In
the garden of the convent is shown an apple-tree planted by the saint.
Her body does not rest here, but at Alba de Tormes, where she expired on
October 15, 1582.
You may also visit, for her sake, the church of San Juan in the Mercado
Chico, where she was baptized on April 7, 1515.
Attached to the Dominican convent is the sumptuous chapel of Mosén Rubio
de Bracamonte, which was founded by Doña Maria de Herrera in 1516. The
architecture represents the transition from late Gothic to Renaissance.
The interior is richly adorned with marbles, the semicircular windows
with stained glass. The tomb of the patron (Mosén Rubio, lord of Fuente
del Sol) and his wife is in keeping with the splendour of the edifice,
which is further enriched by two ancient paintings of Saints Jerome and
Anthony of Padua. The reredos dates from the early seventeenth century.
The dark granite of which the houses of Avila are built gives them a
spurious air of antiquity. Very few date from before the age of Charles
V. Near the cathedral is the mansion of the Marquis de Velada, whose
ancestor, Gomez Velada, entertained the Emperor here in 1534. Opposite
is an interesting doorway, with the figure of an armed knight,
surrounded by escutcheons and enclosed within a trefoil arch. A
magnificent doorway, likewise sculptured with armed figures and overhung
by a kind of bartizan, leads into the fine courtyard of the palace of
the Condes de Polentinos. An interesting house is that of the Davilas of
Villafranca. The escutcheon with thirteen bezants between two chained
slaves, supported by mounted heralds, was won by the family in an
expedition to Ronda. At the side is a picturesque window with a grating,
above which is the inscription _Petrus Davila et Maria Cordubensis uxor
MDXLI._, and beneath, in Spanish, ‘Where one door shuts another opens.’
The houses of the Bracamontes and of the Counts of Superunda deserve
notice.
VI
ZARAGOZA
While certain cities may lay claim to having been at one time or another
the capital of the united kingdom of Leon and Castile, and while, in
fact, two often held the rank at the same time, Zaragoza, from its
reconquest by the Christians to the unification of the Spanish monarchy,
was the undisputed capital of the kingdom of Aragon. We must not expect
on that account to find that it was any more amenable to the royal
authority, or any less turbulent than the cities of the sister state. On
the contrary, nowhere in the Peninsula was liberty more highly prized or
more strenuously vindicated, than in the chief city of Aragon. And it
holds what out of Spain, at any rate, will be considered the honourable
distinction of having offered the most determined resistance to the
establishment of the Inquisition. Many cities in the dominions of His
Catholic Majesty are entitled to style themselves ‘most heroic.’ None
assuredly deserve the description better than this, the Numantia of
modern Spain.
An Iberian town seems to have existed here from the remotest times, and
to have been known as Salduba. On its annexation by the Romans, it was
rechristened Caesaraugusta, and under that name is referred to by
Pompeius Mela as the most famous of the inland cities of Tarraconensis.
Christianity took root here at an early date. Bishops of Caesaraugusta
are mentioned by St. Cyprian, and the local martyrology includes the
names of Saints Valerus, Vincent, and Engracia. When, in the year 542,
Zaragoza was besieged by the Franks under Childebert, the exposition of
the relics of these martyrs is said to have sufficed to propitiate the
enemy and to preserve the town from destruction.
In the year 713 the city opened its gates to Muza, the Moorish invader,
without, as Don Francisco Codera believes, striking a blow. The Crescent
reigned over Zaragoza for four centuries. During that time there were
many changes of rulers. The blood of martyrs again watered the soil
under the cruel Wali, Othman Aben Nasr, though generally throughout the
period of Muslim domination the Christians enjoyed the same freedom as
their co-religionists, under the same yoke, in other parts of Spain.
Their principal church having been converted into a mosque, San Pablo
was, during this period, their place of worship.
In the year 778 occurred the famous expedition of Charlemagne, around
which an almost impenetrable veil of poetry and legend was woven through
the Middle Ages. Hoseya al Arabi having been superseded in the
government of the city by order of the Khalifa, Abd-ur-Rahman, appealed
for assistance to the great Emperor of the West, who, for motives which
remain obscure, entered Spain with a considerable force. On reaching
Zaragoza, he found that Al Arabi had already regained possession of the
city; and either on that account, or because his late ally refused to
open the gates, he retraced his steps towards the north. In the pass of
Roncesvalles his rearguard was attacked and cut up by the
mountaineers--a reverse which has been immortalised as the occasion of
the death of the Paladin Roland, and commemorated in the legendary lore
of nearly every European tongue.
At the latter end of the ninth century Zaragoza (or Sarakusta, as it was
called by the Moors), shook off the yoke of the Khalifas, and under the
sway of the renowned Hafsûn became for a short time an independent
state. More lasting was the monarchy set up at the close of the eleventh
century, on the break-up of the Spanish Khalifate, by the vigorous
Almundhir Ben Hud, whose power extended from Lerida to Guadalajara, from
the mountains of Biscay to the Mediterranean. His son and successor,
Suleyman, made the mistake of dividing his dominions among his four
sons, Sarakusta being assigned to the eldest, Ahmed Almuktader. But,
united or disunited, the Moors of north-eastern Spain were incapable of
offering an effective resistance to the ever-growing power of the
Christian kingdom of Aragon. In the spring of 1118, Alfonso el
Batallador appeared before the walls of Zaragoza with a formidable host.
The city held out till the garrison witnessed the total defeat of an
army sent to their relief by the Almoravides. All hope being then gone,
the gates were opened on December 18, 1118, and Zaragoza became the
capital of the kingdom of Aragon.
As such, it was endowed with a very liberal charter--the _fuero_, of
which we read so often in Aragonese history. The defence of these
liberties was intrusted to twenty magistrates, who were invested with
authority to deal in the most summary and drastic fashion with
evildoers, whatever might be their station. Nor did they hesitate, in
after years, to raze the castles of any barons who threatened the peace
of the city. Domestic affairs were regulated by twelve jurates,
representing the twelve parishes. Pedro II. amplified these privileges,
and decreed that the municipality should not be responsible for its acts
even to the sovereign.
The history of Zaragoza during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries is full of instances of civil strife, of faction fights, and
of struggles with the royal authority. The citizens refused to recognise
Alfonso III. as king till he had been crowned within their walls. They
paid dearly for their arrogance under Pedro IV., who hanged thirty of
their number at the Toledo gate, and burnt the articles of the Union--a
pact extorted from one of his predecessors--in a public assembly.
Under Fernando I. the city’s privileges were further curtailed. But as
licence and disorder showed no signs of abating, a kind of vigilance
committee was formed in 1454, headed by Jimeno Gordo. This worthy put
down all disturbances with iron hand, and waged war on the neighbouring
barons. His career was cut short in 1474 by Ferdinand the Catholic, who
caused him to be publicly executed. All the disorderly elements of the
city rejoiced at his death.
The introduction of the Inquisition met with much opposition in several
Spanish towns, but nowhere more than at Zaragoza. Deputations were sent
from the states of Aragon to wait on the king at Valladolid, to urge
upon him the withdrawal of the obnoxious tribunal, without avail. Such
contemptuous indifference to the laws and wishes of the people of Aragon
roused the Zaragozans to a dangerous pitch of exasperation. About
midnight, September 14, 1485, a party of six men entered the cathedral,
and found the Inquisitor, Pedro de Arbues of Epila, in prayer before the
altar. They at once transfixed him with their swords and knives, but
only a few of the blows struck home, thanks to the shirt of mail which
the victim, like most of the Inquisitors, wore beneath his cassock. The
deed, of course, only riveted the chains of the Holy Office more firmly
upon the Aragonese.
Most of the assassins were captured, and perished in the flames. De
Arbues was canonised in 1664. There can be no question that the
Inquisition was established contrary to the laws of the country, and
that the man met his death through presuming to discharge unlawful
functions. He died for having broken the law, his executioners for
having vindicated it.
