Part 19 (1/2)
On the south side of the nave there is a Chapter-house, which is said by Ponz[261] to be the work of Pedro Compte, and to have been built at the cost of Bishop D. Vidal Blaues, in A.D. 1358. If this statement is correct, it follows that there were two architects of this name, the second having erected the Lonja de la Sedia, to which I shall have presently to refer, in A.D. 1482. The tracery of the windows, and the details generally of the Chapter-house, is so geometrical and good, that it is probable that the date given by Ponz may be depended upon. It is a square room nearly sixty feet in diameter, and groined in stone. The vault is similar to those which I first saw at Burgos, having arches thrown across the angles to bring it to an octagon, and the triangular compartments in the angles having their vaults below the main vault. It is lighted by small windows very high up in the walls on the cardinal sides, and these are circular and spherical triangles in outline, filled with geometrical tracery. On the south side is a very elaborate arcaded reredos and altar, and on the west a pulpit corbelled out from the wall.
The design and detail of the whole are extremely fine, and I regret that I was able to make but a very hurried examination of it, and no sketches; meeting here, almost for the first time in Spain, with a sacristan who refused to allow me to do more than look, the fact being that it was his time for dinner and siesta!
In the old sacristy to the east of this room are still preserved two embroidered altar frontals, said to have been brought from our own old St. Paul's by two merchants, Andres and Pedro de Medina, just about the time of the Reformation.[262] They are therefore of especial interest to an Englishman. They are very large works, strained on frames, and were, I believe, hangings rather than altar frontals, as they are evidently continuations one of the other. The field is of gold, diapered, and upon this a succession of subjects is embroidered. On one cloth are (beginning at the left) (1) our Lord bearing his Cross; (2) being nailed to the Cross; (3) crucified, with the thieves on either side; (4) descending from the Cross; (5) entombed. The next cloth has (1) the descent into h.e.l.l; (2) the Maries going to the sepulchre; (3) the Maries at the tomb, the angel, and (4) the Resurrection. The effect of the whole work is like that of a brilliant German painting, and the figures are full of action and spirit, and have a great deal of expression in their faces. The diapered ground is made with gold thread, laid down in vertical lines, and then diapered with diagonal lines of fine bullion st.i.tched down over it to form the diaper. The gold is generally manufactured in a double twist, and borders and edgings are all done with a very bold twisted gold cord. The faces are all wrought in silk, and some of the dresses are of silk, lined all over with gold. The old border at the edge exists on one only of the frontals. The size of each is 3 ft. 1 in. by 10 ft. 2 in., and the date, as nearly as I can judge, must be about A.D. 1450. There is also preserved here a missal which once belonged to Westminster Abbey.
I could find no other church of any interest. There are several which have some old remains, but they are generally so damaged and decayed, that it is impossible to make anything of them. One I saw desecrated and occupied by the military, and was unable to enter; and there is another in a street leading out of the Calle de Caballeros, which has a very fine round-arched doorway, with three shafts in the jambs, and good thirteenth-century mouldings in the arch, and which is evidently of the same age as the south door of the cathedral. The capitals have each two wyverns fighting, and the abaci are well carved. The church, however, was desecrated, and no one knew how I could gain admission to it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Puerta de Serranos. Valencia.]
The walls and gates are of more interest. They are lofty, and generally well preserved. The two finest gates are the Puerta de Serranos, and that del Cuarte. The former, said by Ford[263] to have been built in A.D. 1349, is a n.o.ble erection. Two grand polygonal towers flank the entrance archway, which is recessed in the centre. Above this the wall is covered with tracery panelling, and then a great projecting gallery or platform, supported on enormous corbels, is carried all round the three exposed sides of the gateway. The towers are carried up a considerable height above this gallery, and it is probable that there was originally a wooden construction over it, of the kind which M.
Viollet le Duc, in his treatise on military architecture, has shown to have been commonly adopted in fortifications of this age. The Puerta del Cuarte is of the same description, and has two circular flanking towers, but is less imposing, and is said to have been built in A.D. 1444. Both gateways are completely open at the back, enormous open arches, one above the other, rendering them useless for attack against the city; and the corbelled-out pa.s.sages at the top are not continued across the back.
The domestic remains here are of some importance. One feature of rather frequent occurrence is the window of two or three lights, divided by detached shafts. The earlier examples have simple trefoil heads, and sculptured capitals to the columns. In the later examples there are mouldings round the cusped head, and the abaci and capitals are carved: but it is a very curious fact, that wherever I saw any old towns on the coast of the Mediterranean, there I always saw some specimens of this later kind of window, with detail and carving so identical in character, that I was almost driven to the conclusion that they were all executed in the same place, and sent about the country to be fixed! Nevertheless, they are always very pretty, so that one ought not to grumble if they do occur a little too often. The shafts are generally of marble, and often coupled one behind the other.
