Part 22 (1/2)
Another old building--the Lonja or Exchange--was built near the sea in A.D. 1383.[311] But everything old has been completely destroyed, with the one exception of its grand hall, which still does service as of old.
This consists of three naves, divided by lofty and slender columns, which carry stilted semi-circular arches. The ceiling is flat, of the same description as that of the Sala Consistorial. The dimensions are about 100 feet in length by 75 feet in width.
Another great building, founded soon after, circa 1444, was intended for a cloth-hall:[312] in 1514 it was converted into an armoury, and subsequently into a residence for the Captains-General of Cataluna; it has been completely modernized throughout the exterior, and I did not see the interior.
Cean Bermudez mentions an interesting fact about the construction of the old Mole. It was built, he says, by Estacio, a famous hydraulic architect of Alexandria, in A.D. 1477; and the city authorities took counsel about it with the most learned professors of Syracuse, Rhodes, and Candia.
CHAPTER XV.
GERONA--PERPInAN--S. ELNE.
There are few Spanish towns which are altogether more interesting than the now insignificant and little-known city of Gerona. It not only contains several buildings of rare architectural interest, but it has, moreover, the advantage of being picturesquely placed on the banks of the rapid river Ona, and on the steep slope of the hills which bound it.
The Cathedral is the first object of attraction, and its history is so curious, that I need make no apology for proceeding without further preface to say the substance of what I have been able to learn about it.
There was a cathedral here at a very early period; and when Gerona was taken by the Moors, they converted it into a mosque, but, with their usual liberality, allowed the services of the Church still to be carried on in the neighbouring church of San Feliu, which for a time, accordingly, was the cathedral church. In A.D. 1015 this state of affairs had ceased, owing to the expulsion of the Moors, and the cathedral was again recovered to the use of the Church. Considerable works were at this time executed,[313] if, indeed, the cathedral was not entirely rebuilt, as the old doc.u.ments declare, and the altered church was re-consecrated in A.D. 1038,[314] by the Archbishop of Narbonne, a.s.sisted by the Bishops of Vique, Urgel, Elne, Barcelona, Carca.s.sonne, and others. In A.D. 1310 works seem to have been again in progress,[315]
and in A.D. 1312 a Chapter was held, at which it was resolved to rebuild the head or chevet of the church with nine chapels,[316] for which, in A.D. 1292, Guillermo Gaufredo, the treasurer, made a bequest in favour of the work.[317] In A.D. 1325 I find that an indulgence was granted by the Bishop Petrus de Urrea in favour of donors to the work of the cathedral;[318] and the work, so far westward as the end of the choir, was probably complete before A.D. 1346, inasmuch as in this year the silver altar, with its Retablo and baldachin, were placed where they now stand.[319] We know something of the architects employed during the fourteenth century upon the works just mentioned. In 1312 the Chapter appointed the Archdeacon Ramon de Vilarico and the Canon Arnaldo de Montredon to be the _obreros_ or general clerical superintendents of the progress of the works. In A.D. 1316, or, according to some authorities, in February, 1320, an architect--Enrique of Narbonne--is first mentioned; and soon after this, on his death, another architect of the same city, Jacobo de Favariis by name, was appointed with a salary of two hundred and fifty libras[320] a quarter, and upon the condition that he should come from Narbonne six times a year[321] to examine the progress of the works. In A.D. 1325 Bart. Argenta was the master of the works, and he probably carried them on until the completion of the choir in 1346.[322]
In A.D. 1395 it was proposed to erect a Chapter-house, and the canons in charge of the fabric (”canonigos fabriqueros”) presented in writing their reasons for not erecting it where proposed by the Chapter--at the south end of the refectory. They said that the works of the church itself ought first of all to be gone on with, and that the proposed work would destroy a good and convenient refectory, and make it obscure and ridiculous: and it seems that their report had the effect of staying the work. In A.D. 1416 Guillermo Boffiy, master of the works of the cathedral, proposed a plan for its completion by the erection of a nave; and though the chevet had an aisle and chapels round it, he proposed to build his nave of the same width as the choir and its aisles, but as a single nave without aisles. This proposition was deemed so hazardous, and created so great a discussion, that the Chapter, before deciding what plan should be adopted, called together a Junta of architects, and propounded to each of them separately certain questions, to each of which they all returned their answers upon oath. In the September following, these answers were read before the Chapter by a notary, and it may be supposed carefully digested, for it was not until March 8th, 1417, that Guillermo Boffiy, the master of the works, was called in and in his turn interrogated with the same questions. Immediately after this, on the 15th of the same month, at a Chapter-meeting presided over by the Bishop, it was decided to carry on the work as proposed, with a single nave. The story is so well worth telling in full, that I have given in the Appendix a translation of the entire doc.u.ment, which equals in interest any with which I am acquainted, bearing on the profession of architect in the middle ages.[323] It is valuable also, incidentally, as giving us the names of the architects of several other buildings, most of those who were examined having described themselves in a formal style as masters of the works of some particular church or churches. It is difficult to say exactly when the nave was completed, but the great south door was not executed until A.D. 1458, and the key-stone of the last division of the vault seems to have been placed in the time of Bishop Benito, so late as circa 1579.[324] In A.D. 1581 the same bishop laid the first stone of the bell-tower, and in 1607 the west front and the great flight of steps leading up to it seem to have been commenced.