The persistent encroachments of the Crown upon their constitutional
rights during the next century met with strenuous resistance from the
people of Aragon. The long-impending storm burst in 1590. Antonio Pérez,
having incurred the anger of Philip II., fled to Zaragoza, and invoked
the protection of the states. According to the _fueros_, he was then
confined in the prison of the Manifestacion pending his trial. But the
Holy Office impudently removed him from the custody of the law, and
threw him into their prison of the Aljaferia. A popular tumult followed.
Pérez was released and taken back to his first prison. The Viceroy, the
Marqués de Almenara, died of chagrin, it is said, at the insults he had
received from the crowd. Four months later a fresh riot broke out, and
enabled Pérez to make good his escape to France.
Philip now sent an army of 14,000 men into Aragon to re-establish his
authority on the ruins of the constitution. The Justiciary, Juan de
Lanuza, summoned the people to defend their country. But the Castilians
dispersed this hastily collected force at the first encounter, and
entered Zaragoza unopposed on December 12. Juan de Lanuza and many
other persons of note were judicially murdered; the leaders of the
aristocracy were imprisoned, and the city sacked from end to end.
Never again did Zaragoza raise its head in defiance of the King of
Spain. The _fueros_ continued nominally in force till 1707, when they
were formally abrogated by Philip V. in revenge perhaps for the defeat
sustained before the walls at the hands of Stanhope and Stahremberg. But
the spirit of the people was far from being crushed. They might bow
before their own king, but they would not bend the knee to a foreigner.
Zaragoza’s defence in 1808 is one of the most glorious episodes in the
history of the nation. When the revolution broke out at Madrid on May 2,
the citizens expelled the Governor, Guillelmi, and elected as leader Don
Jose Palafox, a young noble of great personal courage and charm. He was
assisted by a priest named Santiago Sas, his secretary Boggiero, who is
said to have penned all his proclamations, and by three peasant leaders,
‘Tio’ Jorge, ‘Tio’ Marin, and Mariano Cerezo. All their equipment for
war consisted at the outset of 220 men, a few muskets, and sixteen guns;
yet when Lefebvre Desnouettes arrived before the place on June 15, he
met with so stubborn a resistance that he was compelled to proceed
cautiously. He reduced the city indeed to a heap of ruins, but he had
not taken it when Dupont’s surrender at Bailen obliged him, on August
15, to raise the siege.
The French reappeared in December 1808, to the number of 18,000 men,
under the command of Marshals Lannes, Moncey, Mortier, and Junot. The
city was attacked on two sides at once, but more especially from the
Jesuit convent on the left bank of the Ebro, which the Spaniards had
neglected to secure. What followed may be read in the pages of Napier.
The besiegers breached the wall near the convent of Santa Engracia, and
the combat was continued day after day in the streets of the town. Every
house was held as a fortress, every few yards of street was defended by
a barricade. In answer to the summons to surrender rang Palafox’s
defiant ‘War to the knife and to the last ditch!’ The women in many
cases fought beside the men. When Maria Agustin saw her sweetheart fall
at his post, she took the linstock from his hand and fired the gun
herself. The fame of this ‘Maid of Saragossa’ has penetrated every
land. For twenty-one days the fighting continued in the streets.
Finally, on February 21, 1809, the defenders capitulated on honourable
terms. The town was a smoking heap of ruins and of dead. Zaragoza had
shown an astonished world that the spirit of Saguntum and Numantia yet
lived in Spaniards. And, we doubt not, it still lives.
The city soon arose from the ashes. It rapidly recovered its prosperity,
which took a fresh impetus on the opening of the four railways, east,
west, north, and south. Here you see both the Old and the New Spain--the
one with its heroic, glorious memories, the other with its promise of
things as great and happier.
THE CITY
Zaragoza stands on the right bank of the Ebro in an oasis in the desert
of Aragon. Nothing could be more attractive than the immediate environs,
or more desolate than the country a few miles farther out. Such a
situation was familiar to the Berber conquerors, who made themselves at
home here and left their mark on the architecture of the city long after
the last ‘Tagarin’ Moor had been expelled. Not, of course, that Zaragoza
is to be compared as regards Musulman architecture with Seville,
Cordova, Granada, and Toledo; but the Moor has left behind him
unmistakable evidences of his presence, and an interesting monument
called the Aljaferia, which endures, though oft and oft restored, to
this day.
The name seems to be derived from Jaffir, a not uncommon name among the
Moors, and borne perhaps by one of the Beni Hud dynasty, for whom the
building served as a palace. At the conquest in 1118 it was allotted by
Alfonso the Battler to the Benedictine order. In the fourteenth century
it again became the residence of royalty, and doubtless was entirely
transformed and repaired. It was the scene of great splendour at the
coronation of King Martin, and of several of his successors. To-day it
presents a sad and dilapidated appearance. The imposing staircase,
decorated with fine stucco work, is the creation of the Catholic
sovereigns, who seem to have had some idea of reconstituting the past
glories of the palace in true Moorish style. The ceilings of some of the
chambers are in the artesonado style--the work of fifteenth-century
artificers. The most beautiful is to be seen in the Salon de la Alcoba,
where was born in 1271 the sainted Princess Isabel, afterwards Queen of
Portugal, and persistently confounded by English writers with St.
Elizabeth of Hungary. Everywhere among the decorations appear the
devices and mottoes of Ferdinand and Isabel.
Genuine Moorish work is to be seen in a little octagonal chamber opening
off the patio. Of the eight arches, two are in horseshoe shape, and the
others formed by irregular and capricious curves. The columns are almost
hidden in the walls. The ceiling is modern, and unfortunately cuts off
the view of the elegant _ajimeces_ and arabesques of the upper stage.
The ornamentation recalls that of the Alhambra. This chamber--said by
some, on no particular authority, to have been a mosque--was the seat of
the Inquisition down to 1706. The guide points out a cell called La
Torreta, in which--according to Verdi’s opera _Il Trovatore_--Manrico
was confined. The opera is founded on a legend of Zaragoza, and the
libretto was written by Garcia Gutierrez, a native of the city.
Some may enjoy the beautiful view of the Pyrenees obtained from the
Aljaferia more than the building itself.
* * * * *
Probably only a few fragments of this old palace are older than the
Cathedral of La Seo. This is the name commonly given in Aragon to the
cathedral church, and comes, of course, from the Latin _sedes_, like our
own word ‘See.’ Zaragoza became the metropolitan city of Aragon in 1318,
and the archiepiscopal dignity was reserved as far as possible to the
illegitimate sons of the kings. The city has now two cathedrals, which
are used for alternating periods of six months. The Seo is the older of
these, and occupies the site of the Moorish mosque--some say, even of an
earlier Christian temple dating from Roman times. The church was, at all
events, entirely rebuilt between 1188 and 1432, several Moorish names
being mentioned among the architects. It can hardly be said to have been
completed till the year 1550. Here were crowned the Kings of Aragon, and
here, as we have related, was slain the Inquisitor, Pedro de Arbues.
The west front was completed as late as 1685 by Julian Garza and Juan
Bautista Contini. It is in the classical style of that period, and is in
two stages separated by a broad entablature. The lower stage is adorned
with massive Corinthian columns, and pierced with three doorways; the
upper story is decorated with three statues of Christ and the Apostles
Peter and Paul, by Giral, placed in niches; above is a pediment
finished with an ugly finial. This front is flanked by an octagonal
tower of four stages, each smaller than the lower one, and is therefore
not inaptly compared by Ford to a telescope. This structure is in the
same style and reveals the same want of taste as the adjoining façade.
The third stage contains the belfry. The whole is surmounted by a
weather-vane and steeple, perched on a Moorish-looking dome. The statues
of the Apostles on the belfry are by Acali. There is no other façade
worthy of notice; but the Puerta de la Pavostria is in the better and
earlier classic style of the sixteenth century. It derives its name from
a functionary known as the Pavorde, who here distributed alms.