The Arabs had a name for this cla.s.s of windows, and as we have not, and want one, it may be as well to mention it. They are called _ajimez_, literally windows by which the sun enters. The Arabs seem to have supplied many of the architectural terms in use in Spain, and probably we owe them in this case not only the name, but the design also. Among other Arab words still in common use, I may mention Alcazar, Alcala, Tapia, and many more are given in vocabularies.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Ajimez Window. Valencia.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 33
VALENCIA. p. 270.
THE CASA LONJA.]
One of the earliest of these _ajimez_ windows is in a house on the east side of the cathedral; and a fine example of later date is in an old house in the Calle de Caballeros, the internal court and staircase of which are also picturesque, though hardly mediaeval. All the houses here seem to be built on the same plan, with the stables and offices on the ground floor, arranged round an internal court, an open stone staircase to the first floor, and the living-rooms above. The fronts towards the streets are generally rather gloomy and forbidding-looking, but the courts are always picturesque. The finest domestic building in the city is the Casa Lonja, or Exchange, which was commenced on the 7th November, 1482, the year in which the works at the cathedral were completed by Pedro Compte. There is no doubt, I believe, that he was the architect; and on March 19, 1498, he was appointed perpetual Alcaide of the Lonja, with a salary of thirty pounds (”libras”) a year. He was also ”Maestro Mayor” of the city, and was employed in several works of engineering on the rivers and streams of the district.[264] The main front of the Lonja is still very nearly as he left it, a fine specimen of late Spanish pointed work. The detail is of the same kind as, but simpler than, the contemporary works at Valladolid and Burgos, and there is a less determined display of heraldic achievements; though the great doorway, and the window on either side of it which open into the great hall, and which are so curiously grouped together by means of labels and string-courses, have some coats of arms and supporters rather irregularly placed in their side panels. The great parapet of the end, and the singular finish of the battlements, are very worthy of note, and give great richness to the whole building. The princ.i.p.al doorway leads into a fine groined hall, 130 feet long by 75 feet wide, divided into a quasi nave and aisles of five bays by eight columns, sculptured and spirally twisted. The portion of the building to the left of the centre is divided into three chambers in height, the upper and lower rooms being low, the central room lofty and well proportioned. The lower rooms have plain square windows; the next stage, windows of much loftier proportions, and with their square heads ornamented with a rich fringe of cusping. There are pointed discharging arches over them. The upper stage of this wing is extremely rich, the window-openings being pierced in a sort of continuous arcading, the pinnacles of which run up to and finish in the parapet. This parapet is enriched with circular medallions enclosing heads, a common Italian device, betokening here the hand of a man whose work was verging upon that of the Renaissance school. At the back is a garden, the windows and archways opening on which are of the same age as the front.
Valencia, though not containing any building of remarkable interest, is nevertheless well worth a visit: it is a busy city, full of picturesque colour and people. The _manta_ or rug worn by the peasants throughout Spain is here seen in perfection: it is of rich and very oriental colour, and charms the eye at every turn. I went into a shop and looked at a number of them, and there were none which were not thoroughly good in their colour; and, worn as they are by the sunburnt peasants, hanging loosely on one shoulder, they contrast splendidly with their white linen jackets and trousers, and swarthy skins. The river is, at any rate in the autumn, the broad dry bed only of a river, with here and there a puddle just deep enough for washerwomen. The water is all carried off to irrigate the fertile country around, and troops of cavalry and artillery, with their guns all drawn by fine mules, were hard at work exercising where it ought to have been. On the side of the river opposite to the city are some rather nice public gardens, with fine walks and drives planted with n.o.ble trees. A drive which begins here extends all the way to Grao, the port of Valencia, some two or three miles off. In the afternoon it seems to be always thronged with _tartanas_, carriages, and equestrians on their way to and from the sea: and each _tartana_ is full generally of a lively cargo of priests and peasants, men, women, and children, all laughing, cheerful, and picturesque. I went to Grao to embark on the steamer for Barcelona.
There is nothing to see there save the usual accompaniments of a sea-port, and the provision for a large and fas.h.i.+onable population of bathers from Madrid during the summer months. For their convenience small and very rude huts are put up on the beach, and left there to be destroyed by the winter storms. Not much is sacrificed, as they are of the very rudest description, and evidently devised for the use of people who go to Grao to be amused and to bathe, and not merely to show themselves off as fine ladies and gentlemen.
At Valencia the national love for the _mantilla_, which in courtly Madrid seems to be now half out of fas.h.i.+on, finds vent in the positive prohibition at one of the churches for any woman to enter who wears a bonnet in place of it!
CHAPTER XIII.
TARRAGONA.
