Part 9 (1/2)

The style of the two buildings leads to the same conclusion, for in Sta.

Catalina Ave have a small, low, vaulted church, two bays only in length and three in width. The two detached columns which carry the vaults are cylindrical, with capitals of somewhat the same kind as those in the church, but simpler and ruder. Recessed arches in the side walls contain various tombs of the Royal Family, who for ages, from the time of Fernando I. and Dona Sancha his queen, have been buried here; and the very circ.u.mstance that this little chapel was selected for the burial of so many royal persons, seems to make it extremely probable that it was the very chapel in which the body of San Isidoro had first been laid.

The door of communication from the chapel to the church has an arch of the same kind as the transept arches, semi-circular and fringed with several cusps; and the chapel is now lighted by two open arches on the north side, which communicate with the cloister. The groining is all quadripart.i.te, without ribs, but with plain bold transverse arches between the bays.

The exterior of the church has some features which have all the air of being very early and original in their character. Such is the grand south doorway of the nave. Its arch is semicircular, and above it the spandrels are filled with sculpture. Above this is a line of panels containing the signs of the Zodiac; below are figures with musical instruments; and below these again, on the west, is a figure of San Isidoro, and on the right a figure of a woman, I think, book in hand, both of them supported on corbels formed of the heads of oxen. The tympanum itself is divided into two parts, the lower half being surmounted by a flat pediment, and the upper filling up the s.p.a.ce from this to the _intrados_ of the arch. The upper half has an Agnus Dei in a circle in the centre, and the lower half has Abraham's sacrifice, with figures on horseback on either side. The head of the opening of the doorway is finished with a square trefoil, under which rams' heads are carved. The whole detail of this sculpture is very unlike that of most of the early work I have seen in Spain; the figures are round and flabby, and badly arranged, and very free from any of the usual conventionality. All this made me feel much inclined to think that the execution of this work was at an early date, and soon after the first consecration of the church.

The elevation of the south transept is rather fine. It has a doorway, now blocked, with a figure against the wall on either side, standing between the label and a second label built into the wall from b.u.t.tress to b.u.t.tress. Above this is a rich corbel-table, and then an arcade of three divisions, of which the centre is pierced as a window; in the gable is another statue standing against the wall. The doorway has its opening finished with a square trefoil, and the tympanum is plain. The design of the apsidal chapel east of the apse is so precisely like the eastern apsidal chapels of many of the Spanish Romanesque churches,[130]

that its date must, to some extent, be decided by theirs: and it may well be doubted whether it can be much earlier than circa A.D. 1150, though the lower part of the south transept appeared to me to be as early as the south door, or at any rate not later than A.D. 1100.

The walls are all carried up high above the clerestory windows, and finished with corbel-tables, carved with a billet-mould on edge, and carried on corbels moulded, not carved. Simple b.u.t.tresses divide the bays of the clerestory.

The choir, as has been said, was a late addition in place of the original Romanesque apse. It was built in A.D. 1513, or a little after, by Juan de Badajoz, master of the works at the cathedral.[131] It is of debased Gothic design and coa.r.s.e detail, but large and lofty. The groining at the east end is planned as if for an apse, and portions of diagonal b.u.t.tresses, to resist the thrust of the groining ribs, are built against the east wall, in the way often to be noticed in the later Spanish buildings. The east window was of two lights only, and is now blocked up by the Retablo. In this church there is a perpetual exposition of the Host, and the choir is therefore screened off with more than usual care, none but the clergy being allowed to enter it. At Lugo, where there is also a similar exposition, the choir is left open, but two priests are always sitting or kneeling before faldstools in front of the altar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 14.

SAN ISIDORO, LEON p. 126.

SOUTH TRANSEPT.]

I could not gain admission to the cloister on the north side of the church; it is large and all modernized, and surrounded by the buildings of the monastery, which is now suppressed. A chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity was founded here in A.D. 1191, and a list of the relics preserved at its altar is given on a stone preserved in the convent.