Street, who did not consider this cathedral in general interesting, has
much to say about a portion of brickwork at the north-east angle, inlaid
with small tiles in diapers, red, blue, green, white, and buff on white.
The eminent architect sees in this an interesting specimen of Moorish
work, and praises the grave quiet of the whole decoration (_Gothic
Architecture in Spain_, xvii. 372).
The church is of unusual breadth, there being two aisles and a row of
chapels on each side of the nave. ‘The nave and aisles,’ says the
authority we have just quoted, ‘are all roofed at the same level, the
vaulting springing from the capitals of the main columns, and the whole
of the light is admitted by windows in the end walls, and high up in the
outer walls of the aisles. In this respect Spanish churches of late date
almost always exhibit an attention to the requirements of the climate,
which is scarcely ever seen in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries;
and this church owes almost all its good effect to this circumstance,
for it is in light and shade only, and neither in general detail nor in
design that it is a success.’
The vaultings are adorned with gilded pendants and bosses, very much in
the Moorish style. The light red marble pavement, with rays diverging
from the yellow marble bases of the columns, appears to have been
intended to suggest a reflection of the roof with its ogive vaultings
above. The decoration is tasteful and not elaborate. The capitals are
sculptured with _putti_ upholding escutcheons with animals and foliage.
Over the chancel is the lantern, octagonal in plan, which replaced an
earlier one in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. The work was
undertaken by Enrique de Egas, only at the express command of the king.
The lower part is adorned with statues in niches, and with the canting
arms (the half-moon) of the family of Archbishop de Luna.
The reredos of the High Altar is of alabaster and in the Gothic style.
It was executed at the order of (and not by, as we have seen erroneously
stated) Archbishop Dalmacio de Mur (1430-1456). The seven compartments
are filled with compositions representing the martyrdom of St. Lawrence,
the burial of St. Vincent, and episodes in the history of St. Valerus;
with statues of the two latter saints, angels, and New Testament scenes.
In all, the expressions and the draperies are exquisitely rendered. Don
J. M. Quadrado is of opinion that this superb work was executed by Pedro
Johán of Cataluña, Ans, Gombao, Caspar, and Gil Morlán successively.
Before the High Altar the coronation took place, and the king, robed
like a deacon, prostrated himself before the primate. On the gospel side
is the wooden coffin which contains the ashes of Maria, daughter of
_Jaime lo Conqueridor_, who died in 1267. At her side is the noble
marble tomb of Archbishop Don Juan de Aragon, brother of Ferdinand the
Catholic, with statues of the Mater Dolorosa, attended by Saints
Jerome, Martin, and Francis. Here are also the tombs of Archbishop Don
Alonso, natural son of Ferdinand the Catholic, and of his natural son,
also Archbishop, Don Fernando. The first-named did not take orders till
after the birth of his son and successor, and only celebrated one mass,
deeming himself unworthy of the sacerdotal functions. Beneath a tablet
is deposited the heart of the Infante Baltasar Carlos, eldest son of
Philip IV., carried off by smallpox at the age of seventeen. His
portrait is familiar to students of Velazquez.
The choir occupies two of the five bays west of the crossing. It is in
the Gothic style, and closed by a modern railing. In the centre is the
tomb of Archbishop de Mede, from whose time the choir dates. The stalls
are of Flemish oak. The fine lectern dates from 1413. The _trascoro_, or
back of the choir, is a gorgeous plateresque affair in marble and
stucco, the work of Tudelilla of Tarazona, who flourished about 1538.
His are the statues of the martyrs Vincent and Laurence, the four
reliefs illustrating their martyrdom, and that of San Valero, and the
groups of cherubim. The tabernacle is in a not untasteful baroque style,
and has side columns of black marble and a good crucifix. This figure
of Christ is said to have addressed Canon Funes, afterwards Bishop of
Albarracin, who is shown on his knees regarding it. The sides of the
choir are adorned with statues of saints, including that of Pedro de
Arbues, on the very spot where he was slain.
Few of the chapels are of interest, and all but one have been disfigured
with baroque portals. In the chapel of San Bernardo is the fine tomb and
effigy by Morlánes of Archbishop Don Fernando de Aragon, above being a
retablo representing the Betrayal and the Crucifixion. Close by lies
Doña Ana de Gurrea, mother of the prelate (died 1527). The chapel of San
Gabriel, founded by Gabriel de Zaporta, is notable for its fine bronze
_reja_ and plateresque adornments. In the chapel of San Dominguito del
Val are preserved ‘the remains of the third child crucified by the Jews
in hatred of Christ towards the year 1250’; and the chapel of San Pedro
de Arbues contains that worthy’s body, his kneeling effigy by José
Ramirez, and paintings by Jimenez of Tarazona. In the chapel of Nuestra
Señora de la Blanca are collected the tombs of sundry archbishops. The
chapel of San Miguel owes its origin to a ghastly legend. Passing
through the pine grove of Villaroya, the Archbishop Don Lope de Luna
heard a voice calling him. He turned and saw that it proceeded from a
severed head which came leaping towards him. The decapitated man had
called on the Archangel at the moment the axe descended, and life was
miraculously preserved in his head till he had made his confession, and
was absolved by the primate. De Luna’s tomb is a triumph of Gothic art.
He is shown with mitre and crozier, reclining on a sarcophagus which is
sculptured with twenty-eight figures of friars in various attitudes. In
niches in the wall surrounding the tomb are beautifully carved figures
of ecclesiastics and grandees, full of vigour and expression. The name
of the sculptor of this fine work is unhappily unknown.
In the sacristy is to be seen the Gothic cross of gold and jewel-work,
on which the kings of Aragon swore to observe the _fueros_. Some of the
vestments are very fine. A casulla is said to have come from old St.
Paul’s, London, at the time of the Reformation. There is a magnificent
_custodia_, dating from 1537, and a fine silver reliquary, sent from
Avignon in 1405 by Benedict XIII. (the anti-pope, De Luna). In the Sala
Capitular are pictures attributed to Ribera and Zurbarán. The fine tiled
pavement of this room is modern.
The church of Santiago is mentioned as far back as 1121, and retains a
few Romanesque features. Here the saint is said to have lived on his
visit to Spain; and in the porch the magistrates of the city used to
assemble and to administer justice.
The most important church in Zaragoza after the Seo is, in Street’s
estimation, that of San Pablo, built in 1259. The octagonal steeple is
faced with tiles in much the same way as the part of the cathedral wall
above described, and is certainly a later addition to the structure. The
nave is of four bays and terminates in a five-sided apse. The aisle is
continued all round the church, and communicates with the nave by
pointed arches in an extraordinarily thick wall. In the left aisle are
five early and highly interesting Gothic retablos. The elaborate reredos
of the High Altar, with its reliefs of the Passion and of the Acts of
St. Paul, is hardly worthy of the master--Damian Forment--to whom it has
been hastily attributed. Ford suggests that it is the work of one of his
pupils.
The church of Santa Engracia, which figured prominently in the great
siege, commemorates the massacre of a number of Christians of both sexes
by the soldiery of Dacian. The bodies of the saints, Engracia and
Lupercius, having been discovered here in 1389, the church already built
on the spot was enlarged, and finally rebuilt with great splendour by
Ferdinand the Catholic. A terrific explosion on August 13, 1808,
completely wrecked the fabric, leaving little more than the plateresque
portal, believed to have been designed by Morlánes. The entrance is
through a round arch recessed within another, and surrounded by a
retablo-like arrangement of niches containing groups. The outer arch is
flanked by four statues of doctors of the Church in niches, and
surmounted by statues of Ferdinand and Isabel.
The existing church, clumsily restored by the Hermits of St. Jerome,
contains some interesting tombs of the martyrs. They appear to date from
the fifth century. One is decorated with reliefs in the rudest Byzantine
style, the subjects being Adam and Eve and the Serpent, and the sixteen
martyrs, whose relics are enclosed. The pillar is shown at which Santa
Engracia was flogged by order of Dacian, and a well which is believed to
contain the bones of innumerable martyrs.
