Part 5 (1/2)
Going from the great Plaza de la Const.i.tucion down a narrow street to the north, we soon came out on another large irregular open place, frequented chiefly by second-hand clothesmen, whose wares would be deemed bad even in Houndsditch, and whose wont it seems to be to induce their customers to make complete changes of their apparel behind scanty screenworks of cloths. At the angle of the further side of this Plaza is the grand church and convent of San Benito. The monks are, of course, all gone, as they are everywhere in Catholic Spain, and the convent is turned into a barrack; the church is left open, but unused, and the more valuable portions of its furniture, its stalls and Retablos, have been carried away for exhibition in another religious house, now used as a museum! Valladolid seems to have been a city of religious houses; and when the revolution, following on civil wars, made so clean a sweep of religious orders, that not only does one see no monks, but even Sisters of Mercy are scarcely ever met[84], there was nothing, I suppose, to be done but to convert these buildings to the first miserable purpose that suggested itself; and we ought perhaps to be thankful when we find a church like San Benito simply desolate and unused, and not converted to some purely secular use.
The ground-plan of the church is given on Plate III. At the west end are the remains of a tower, which seems never to have been completed, and which, though of vast size, is so poor, tame, and bald in detail, that it could hardly have produced a successful effect if it had been finished. The whole design of the exterior of the church is extremely uninteresting; but the interior is much more impressive, being fine, lofty, and groined, and lighted chiefly by large clerestory windows, aided by others high up in the aisle-walls. The groining is all very domical in section, and rather rich in ribs; and the grand scale of the whole work, and the simplicity of the piers--cylinders with eight engaged shafts round them--contribute to produce something of the effect of a building of earlier date. The bases of the columns are of enormous height from the floor, and their caps are generally carved with stiff foliage. Several altars, monuments, and chapels have been inserted between the b.u.t.tresses of the north wall; and there is one old tomb on the north side of the high altar, with a sculpture of the Crucifixion.
The b.u.t.tresses on the exterior all rise out of a continuous weathered bas.e.m.e.nt, and there is no variety in their design in any part.
The ritual arrangements deserve a few words of description. There are six steps up from the nave to the altar, and there is an ambon on each side of them entered from the altar side. There is a stalled western gallery, with an organ on its south side, of late mediaeval design, but apparently an insertion, and not erected at the same time as the Coro.
Beside the gallery Coro, there is a second Coro on the floor, with screens round it on the north, south, and west sides, which are evidently not original, being mere brick walls. A metal screen extends all across the nave and aisles at the east of the Coro; and there are gates, not only in these, but also in the screen on the west side of the Coro, which, it will be remembered, is an unusual arrangement at this late date. The large organ is on the north side of the Coro, and of the same date as the woodwork of the stalls. The good people of Valladolid, who seem to feel inordinately proud of all that Berruguete did, have carried off the stalls to the museum. They are much praised by Mr. Ford, but for what reason I endeavoured in vain to discover. Their sculpture appeared to me to be contemptible, and mainly noticeable for woolly dumplings in place of draperies, and for the way in which the figures are sculptured, standing insecurely on their feet, dwarfed in stature, altogether inexpressive in their faces, out of drawing, and wholly deficient in energy or life. There were also three great Retablos to the princ.i.p.al altars at the ends of the aisles. The Renaissance frames of these are mostly _in situ_, but the sculptures have all been taken, with the stalls, to the museum, where they c.u.mber the little chapel in the most uncouth fas.h.i.+on. I never saw such contemptible work; yet Mr. Ford calls this work[85] ”the _chef-d'uvre_ of Berruguete, circa 1526-1532.” I can only say that the architecture is bad, the sculpture is bad, and the detail is bad; that all three are bad of their kind, and that their kind is the worst possible.[86] It is in truth the ugliest specimen of the imbecility and conceit which usually characterize inferior Renaissance work that I ever saw. The whole of the figures are strained and distorted in the most violent way, and fenced in by columns which look like bedposts, with entablatures planned in all sorts of new and original ways and angles. I have no patience with such work, and it is inconceivable how a man who has once done anything which, from almost every point of view, is so demonstrably bad, can have preserved any reputation whatever, even among his own people. It is a curious ill.u.s.tration, however, of the singular extent to which both Gothic and Renaissance were being wrought at the same time in Spain; for at the time he did this work, in which not a trace of Gothic feeling or skill remained, other men at Salamanca, Zaragoza, and elsewhere, were still building in late Gothic, and some buildings were still more than half Gothic which were not erected for at least fifty years later.
A short walk from San Benito leads to another Plaza, on one of which is the west front of San Pablo, whilst the great convent of San Gregorio is on its south side.
I could not find any means of getting into San Pablo, and am uncertain whether it is in use or desecrated. Its facade is a repet.i.tion, on a large scale, of work like that of Juan and Simon de Colonia--who are said to have been the architects employed--in the chapel monuments at Miraflores. Armorial bearings have much more than their due prominence, mouldings are attenuated, every bit of wall is covered with carving or tracery, and such tricks are played with arches of all shapes, that, though they are ingenious, they are hardly worth describing. The western doorway is fringed with kneeling angels for crockets, and there are large and small statues of saints against the wall on either side of it.