The chapel of Sta. Catalina, already described, is specially interesting on account of the remarkable paintings with which the whole of the groining is covered. These all appeared to me to have been certainly executed at the end of the twelfth century, circa A.D. 1180-1200, and they are remarkably rich in their foliage decoration, as well as in painting of figures and subjects. Beginning with the eastern central compartment, over the altar, and going round to the right, the subjects in the six bays of the vault are as follows:--

(1.) In this our Lord is seated in a vesica, at the angles of which are four angels, with the heads of the four Evangelists, with their books and names painted beside them. Our Lord's feet are to the east, and He holds an open book and gives His blessing.

(2.) The angel speaking to the shepherds, with the inscription, ”_Angelus a pastores_.”

(3.) The Ma.s.sacre of the Innocents.

(4.) The Last Supper, painted without the slightest regard to the angles formed by the groining, and as if the vault were a flat surface.

(5.) _a._ Herod was.h.i.+ng his hands.

_b._ St. Peter denying our Lord.

_c._ Our Lord bearing his Cross.

_d._ The Crucifixion (this is almost destroyed).

(6.) Our Lord seated with His feet to the west; the seven churches around Him, seven candles, and an angel giving the book to St. John.

The soffeits of the cross arches between the vaults are painted, some with foliage, others with figures. Of the latter, one has the twelve Apostles, another the Holy Spirit in the centre, with angels wors.h.i.+pping on either side, and a third a Hand blessing (inscribed ”Dextra Dei”) in centre, and saints on either side. The whole detail of the painted foliage is of thoroughly good conventional character, and just in the transitional style from Romanesque to Pointed.

There is a fine steeple detached from the church to the west. It stands on the very edge of the old town wall, several of the round towers of which still exist to the north of it, and below the great walls of the convent built within them. This steeple is very plain below, but its belfry stage has two fine shafted windows in each face, and nook shafts at its four corners. It is capped with a low square spire with small spire-lights: but as I found the working lines of all this drawn out elaborately on the whitewashed walls of one of the cloisters, and as all the work appears to be new, I cannot say whether or no it is an exact restoration, though I dare say it is.

In the sacristy there are some paintings, of which one or two are of great beauty. One is a charming picture of the Blessed Virgin with our Lord, with angels on either side, and others holding a crown above: the faces are sweet and delicate. One of the attendant angels offers an apple to our Lord; the other plays a guitar: the background is a landscape. The frame, too, is original. It has a gold edge, then a flat of blue covered with delicate gold diaper, and there are two shutters with this inscription on them:--”_Flix e sacra virgo Maria et omni laude dignissima quia in te ortus est sol justicie Chrus Deus noster._” There is also a very little triptych, with a Descent from the Cross, and an inscription on the shutters. Two figures are drawing out the nails, and hold the body of our Lord; two other figures on ladders support His head and feet, and St. Mary and St. Mary Magdalene weep at the foot of the cross. The inscriptions on the shutters are from Zachariah xii., _Plagent eum, &c._, and Second Corinthians, ”_Pro omnibus mortuus est Christus_.” There are other paintings which the Sacristan exhibits with more pride, but these two are precious works, of extremely good character, and painted probably about the end of the sixteenth century.

Leon is a much smaller city than might be expected for one so famous in Spanish history; its streets wind about in the most tortuous fas.h.i.+on; there are but few buildings of any pretension, and I saw no other old churches. There is indeed a great convent of San Marcos, built from the designs of Juan de Badajoz, in the sixteenth century, and afterwards added to by Berruguete, but I forgot to go to see it, and his work at San Isidoro makes me regard the omission as a very venial one. Round the city, on all sides, are long groves of poplars which look green and pleasant; there is a river--or at least in summer, as I saw it, the broad bed of one--and over the low hills which girt the city is a background of beautiful mountains. Both for its situation, therefore, and for the artistic treasures it enshrines, Leon well deserves a pilgrimage at the hands of all lovers of art.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEON:--Ground Plan of Cathedral &c. Plate V.