It is curious and painful how constantly the memorials of religious
fanaticism confront one in this beautiful country. Here we are shown the
spot where a Christian suffered for his faith; there where a Jew
perished; there where a Moor died for conscience’ sake. Persecution
naturally engenders a vindictive and intolerant temper in its victims,
and these, become the masters, are hardened, not softened, by
affliction. Religion, too, in Spain was almost always identified with
race. The Moor, the Jew, and the Lutheran were not only infidels or
heretics, but aliens--the political and racial enemies of the Spaniard.
In fact, religious intolerance in the Peninsula cannot be said to have
assumed such unnatural forms as in France and Germany, where men of the
same blood and language cut each other’s throats, and vied with each
other in doing the most harm to their native lands.
To the dawn of the sixteenth century also belonged the famous leaning
tower at Zaragoza, the Torre Nueva, now demolished; while the Lonja or
Exchange commemorates the reign of Juana la Loca, or as the inscription
states, of her and her son, Don Carlos, ‘conregnantes’ (1551). This is
one of the many buildings scattered over Spain and Europe generally
which were intended to accommodate brokers and business men, who
resolutely refuse to swarm in the appointed spots--witness our own Royal
Exchange, the Lonjas of Seville and Granada, etc. The exterior belongs
to no recognised style. The round-headed door is flanked by two windows
of similar shape; above runs a sort of imitation gallery, then two more
rows of round-headed windows, finished off with a fine eaves-cornice.
The soffits of the arches are elaborately carved. At each corner of the
edifice is a little tower, roofed with white and green tiles. The
interior is divided into a nave and aisles by twenty-four columns, of
which seventeen are embedded in the walls. From their Ionic capitals
spring seventeen arches, which at the points of intersection are studded
with gilt bosses. The Lion of Zaragoza may be distinguished among the
decorations, and over the door and on the walls the arms of Spain.
O’Shea says that the ‘gigantones’--gigantic figures representing the
four quarters of the globe, carried about in processions--are kept here.
* * * * *
A great many of the fine old mansions (_solares_) of the aristocracy and
merchants of Zaragoza disappeared in the siege, or to permit of modern
improvements. Those which remain date mostly from the sixteenth century.
The finest, on the whole, is the Casa de la Infanta, so-called as having
been the residence of La Vallabriga, a lady banished from Madrid for
marrying the Infante Don Luis. The house was built by a rich merchant
named Gabriel Zaporta in the middle of the sixteenth century. A square
entrance admits to a court, round which runs a gallery, upheld by
columns on fluted pedestals, and formed of caryatide figures
interlocked. On these rest the capitals, elaborately carved with masks,
and on these again is borne the gallery, the arches and parapet of which
are enriched with medallions, masks, grotesques, and foliage. The
decoration is a fine specimen of the plateresque style. The staircase,
in the same style, is worthy of note.
The fine old Casa de Comercio, described in several guide-books of
recent date, no longer exists. The noble mansion of the Counts of
Sastago housed Philip III. in 1599; and the Audiencia occupies the site
of the ancestral home of the De Luna family, to which belonged the
anti-pope Benedict XIII. and the wicked Count in Verdi’s opera.
We have left almost to the last that ambitious but meretricious memorial
of the decadence, the new cathedral, or Iglesia del Pilar. The Apostle
James (Santiago), according to tradition, visited the city forty years
after the birth of Christ. He was favoured by a vision of the Blessed
Virgin, poised on a pillar of jasper, and attended by angels. He built
a modest chapel on the spot, which soon became a great resort of
pilgrims. This was replaced in the thirteenth century by a large church,
which was demolished to make room for the present building, erected in
1686 by Don Francisco Herrera. The design, bad enough in itself, was
made worse by Ventura Rodriguez seventy years later. The exterior hardly
merits description, though the domes or cupolas with their brilliant
green, yellow, and white tiling are not without a certain bizarre
beauty.
Spanish writers are as severe as others in their condemnation of this
spacious edifice: ‘The baroque style’ (says Don J. M. Quadrado), ‘as
timid and clumsy in the general proportion of the work as it was
audacious and presumptuous in detail, gave space not repose to the
Pilar--size without grandeur. The eye measures vainly this square of
1500 feet, and observes the nave and aisles equal in dimensions; it
rests on the twelve square piers--enormous masses which might serve for
the bases of towers, recoils from the bare vault, from the thick
cornice, from the ridiculous foliage of the capitals, the arches, etc.
This disagreeable impression is intensified by the strange and confused
disposition of the temple, which, divided into two by the Shrine and
the High Altar, presents two centres of attraction, and obstructs the
nave with objects masking each other.’
The only objects of particular interest in this vast edifice are those
just named, which stand back to back. The Shrine or Capilla Santa
constitutes a chapel within a chapel, the exterior being rectangular,
the interior elliptical. Overhead is an oval dome borne on four
Corinthian columns, with capitals richly gilded, and over this again
another cupola or lantern painted by a namesake (not a relative) of
Velazquez. There are four smaller domes painted by Goya and Bayeu. The
profusion of rich marbles, the elaboration of the architecture, the
brilliancy of the frescoes, and the multitude of statues give this
chapel a sumptuous and not inartistic appearance. Around are hung
banners taken from the infidels. The Sacred Pillar is almost entirely
concealed, but there is a hole in the casing through which the devout
may kiss it. On each side of the chapel imposing staircases lead to the
crypt, in which lie several archbishops and canons, and the heart of Don
Juan José of Austria, brother of Carlos II.
The High Altar of the cathedral is of alabaster and in the Gothic
style, the work of one Damian Forment, an early sixteenth-century
artist. The lower reliefs, separated by slender pilasters, represent the
Espousals of the Virgin, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity,
the Adoration of the Magi, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. Above,
in canopied niches, are the Assumption, the Nativity, and the
Presentation. The canopies are richly adorned with the figures of
saints. At the sides are two large statues of St. James and St.
Braulio--objects of special devotion--and at the apex of the
altar-screen are two angels supporting Our Lady of the Pillar. The whole
is undoubtedly the finest work of art in the cathedral.
The choir stalls merit attention. They were designed by the Navarrese
Estebán de Obray, and carved by the Florentine Giovanni Moreto and
Nicolás de Jobato between 1542 and 1548. The infinite number and variety
of the designs, the delicacy and intricacy of the work, suggest that it
was accomplished in two or more generations rather than in six years.
Equally admirable is the bronze _reja_ by Juan Tomás Celina (1574) on a
marble base, sculptured by the Majorcan artist, Guillermo Salvá.
The sacristy contains an immense variety of offerings to the shrine by
pilgrims from all parts of the world. These had been accumulating for
centuries, and the Chapter were able some years ago to raise a sum of
£20,000 by disposing of only a portion of them. Without profanity we
might perhaps say that the Virgen del Pilar is to Zaragoza what Diana
was to the Ephesians. Hundreds make a living by selling pictures and
models of the shrine, and a surprising number of silversmiths do a
roaring trade in images and medals. Yet it is not quite wise or safe for
the traveller to scoff at a devotion which largely inspired the heroic
defence of 1808, and supplied the place of arms, strategy, and able
leadership.
Close by, the yellow Ebro is spanned by the seven arches of the Puente
de Piedra. Its origin is of unknown antiquity. It was here in 1435, when
one of the arches collapsed--presaging the destruction by the Genoese of
the Aragonese fleet which sailed that day; and the inscription
mentioning Alfonso V., and the date 1437, can only refer to its
reconstruction. And across this bridge we pass into the stern, desert
country of Aragon, and so on to the distant, gleaming Pyrenees.