Above is the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, with St. John the Baptist on one side, and the kneeling founder on the other, flanked by angels carrying armorial achievements. Above, in the centre, is our Lord seated, St. Peter and St. Paul on either side, and the four Evangelists seated at desks, and instructed by angels. Every vacant s.p.a.ce 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 s.h.i.+elds, or without claim to the possession of _Sangre Azul_. I must not forget to say of this work that, though its scheme is displeasing and Retablo-like, its execution is wonderful, and the merit of the detail of many parts of it very great.
The facade of San Gregorio is a long lofty wall, pierced with small ogee-headed windows, and finished with a quaint, carved, and pinnacled parapet; in the centre is the entrance gateway, corresponding pretty much in its detail with the front of San Pablo, but even more extremely heraldic in its decorations. The doorway is a square opening under a segmental arch, with an ogee-trefoiled canopy above. Full-length statues of hairy unclad savages on either side may have a meaning which I failed to discover; to me they looked simply uncouth and rude. The canopy over the doorway runs up and forms a great heraldic tree, with an enormous coat-of-arms and supporters in the centre. The finish at the top is one of those open-work conceits of interlacing pierced cusping, which looks like nothing better than a collection of twigs.
The sculpture on this doorway is altogether inferior in its character to that of the doorway of San Pablo. The convent is now, I believe, a barrack, and the sentry refused me admission; but I saw a picturesque court open in the centre, with the usual galleries round it, supported on columns, the wooden ceiling of the pa.s.sage being painted.
The church of la Magdalena does not look so late in date as the doc.u.mentary evidence seems to prove that it is; but it is late enough to be most uninteresting. The west front is the _ne plus ultra_ of heraldic absurdity, being entirely occupied with an enormous coat-of-arms and its adjuncts.
Close to the east end of this church is a Moorish archway of brick, a picturesque and rather graceful work. It owes not a little of its effect to the shape of the bricks, which are 7 in. wide by 11 in. long by 1 in. thick, and to the enormous quant.i.ty of mortar used, the joints being not less than an inch wide.[87] The ruggedness and picturesque effect of work done in this way is much greater than that of the smooth, neat walls--badly built of necessity where there is not much mortar used--of our modern buildings.
The Museum is housed in the old college of Sta. Cruz, close to the University, and near to the Cathedral. It is a building of a cla.s.s whose name is legion in these parts. It encloses a central court surrounded by cloisters, above which there are open arcades all round on each of the three floors, traceried bal.u.s.trades occupying the s.p.a.ces between their columns, and the rooms being all entered from these cloister-like open pa.s.sages. With good detail such an arrangement might easily be made very attractive; but I saw no example in any but the very latest style of Gothic. The contents of the Museum are most uninteresting. There are three paintings said to be by Rubens, but they seemed to me to have been much damaged; and the rest of the pictures are unmixed rubbish. There is a large collection of figures and subjects from sculptured Retablos, all of which are extravagant and strained in their att.i.tudes to the most painful degree. I have already referred to some of Berruguete's work preserved here, and the rest is mostly of about the same low degree of merit.
The Library, which appeared to have many valuable books, is a large room, well kept and well filled, with a librarian very ready to show it to strangers.
The University is a cold work of Herrera--the coldest of Spanish architects. Mr. Ford mentions an old gateway in it; but I could not find it.
I spent one day only in Valladolid; but this is ample for seeing all its architectural features. It is one of those cities which was too rich and prosperous during an age of much work and little taste, and where, though Berruguete and Herrera may be studied by those who think such labour desirable, very little mediaeval architecture of any real value is to be seen. Yet as a modern city it is in parts gay and attractive, being after Madrid the most important city of the North of Spain. Its suburbs are less cheerful, for here one lights constantly on some desecrated church or ruined building, which recalls to mind the vast difference between the Valladolid of to-day--a mere provincial town--and the Valladolid of two centuries ago, for a short time the capital of Spain.
CHAPTER IV.
SALAMANCA--ZAMORA--BENAVENTE.
The long dreary road which leads over the corn-growing plain from Medina del Campo is at last relieved some two or three miles before Salamanca is reached by the view of its imposing group of steeples and domes, which rise gradually over the low hills on the northern side. The long line of walls round the city still in part remains, but seems daily to be falling more and more to decay, and indeed generally all its grand buildings speak rather of death than of life. Few even of Spanish towns seem to have suffered more at the hands of the French during the Peninsular war than did Salamanca, and we ought not perhaps to be surprised if its old prosperity comes but slowly back again to it.
The public buildings here are generally grandiose and imposing; but almost all of them are of the period of the Renaissance, and there are no very remarkable examples of this bad age. Still when they were perfect there must have been a certain stateliness about them, befitting the importance of a great university.