No one should go from Valencia to Barcelona without paying a visit to Tarragona. It is even now easy of access, and before long will be still more accessible by means of the railway which is being made between the two towns. I travelled from Barcelona to Tarragona and back again by diligence, and both journeys, unfortunately, were made for the most part by night, so that I am unable to speak very positively about the scenery upon the road. But both on leaving Barcelona and again before I reached Tarragona the road was very beautiful, and I have no doubt it would reward any one who could contrive to give up more time and daylight to it than I could. There is but one town of any importance on the road--Villafranca de Panades,--and here I caught a glimpse of an old church, which seemed to be of the fourteenth-century Catalan type, and fully to deserve examination.
The approach to Tarragona is very lovely. The old city stands on the steep slope of a hill, crowned by the stately mediaeval cathedral, and surrounded on all sides by walls, which are still very perfect and in some parts unusually lofty and imposing. Below and beyond the walls to the left, as you approach, is the mean and modern town which covers a low promontory, and is now the centre of all the trade and business of the city. A broad street, in which are the princ.i.p.al inns, divides the two halves of the city, on the upper side of which the whole architectural interest is centred. The views on all sides are beautiful.
Looking back to the east one sees hill after hill, ending in point after point, which jut out into the sea one beyond the other, and, combining with the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean, produce the most charming picture. To the south, looking over the modern town, mole, and harbour, is the sea; whilst to the west the eye wanders, well content, over a rich green expanse of level land, studded all along its breadth with rich growth of trees, till the view is bounded by the hills which rise beyond the old town of Reus, now an active and enterprising centre of manufacturing industry.
I ought, no doubt, to fill many pages here with an account of the Roman antiquities, which are numerous and important, Tarragona having been one of the most important Roman stations in Spain. But they have been often described, and the time at my disposal allowed only of a hurried glance at them, unless I chose to neglect in their favour the--to me--much more interesting Christian remains, which I need hardly say I was not prepared to do. The city walls are, I believe, to a considerable extent Roman. There are remains--though but slight--of an amphitheatre; the magnificent aqueduct, some little distance from the city, is one of the finest in Europe; and, finally, there is a museum full of Roman antiquities, which seem well to deserve due examination. But I was obliged to neglect all these, giving them the most cursory inspection, as I found in the cathedral ample occupation for every minute of my time.
This is certainly one of the most n.o.ble and interesting churches I have seen in Spain. It is one of a cla.s.s of which I have seen others upon a somewhat smaller scale (as _e.g._ the cathedrals at Lerida and Tudela), and which appears to me, after much study of old buildings in most parts of Europe, to afford one of the finest types, from every point of view, that it is possible to find. It produces in a very marked degree an extremely impressive internal effect, without being on an exaggerated scale, and combines in the happiest fas.h.i.+on the greatest solidity of construction with a lavish display of ornament in some parts, to which it is hard to find a parallel. Unfortunately the doc.u.mentary evidence that I have been able to find as to the age of the various portions of this church is not so complete as I could wish. A very elaborate and painstaking history of the city is in course of publication; but when I was there[265] the first volume only of this had been published, and this was confined entirely to the Roman antiquities contained in the Museum and other collections. The volume of Espana Sagrada, which relates to Tarragona, contains but few doc.u.ments of any value, and I have been unable to put my hands upon any other which contains any at all. Yet there cannot be much doubt that a see whose history is so important, and whose rank is so high,[266] must have in its archives a vast store of information, out of which might be gathered all the material facts as to the foundation of, and additions to, the church.
A few notices of the building of the cathedral have, however, come under my eye, and of these the most important are the following:--In A.D.
1089[267] Pope Urban II. addressed an epistle to the faithful, recommending them to aid in every way in the restoration of the church, which had then just been recovered from the hands of the Moors. Not long after this, in A.D. 1131, Pope Innocent II. issued a Bull, wherein he recommended the suffragan churches to contribute to the cost of rebuilding the cathedral.[268] More than a century after this, works were again in progress, for in the necrology of the cathedral, on 11th March, 1256, mention is made of ”Frater Bernardus, magister operis hujus ecclesiae;” whilst again, in 1298, Maestro Bartolome is mentioned as the sculptor who wrought nine statues of the apostles for the western facade, the remainder having been executed by Maestro Jayme Castayls in 1375.
Comparing this cathedral with that of Lerida, of which the date is tolerably well ascertained, it is difficult to p.r.o.nounce decidedly which is the oldest, except that the eastern apse here, which is very peculiar in its character, has every appearance of being a work of the middle of the twelfth century, at the latest, and earlier by far, therefore, than the foundation of the church of Lerida, which was not commenced until A.D. 1203, and which was finished and consecrated in A.D. 1278. I believe, indeed, that the eastern part of this cathedral may most probably have been commenced about A.D. 1131, in consequence of the Bull of Innocent II., though the greater portion of the fabric (including the nave and its aisles and the cloister) seems to me to have been executed at the end of the twelfth and during the first half of the thirteenth century; and it is very possible, therefore, that the Brother Bernardus, who died in 1256, may have been the architect of the larger part of the existing fabric, both of the church and its cloister.