[Illustration: PLATE 1
GENERAL VIEW OF VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 2
GENERAL VIEW OF VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 3
THE BRIDGE OF PIEDRA
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 4
LA ACERA DE SAN FRANCISCO]
[Illustration: PLATE 5
THE TOWN HALL
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 6
THE OLD PARISH CHURCH
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 7
HOUSE IN WHICH CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS DIED, 1506
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 8
HOUSE WHERE KING PHILIP II. WAS BORN, 1527
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 9
THE ROYAL PALACE OF PHILIP III.
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 10
CHURCH OF SAN JUAN DE LETRAN
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 11
COLLEGE OF THE ESCOCESES
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 12
COLLEGE OF THE INGLESES
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 13
INTERIOR VIEW OF THE LIBRARY
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 14
INTERIOR OF THE MUSEUM
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 15
FAÇADE OF THE MUSEUM
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 16
MUSEUM. BACK OF A CHOIR STALL. BY BERRUGUETE
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 17
MUSEUM. DETAIL OF THE CHOIR STALLS OF SAN BENITO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 18
MUSEUM. SEVERAL FRAGMENTS OF CHOIR STALLS BY BERRUGUETE
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 19
MUSEUM. HEAD OF ST. PAUL. WOOD CARVING. COMMENCEMENT OF EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 20
MUSEUM. CENTRE-PART OF A WOODEN ALTAR-PIECE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 21
MUSEUM. FRAGMENTS OF CHOIR STALLS. BY BERRUGUETE
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 22
MUSEUM. FRAGMENTS OF CHOIR STALLS. BY BERRUGUETE
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 23
MUSEUM. ALTAR-PIECE CARVED IN WOOD. END OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 24
MUSEUM. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. BY RUBENS
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 25
MUSEUM. ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA AND THE CHILD JESUS. BY RUBENS
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 26
MUSEUM. THE ANNUNCIATION. BY JOSÉ MARTINEZ
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 27
MUSEUM. THE HOLY FAMILY. BY RAPHAEL
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 28
MUSEUM. ST. FRANCIS AND A LAY BROTHER BY RUBENS
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 29
ST. JOACHIM AND THE VIRGIN AS A CHILD BY MURILLO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 30
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM. ST. BRUNO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 31
CENTRE OF THE FAÇADE OF ST. GREGORIO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 32
DETAIL OF THE FAÇADE OF ST. GREGORIO (LEFT SIDE)
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 33
DETAIL OF THE FAÇADE OF ST. GREGORIO (RIGHT SIDE)
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 34
LEFT ANGLE IN THE COURT OF ST. GREGORIO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 35
GALLERY IN THE COURT OF ST. GREGORIO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 36
DETAIL OF THE COURT OF ST. GREGORIO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 37
INTERIOR GATE OF ST. GREGORIO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 36
FAÇADE OF ST. PABLO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 39
LOWER PART OF THE FAÇADE OF ST. PABLO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 40
DETAIL OF THE PORTAL OF ST. PABLO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 41
LOWER CENTRAL PART OF THE FAÇADE OF ST. PABLO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 42
PORTAL OF ST. PABLO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 43
DETAIL OF THE RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF THE PORCH OF ST. PABLO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 44
DETAIL OF THE LEFT-HAND SIDE OF THE PORCH OF ST. PABLO
VALLADOLID]
[Illustration: PLATE 45
GENERAL VIEW
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 46
TOWER OF THE CATHEDRAL
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 47
PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE TO THE CATHEDRAL
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 48
PRINCIPAL GATE OF THE CATHEDRAL
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 49
CATHEDRAL. VIEW OF THE INTERIOR
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 50
CATHEDRAL. THE RETABLO
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 51
LA CAMARA SANTA; OR PRIMITIVE CHAPEL OF SAN MIGUEL WHERE ARE PRESERVED
THE RELICS SAVED BY PELAYO FROM THE HANDS OF THE MOORS
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 52
COFFIN IN OVIEDO CATHEDRAL, AND DETAILS OF THE SEPULCHRE FROM COVADONGA
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 53
OLD TOWER OF THE CATHEDRAL
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 54
CATHEDRAL. OAKEN ARK, OR CHEST CONTAINING HOLY RELICS, IN THE CAMARA
SANTA
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 55
SECTION, PLAN, AND DETAILS OF THE CAMARA SANTA IN THE CATHEDRAL
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 56
CATHEDRAL. CROSS OF THE ANGELS, IN THE CAMARA SANTA
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 57
CROSSES AND CASKETS OF THE ASTURIAS
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 58
CATHEDRAL. CROSS OF VICTORY, OR OF PELAYO, IN THE CAMARA SANTA
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 59
CAPITAL, REPRESENTING THE DEATH OF FAVILA THE FATHER OF PELAYA
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 60
SANTA MARIA DE NARANCO
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 61
THE PARISH CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DE NARANCO
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 62
CHURCH OF SAN MIGUEL DE LINEO
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 63
PARISH CHURCH OF SAN JUAN DE PRIORIO
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 64
CHURCH OF SAN JUAN DE PRIORIO
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 65
PORTALS, TOWER, AND DETAILS OF THE CHURCHES OF ST. CLARA, ST. JOHN, AND
OUR LADY DE LA VEGA, THE LAST-NAMED FOUNDED IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 66
DETAILS OF SANTA MARIA DE VALDEDIOS (CONCEJO DE VILLAVICIOSA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 67
PLAN AND DETAILS OF SANTA MARIA DE VALDEDIOS (CONCEJO DE VILLAVICIOSA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 68
PLAN, PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE, AND DETAILS OF THE CHURCH OF SAN JUAN DE
AMANDI (CONCEJO DE VILLAVICIOSA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 69
PLAN, LONGITUDINAL SECTION, AND DETAILS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF SAN JUAN
DE AMANDI (CONCEJO DE VILLAVICIOSA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 70
PLAN, PORCH, AND DETAILS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF VILLAVICIOSA (CONCEJO
DE VILLAVICIOSA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 71
FRONT, LONGITUDINAL SECTION, AND DETAILS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF
VILLAVICIOSA (CONCEJO DE VILLAVICIOSA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 72
PLAN AND SECTION OF CHURCH OF SAN SALVADOR DE VALDEDIOS (CONCEJO DE
VILLAVICIOSA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 73
TRANSVERSE SECTION AND WINDOWS OF THE CHURCH OF SAN SALVADOR DE
VALDEDIOS (CONCEJO DE VILLAVICIOSA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 74
PLANS, SECTIONS, AND DETAILS OF THE PAROCHIAL CHURCHES OF PRIESCA AND
FUENTES (CONCEJO DE VILLAVICIOSA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 75
DETAILS OF CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DE VILLAMAYOR (CONCEJO DEL INFIESTO)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 76
DETAILS OF SANTA MARIA DE VILLAMAYOR (CONCEJO DE INFIESTO)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 77
PLAN, SECTIONS, AND DETAILS OF SAN ADRIAN DE TUÑON (CONCEJO DE
VILLANUEVA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 78
DETAILS OF HERMITAGE OF SANTA CRISTINA (CONCEJO DE LA POLA DE LENA)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 79
DETAILS OF SEPULCHRES IN THE CLOISTERS OF THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF
COVADONGA (CONCEJO DE CANGAS DE ONIS)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 80
DETAILS OF PARISH-CHURCH OF UJO (CONCEJO DE MIERES)
PROVINCE OF OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 81
DETAILS OF PAROCHIAL CHURCH OF UJO (CONCEJO DE MIERES)
OVIEDO]
[Illustration: PLATE 82
GENERAL VIEW OF SEGOVIA FROM THE NIEVAS
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 83
GENERAL VIEW OF SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 84
THE ROMAN AQUEDUCT
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 85
THE ALCAZAR AND CATHEDRAL FROM THE FUENCISLA
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 86
GENERAL VIEW FROM THE NIEVAS
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 87
OLD HOUSES IN THE PLAZA MAYOR
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 88
VIEW OF THE WALLS
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 89
AQUEDUCT OVER THE RIVER CASTILLA
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 90
THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE HOYOS HILL
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 91
VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE SQUARE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 92
VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE SQUARE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 93
CASA DE LOS PICOS
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 94
CHURCH OF SANTA CRUZ
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 95
PORCH OF THE CHURCH OF SANTA CRUZ
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 96
CHURCH OF SANTA CRUZ
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 97
VIEW OF THE MINT AND THE PARRAL
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 98
FAÇADE OF THE PARRAL
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 99
CLOISTERS OF THE PARRAL
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 100
GENERAL VIEW OF TURÉGANO]
[Illustration: PLATE 101
TURÉGANO CASTLE
PROVINCE OF SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 102
GENERAL VIEW OF COCA CASTLE
PROVINCE OF SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 103
ANOTHER VIEW OF COCA CASTLE
PROVINCE OF SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 104
ST. ANDREW’S GATE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 105
THE ARCH OF THE FUENCISLA