The main objects of attraction to me were the two cathedrals, the one grand and new, of the sixteenth century, by whose side and as it were under whose wing nestles the smaller but most precious old cathedral of the twelfth century, fortunately preserved almost intact when the new one was erected, and still carefully maintained, though, I believe, very seldom used for service. The remarkable relative positions of these two cathedrals will be readily understood by the accompanying ground-plan,[88] in which, as will be seen, the vast bulk of the later church quite overwhelms the modest dimensions of the earlier. I know indeed few spots, if any, in which the importance, or the contrary, of mere size in architecture can be better tested than here. Most educated artists would, I dare say, agree with me in rating size as the lowest of all really artistic qualities in architecture; and here we find that the small and insignificant old church produces as good an effect as the large and boastfully ambitious new one, though its dimensions are altogether inferior. This is owing to the subdivision of parts, and to the valuable simplicity which so markedly characterizes them. On the other hand, it would be wrong to forget that from another point of view mere size is of the primest importance, for we may well feel, when we compare, for instance, an extremely lofty church with one of very modest height, that in the former there is on the part of the founders an evident act of sacrifice, whilst in the latter their thoughts have possibly never risen above the merest utilitarianism; and it would be a spirit entirely dead to all religious impressions that could regard such an act of sacrifice otherwise than with extreme admiration.
The foundation of the first of these two cathedrals may be fixed, I think, with a fair approach to certainty, as being some time in the twelfth century. It was at this time, soon after the city had been regained from the Moors, in A.D. 1095, that Bernard, Archbishop of Toledo, himself a Frenchman, brought many other Frenchmen into Spain, and through his great influence procured their appointment to various sees--a fact which I may say, in pa.s.sing, suggests much in regard to the origin of the churches which they built. Among the French ecclesiastics so promoted was Geronimo Visquio,[89] a native of Perigord, who was for a long time the great friend and close companion of the Cid Rodrigo Diaz, and confessor to him and Dona Ximena his wife. On the Cid's death he brought his body from Valencia to the monastery of Cardena, near Burgos, and there dwelt till Count Ramon and Dona Urraca made him Bishop of Salamanca. Gil Gonzalez Davila[90] says that at this time the church was founded, and Cean Bermudez adds some doc.u.mentary evidence as to privileges conceded to its chapter for the works about this time by Count Ramon.[91] In A.D. 1178 a priest--Don Miguel of San Juan, Medina del Campo--made a bequest to the Chapter of his property for the work of the cloister, and we may fairly a.s.sume, therefore, that before this date the church itself was completed. The new cathedral was not commenced until A.D. 1513, and of this I need not now speak; but in an inscription on it, which records its consecration in A.D. 1560, the first ma.s.s is related to have been said in the old cathedral four hundred and sixty years before, _i.e._ in A.D. 1100.[92] This probably was only a tradition; but it may fairly be taken to point to the twelfth century as that in which the cathedral was built.
This early church is, it will be seen,[93] cruciform, with three eastern apses, a nave and aisles of five bays, and a dome or lantern over the crossing. There is a deep western porch, and I think it probable that there were originally towers on either side of this. The church has been wonderfully little altered, save that its north wall has been taken down in order to allow of the erection of the new cathedral, and at the same time the arch under the northern part of the central lantern or dome was also underbuilt. In other respects the church is almost untouched, and bears every mark of having been in progress during the greater part of the twelfth century.
There is no provision in the plan of the main piers for carrying the diagonal groining ribs, and it may be, therefore, that when they were first planned it was not intended to groin the nave. The groining-ribs are now carried on corbels, in front of which were statues, only two or three of which, however, now remain in their places.[94] The vaulting throughout is quadripart.i.te in the arrangement of the ribs; but the vaults of the three western bays of the nave, of the south transept, and of the aisles are constructed as domes, with the stones all arranged in concentric lines, but with ribs crossing their undersides; the two eastern bays of the nave have quadripart.i.te groining, planned in the common way. The apses have semi-domes. The main arches everywhere are pointed, those of the windows semi-circular, and the capitals throughout are elaborately carved, either with foliage or groups of coupled monsters or birds, a very favourite device of the early Spanish sculptors.
The most interesting feature in this old cathedral still remains to be mentioned: this is the dome over the crossing. The remainder of the original fabric is bold, vigorous, and ma.s.sive, well justifying the line in an old saying about the Spanish cathedrals, ”Fortis Salmantina;” but still it is merely a good example of a cla.s.s of work, of which other examples on a grander scale are to be met with elsewhere. Not so, however, the dome; for here we have a rare feature treated with rare success, and, so far as I know, with complete originality. The French domed churches, such as S. Front, Perigueux, and others of the same cla.s.s, Notre Dame du Port, Clermont, and Notre Dame, le Puy, have, it is true, domes, but these are all commenced immediately above the pendentives or arches which carry them. The lack of light in their interiors is consequently a great defect, and those which I have seen have always seemed to me to have something dark, savage, and repulsive in their character. And it was here that the architect of Salamanca Cathedral showed his extreme skill, for, instead of the common low form of dome, he raised his upon a stage arcaded all round inside and out, pierced it with windows, and then, to resist the pressure of his vault, built against the external angles four great circular pinnacles.
[Ill.u.s.tration: No 7
SALAMANCA OLD CATHEDRAL p. 80.