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 106
GATE OF SANTIAGO
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 107
THE ALCAZAR BEFORE THE FIRE IN 1862
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 108
THE ALCAZAR FROM THE HOYOS HILL
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 109
VIEW OF THE ALCAZAR
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 110
THE ALCAZAR FROM THE CAVES
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 111
FAÇADE OF THE ALCAZAR BEFORE THE FIRE IN 1862
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 112
SEPULCHRES OF THE FAMILY OF THE MARQUESES DE VILLENA IN THE CHURCH OF
THE PARRAL
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 113
CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 114
GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHURCH OF VERA CRUZ
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 115
PORCH OF THE CHURCH OF VERA CRUZ
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 116
COURTYARD OF THE MARQUIS OF ARCOS’ HOUSE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 117
FAÇADE OF ST. JOHN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 118
CHURCH OF ST. JOHN. SEGOVIA FROM THE EAST
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 119
SAN JUAN DE LOS CABALLEROS
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 120
CHURCH OF ST. MARTIN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 121
PORCH OF ST. MARTIN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 122
PARISH CHURCH OF ST. MARTIN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 123
ARCH OF THE PORTICO, CORNICE AND CAPITALS OF THE PORTICO OF THE PARISH
CHURCH OF ST. MARTIN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 124
GENERAL VIEW OF ST. STEPHEN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 125
PORTICO OF ST. STEPHEN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 126
TOWER OF ST. STEPHEN AND EXTERIOR DETAILS
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 127
CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 128
CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 129
LATERAL FAÇADE OF THE CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 130
THE CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO, WITH DETAILS OF CAPITALS
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 131
DETAILS OF THE CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 132
INTERIOR OF SAN MILLÁN. THE EPISTLE SIDE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 133
INTERIOR OF SAN MILLÁN. THE GOSPEL SIDE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 134
ARCHES AND EAVES OF SAN MILLÁN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 135
SECTIONAL ELEVATIONS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF SAN MILLÁN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 136
PLAN, AND DETAILS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF SAN MILLÁN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 137
DETAILS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF SAN MILLÁN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 138
DETAILS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF SAN MILLÁN
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 139
PLAN, AND DETAILS OF THE CHURCH OF THE CONVENT OF CORPUS CHRISTI
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 140
INTERIOR OF THE CONVENT OF SANTO DOMINGO AND TOWERS
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 141
PAINTED SOCLES IN THE INTERIOR OF THE TOWER OF SANTO DOMINGO, COMMONLY
CALLED THE TOWER OF HERCULES
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 142
FAÇADE OF THE CONVENT OF OUR LADY DE LA SIERRA
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 143
RUINS OF THE CHAPEL OF THE CONVENT OF OUR LADY DE LA SIERRA
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 144
INTERIOR OF THE RUINED CONVENT OF OUR LADY DE LA SIERRA
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 145
PORCH OF THE CONVENT OF OUR LADY DE LA SIERRA
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 146
GENERAL VIEW OF THE ROMAN AQUEDUCT
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 147
THE ROMAN AQUEDUCT
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 148
THE ROMAN AQUEDUCT]
[Illustration: PLATE 149
THE ROMAN AQUEDUCT
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 150
THE ROMAN AQUEDUCT
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 151
THE ROMAN AQUEDUCT
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 152
THE ROMAN AQUEDUCT
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 153
A DANCE IN THE PLAZA DEL PUEBLO DE NIEVA, SEGOVIA. BY A. GARCIA MENCIA.
(No. 181, EXHIBITION OF 1871)]
[Illustration: PLATE 154
ENRIQUE IV. CONDUCTING THE INFANTA ISABEL THROUGH THE STREETS OF
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 155
GROUP OF PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 156
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 157
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 158
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 159
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 160
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 161
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 162
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 163
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 164
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 165
PEASANTS OF THE PROVINCE
SEGOVIA]
[Illustration: PLATE 166
VIEW OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 167
VIEW OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 168
WALLS AND POSTERN GATE WITH THE HOUSE OF DOÑA URRACA
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 169
STONE BRIDGE OVER THE DUERO
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 170
BRIDGE OVER THE DUERO
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 171
VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 172
FAÇADE OF THE CATHEDRAL
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 173
CATHEDRAL. GATE OF THE BISHOP
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 174
THE CATHEDRAL. EAST FRONT
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 175
CATHEDRAL. GATE OF THE BISHOP
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 176
CATHEDRAL. GATE OF THE BISHOP
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 177
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 178
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 179
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA
DETAIL OF THE INTERIOR
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 180
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA.
DETAIL OF THE INTERIOR
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 181
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA. CHANCEL
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 182
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA: EXAMPLE OF THE VAULTING
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 183
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA. INTERIOR
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 184
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA. TRANSEPT AND NAVE
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 185
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA
DETAIL OF A WINDOW DEEPLY RECESSED
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 186
ANCIENT CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF MORERUELA
TRANSEPT PORCH
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 187
SANTA MARIA LA NUEVA. DETAIL OF THE EXTERIOR
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 188
SANTA MARIA LA NUEVA. DOORWAY IN THE WALL ON THE EPISTLE SIDE
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 189
SANTA MARIA LA NUEVA. CAPITALS OF RECESSED WINDOWS
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 190
CHURCH OF MAGDALEN]
[Illustration: PLATE 191
PRINCIPAL DOOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE MAGDALEN
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 192
PLAN AND SECTIONS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. PETER
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 193
DETAILS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. PETER (NAVE)
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 194
HOUSE OF THE CID]
[Illustration: PLATE 195
TAPESTRY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 196
DECORATIVE PAINTING IN THE TOWN HALL. BY RAMON PEDRO Y PEDRET
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 197
PAINTING IN THE TOWN HALL BY RAMON PEDRO Y PEDRET
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 198
PAINTING ON THE UPPER PART OF THE CENTRE HALL OF THE TOWN HALL. BY RAMON
PEDRO Y PEDRET
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 199
PAINTING ON THE LOWER PART OF THE CENTRE HALL OF THE TOWN HALL. BY RAMON
PEDRO Y PEDRET
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 200
THE ROYAL ESCUTCHEON. DECORATIVE PAINTING IN THE TOWN HALL. BY RAMON
PEDRO Y PEDRET
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 201
ST. FERDINAND AND KING JOHN II. DECORATIVE PAINTING IN THE TOWN HALL. BY
RAMON PEDRO Y PEDRET
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 202
THE ARMS OF THE TOWN. BY RAMON PEDRO Y PEDRET
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 203
QUEEN URRACA AND ARIAS GONZALO. DECORATIVE PAINTING IN THE TOWN HALL. BY
RAMON PEDRO Y PEDRET
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 204
TROPHIES OF ARMS AND ARMOUR IN THE TOWN HALL BY RAMON PEDRO Y PEDRET
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 205
THE HOUSE OF THE MOMOS
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 206
BRIDGE OF ROCOBAYO OVER THE ESLA
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 207
STONE QUARRIES OF THE TOWN OF VALDEROJO
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 207
STONE QUARRIES OF THE TOWN OF VALDEROJO
ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 208
EARTHWORKS OF THE ANCIENT CITY OF TORO]
[Illustration: PLATE 209
NORTH AND CENTRE GATES OF THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF TORO]
[Illustration: PLATE 210
PLAN, EXTERIOR VIEW, AND DETAILS OF THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF TORO]
[Illustration: PLATE 211
GROUP OF PEASANTS OF THE VILLAGE OF BERMIGO DE SAYAGO
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 212
GROUP OF PEASANTS OF THE VILLAGE OF CARBAJALES
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 213
PEASANTS OF THE VILLAGE OF BERMIGO DE SAYAGO
PROVINCE OF ZAMORA]
[Illustration: PLATE 214
GENERAL VIEW OF AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 215
GENERAL VIEW OF AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 216
VIEW OF AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 217
GATE OF THE ALCAZAR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 218
GATE OF SAN VICENTE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 219
GATE OF SAN VICENTE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 220
GATE OF SAN VICENTE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 221
GATE OF SAN VICENTE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 222
A STREET IN AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 223
VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 224
EXTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL]
[Illustration: PLATE 225
ENTRANCE TO THE CATHEDRAL
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 226
PLAN OF CATHEDRAL]
[Illustration: PLATE 227
AVILA CATHEDRAL]
[Illustration: PLATE 228
SIDE DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 229
CATHEDRAL. PULPIT OF REPOUSSÉ IRON WORK
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 230
CATHEDRAL. PULPIT OF REPOUSSÉ IRON WORK
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 231
CATHEDRAL. PULPIT OF REPOUSSÉ IRON WORK
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 232
INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 233
CATHEDRAL. DETAIL OF THE INTERIOR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 234
CATHEDRAL. DETAIL OF THE CHOIR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 235
CATHEDRAL. THE CHOIR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 236
CATHEDRAL. DETAIL OF THE CHOIR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 237
CATHEDRAL. DETAIL OF THE CHOIR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 238
CATHEDRAL. DETAIL OF THE CHOIR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 239
CATHEDRAL. ALTAR OF SAN SEGUNDO
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 240
CATHEDRAL. ALTAR OF SANTA LUCIA
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 241
CATHEDRAL. SEPULCHRE OF DON JUAN D’AVILA
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 242
CATHEDRAL. TOMB OF EL TESTADO BISHOP OF AVILA IN 1449
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 243
CATHEDRAL. ALTAR BEHIND THE CHOIR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 244
CATHEDRAL. SILVER MONSTRANCE OF JUAN DE ARFE. SIXTEENTH CENTURY
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 245
CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS SEPULCHRE OF THE INFANTE DON JUAN, SON OF
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA THE MASTERPIECE OF MICER DOMENICO OF FLORENCE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 246
SEPULCHRE OF THE HOLY MARTYRS VICENTE, SABINA AND CRISTINA
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 247
INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF SAN BERNARDO BY P. GONZALVO
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 248
CHURCH OF ST. PETER
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 249
ENTRANCE TO THE CHURCH OF ST. PETER
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 250
PAROCHIAL CHURCH OF ST. PETER
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 251
LONGITUDINAL SECTION AND DETAILS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. PETER.
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 252
EXTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF SAN VICENTE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 253
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE BEFORE ITS RESTORATION
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 254
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE BEFORE ITS RESTORATION
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 255
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. NORTH FAÇADE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 256
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. PRINCIPAL FAÇADE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 257
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. EASTERN FAÇADE, RESTORED
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 258
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. FAÇADE.
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 259
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. CENTRAL GATE, RESTORED
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 260
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. DETAIL OF THE MIDDLE CORNICE, RESTORED
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 261
PORTAL OF THE BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE, SANTAS SABINA AND CRISTINA
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 262
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. PRINCIPAL WEST ENTRANCE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 263
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. PRINCIPAL WEST ENTRANCE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 264
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 265
BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE. SEPULCHRE OF THE HOLY MARTYRS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 266
DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR OF THE BASILICA OF SAN VICENTE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 267
PORCH OF THE CHURCH OF SAN VICENTE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 268
PORCH OF THE CHURCH OF SAN VICENTE. CENTRAL PART
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 269
PORCH OF THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 270
SECTION OF THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 271
PLAN OF THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 272
GATE OF THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 273
DOOR OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 274
INTERIOR OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 275
THE COURT OF SILENCE, IN THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 276
CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS. THE COURT OF SILENCE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 277
CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS. COURT OF THE KINGS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 278
CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS. COURTYARD OF THE INFIRMARY
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 279
CLOISTERS OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 280
CLOISTERS OF THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 281
CLOISTERS OF THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 282
GATE OF THE CLOISTERS IN THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 283
CHOIR OF THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 284
CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS. DETAIL OF THE CHOIR
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 285
CHOIR STALLS IN THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 286
CHOIR STALLS IN THE CONVENT OF SANTO TOMÁS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 287
CHURCH OF SAN SEGUNDO. STATUE OF SAN SEGUNDO BY BERRUGUETE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 288
CHURCH OF SANTO TOMÁS. SEPULCHRE OF THE INFANTE JUAN, ONLY SON OF
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 289
SANTO TOMÁS. SEPULCHRE OF PRINCE JUAN, ONLY SON OF FERDINAND AND
ISABELLA. AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 290
SANTO TOMÁS. SEPULCHRE OF PRINCE JUAN, ONLY SON OF FERDINAND AND
ISABELLA. AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 291
GOTHIC GATE IN RUINS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 292
DOOR OF A PRIVATE HOUSE OPPOSITE THE CATHEDRAL
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 293
CALLE DE PEDRO D’AVILA
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 294
CELEBRATED WINDOW IN THE HOUSE OF PEDRO D’AVILA
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 295
COURTYARD OF THE POLENTINOS’ PALACE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 296
PORTICO OF THE POLENTINOS’ PALACE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 297
CHURCH OF SAN ANDRES AND SAN SEGUNDO
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 298
HERMITAGE OF SAN ISIDRO
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 299
THE ACADEMY
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 300
CAMPOSAGRADO PALACE
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 301
CASA DE LA BARAGAÑAS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 302
CASA DE LA TORRE]
[Illustration: PLATE 303
CHAPEL OF MOSEN RUBI
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 304
PALACE OF THE CONDE DE SUPERUNDA
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 305
MINIATURES FROM THE AVILA MISSAL, TWELFTH CENTURY (NATIONAL LIBRARY)]
[Illustration: PLATE 306
MINIATURES FROM THE AVILA MISSAL, TWELFTH CENTURY (NATIONAL LIBRARY)]
[Illustration: PLATE 307
DOOR OF SAN FRANCISCO
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 308
A ROMAN CAPITAL OF THE CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 309
LATIN-BYZANTINE FRIEZE IN THE CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 310
MONASTERY OF SAN PEDRO AT ARENAS
AVILA]
[Illustration: PLATE 311
GENERAL VIEW FROM CABEZO-CORTADO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 312
GENERAL VIEW FROM ALTABAS
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 313
GENERAL VIEW FROM ALTABAS
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 314
THE BRIDGE OVER THE EBRO, FROM THE RUINS OF SAN LAZARO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 315
THE BRIDGE OVER THE EBRO, FROM EL PILAR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 316
GENERAL VIEW OF ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 317
GENERAL VIEW OF ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 318
GENERAL VIEW OF ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 319
GENERAL VIEW FROM THE PORTILLA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 320
VIEW OF ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 321
CALLE DEL MERCADO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 322
PASEO DE SANTA ENGRACIA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 323
CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 324
CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 325
GLAZED TILES ON THE WALLS OF THE CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 326
INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO, FROM A PAINTING BY R. GONZALVO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 327
CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO. VIEW OF THE TRANSEPT
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 328
CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO. DETAIL OF TRANSEPT
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 329
CHAPEL OF ST. JOHN IN THE CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 330
CHAPEL OF GABRIEL DE ZAPORTA IN THE CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 331
CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO. REJA BRONZE REPOUSSÉ BEFORE THE CHAPEL OF ZAPORTA.
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 332
SEPULCHRE OF ARCHBISHOP DON LOPE DE LUNA IN THE CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 333
CENTRAL DOME OF THE CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 334
SILVER MONSTRANCE IN THE CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO, WEIGHT 200 KILOGRAMMES
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 335
CENSER GIVEN TO THE CATHEDRAL OF LA SEO BY MOSÉN JUAN DE TORRELLAS AT
THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 336
CATHEDRAL OF EL PILAR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 337
CATHEDRAL OF EL PILAR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 338
INTERIOR OF OUR LADY DEL PILAR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 339
VIEW OF THE SIDE-ALTAR IN OUR LADY DEL PILAR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 340
OUR LADY DEL PILAR. VIEW OF THE CHOIR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 341
OUR LADY DEL PILAR. ORGAN IN THE CHOIR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 342
CHAPEL IN OUR LADY DEL PILAR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 343
HIGH ALTAR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY DEL PILAR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 344
PAINTINGS ON THE CUPOLA OF OUR LADY DEL PILAR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 345
CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY DEL PILAR. CHOIR STALLS
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 346
OUR LADY DEL PILAR. CHOIR STALLS
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 347
CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY DEL PILAR. CHOIR STALLS
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 348
OUR LADY DEL PILAR, BY M. DE UNCETA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 349
OUR LADY DEL PILAR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 350
SILVER SALVER IN THE CATHEDRAL OF EL PILAR
SIXTEENTH CENTURY
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 351
VASE IN THE CATHEDRAL OF EL PILAR
FIFTEENTH CENTURY
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 352
CHURCH OF THE MAGDALEN
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 353
PLACE AND CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 354
PORTAL OF THE CHURCH OF SAN MIGUEL
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 355
FAÇADE OF THE CHURCH OF SANTA ENGRACIA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 356
CHURCH OF ST. PAUL. PUERTA DEL CRISTO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 357
THE NEW OR LEANING TOWER
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 358
TOWER OF THE CALLE DE ANTONIO PEREZ
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 359
TOWER OF SAN MIGUEL
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 360
TOWER OF SAN PABLO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 361
TOWER OF THE TROVADOR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 362
ANCIENT WALL AND BUILDINGS
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 363
STATUE OF PIGNATELLI
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 364
COURT-YARD IN THE HOUSE OF PARDO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 365
DETAIL OF THE COURT-YARD IN THE HOUSE OF PARDO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 366
ENTRANCE TO THE AUDIENCIA PALACE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 367
PALACE OF THE PROVINCIAL DEPUTATION
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 368
COURTYARD IN THE COUNT OF ARGILLO’S HOUSE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 369
EAVES ON THE HOUSE OF THE CONDE DE ARGILLO
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 370
COURTYARD IN THE COUNT OF ARGILLO’S HOUSE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 371
HOUSE IN THE PLAZA DE SAN CARLOS
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 372
THE EXCHANGE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 373
FAÇADE OF THE EXCHANGE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 374
INTERIOR VIEW OF THE EXCHANGE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 375
PORCH OF THE HOUSE OF ZAPORTA; OR, OF THE INFANTA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 376
COURT-YARD OF THE HOUSE OF ZAPORTA; OR, OF THE INFANTA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 377
COURT-YARD OF THE HOUSE OF ZAPORTA; OR, OF THE INFANTA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 378
COURT-YARD OF THE HOUSE OF ZAPORTA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 379
COURT-YARD IN THE HOUSE OF ZAPORTA; OR, OF THE INFANTA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 380
COURT-YARD OF THE HOUSE OF ZAPORTA; OR, OF THE INFANTA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 381
DETAIL OF THE COURT-YARD OF THE HOUSE OF ZAPORTA; OR, OF THE INFANTA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 382
COURT OF THE PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 383
GALLERY IN THE PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 384
THE ALJAFERIA OR CITADEL. WINDOW OF THE MAIN STAIRCASE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 385
ALJAFERIA. INTERIOR OF THE (SO CALLED) MOSQUE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 386
ALJAFERIA. ENTRANCE TO THE (SO CALLED) MOSQUE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 387
ALJAFERIA. INTERIOR OF THE (SO CALLED) MOSQUE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 388
ALJAFERIA. DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 389
ALJAFERIA. DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 390
DETAILS OF THE ALJAFERIA
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM, ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 391
DETAIL OF THE ALJAFERIA
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM, ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 392
ST. ISABEL AND HER HUSBAND. TAPESTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 393
VIEW OF THE BARRACKS OF THE ALJAFERIA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 394
THE CASA DE LA INFANTA. “THE DEPARTURE FOR THE FIGHT” BY P. GONZALVO
PEREZ.
(No. 204 EXHIBITION OF 1871)
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 395
GATE OF OUR LADY DEL CARMEN, FAMOUS FOR THE DEFENCE MADE BY THE HEROINE
OF ZARAGOZA DURING THE SIEGE OF 1808. ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 396
THE DEFENCE OF ZARAGOZA IN 1809, BY NICOLAS MEJIA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 397
THE FIRST SIEGE OF ZARAGOZA. BY A. FERRANT Y FISCHERMANS
(No. 131, EXHIBITION OF 1871)
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 398
HEROIC DEFENCE OF THE TOWER OF ST. AUGUSTINE AT ZARAGOZA IN THE WAR OF
INDEPENDENCE BY C. ALVAREZ DUMONT
(NATIONAL EXHIBITION OF FINE ARTS, 1884)]
[Illustration: PLATE 399
HEROIC COMBAT IN THE PULPIT OF THE CHURCH OF SAN AUGUSTIN AT ZARAGOZA IN
1809. BY C. ALVAREZ DUMONT]
[Illustration: PLATE 400
THE MAID OF ZARAGOZA. BY M. HIRALDEZ ACOSTA
No. 213 EXHIBITION OF 1871]
[Illustration: PLATE 401
THE MAID OF ZARAGOZA. BY NAVARRO Y CANIZARES]
[Illustration: PLATE 402
ARCH FROM THE ALJAFERIA PALACE AT ZARAGOZA, NOW IN THE ARCHÆOLOGICAL
MUSEUM]
[Illustration: PLATE 403
ARCH FROM THE ALJAFERIA PALACE AT ZARAGOZA. NOW IN THE ARCHÆOLOGICAL
MUSEUM]
[Illustration: PLATE 404
DETAIL OF “THE MOSQUE” OF THE ALJAFERIA
ZARAGOZA PROVINCIAL MUSEUM]
[Illustration: PLATE 405
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM. CORBELS OF EAVES. GOTHIC STYLE, FROM THE OLD CUSTOM
HOUSE. ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 406
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM. CORBELS OF EAVES
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 407
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM. CORBELS OF EAVES. GOTHIC STYLE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 408
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM. CORBELS OF EAVES. POINTED STYLE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 409
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM. ARAB CAPITALS OF THE ALJAFERIA CASTLE
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 410
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM. ARAB CAPITALS FROM THE ALJAFERIA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 411
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM. ARAB CAPITALS FROM THE ALJAFERIA
ZARAGOZA]
[Illustration: PLATE 412
THE STORY OF LUCRETIA. A PLATE FROM THE WORK ENTITLED “MUJERES ILUSTRES”
(FAMOUS WOMEN) BY BOCCACCIO. PRINTED AT ZARAGOZA BY PABLO HURUS IN 1495
(NATIONAL LIBRARY)]
[Illustration: PLATE 413
A PAGE FROM THE WORK ENTITLED “EXAMPLE AGAINST THE DECEPTION AND PERILS
OF THE WORLD” BY JUAN DE CAPUA. PRINTED IN ZARAGOZA BY PABLO HURUS IN
1493 (NATIONAL LIBRARY)]
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Valladolid, Oviedo, Avila & Zaragoza" ***
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