We have thus the story of the periods at which the church was founded, altered, and enlarged very fully told, and it now only remains to apply it to what is still to be seen in the existing building.
A reference to my ground-plan[325] will show that the church remains very much in the state which the doc.u.mentary evidence describes. The choir has nine chapels round its chevet, as described, and has lofty arches, a series of very small openings in lieu of triforium, and a clerestory of two-light windows, of decidedly late but still good Middle-pointed character. The columns, in the usual Catalan fas.h.i.+on of this age, are cl.u.s.ters of rather reedy mouldings, with no proper division or subordination of parts, and consequently of poor effect, and there is no division by way of stringcourses above or below the triforium. On the exterior the east end is not seen to much advantage, as it is built into and against a steep hill, so that at a distance of a few feet only the eye is on a level with the top of the walls of the chapels round the apse. The roofs, too, have all been modernized and lowered. The only peculiarities here are a series of trefoiled openings, just under the eaves of the roof, into the s.p.a.ce over the vaulting, and perhaps devised for the purpose of ventilation: and the gurgoyles projecting from the b.u.t.tresses, which are carved and moulded stones finished at the end with an octagonal capital, through the bottom of which the water falls, and which almost looks as if it were meant for the stone head of a metal down-pipe.
When the choir was built, some considerable portions of the church consecrated in A.D. 1038 were left standing. The nave was probably entirely of this age; and a portion of what was no doubt one of the original towers still remains on the north side, between the cloister and the nave. This tower has pilasters at the angles and in the centre, and is divided into equal stages in height by horizontal corbel-tables.
An apse of the same age remains on the east side of what seems to have been the south transept of the early church: and from its position we may, I think, a.s.sume with safety that the church was then finished with three or five apses at the east, very much as in the church of San Pedro, close by, which I shall have presently to describe. In addition to these early remains there is also a magnificent and all but unaltered cloister. I cannot find any certain evidence of its exact date, though it seems to have existed in A.D. 1117, when an act of the Bishop Raymond Berenger was issued in the ”cloister of the cathedral.”[326] The character of the work confirms, I think, this date.
The plan is very peculiar, forming a very irregular trapezium, no two of the sides being equal in length. It has on all four sides severely simple round arches carried on coupled shafts: these are of marble, and set as much as 20 inches apart, so as to enable them to carry a wall 3 feet 1 inches thick. This thickness of wall was quite necessary, as the cloister is all roofed with stone, the section of the vaults on the east, west, and south sides being half of a barrel, and on the north a complete barrel vault. The detail of the capitals is of the extremely elaborate and delicate imitation of cla.s.sical carving, so frequently seen throughout the south of France. The abaci are in one stone, but the bases of the shafts are separate and rest upon a low dwarf-wall, and square piers are carried up at intervals to strengthen the arcade. The columns have a very slight entasis.
This cloister deserves careful study, as it seems to show one of the main branches of the stream by which Romanesque art was introduced into Spain. It is impossible not to recognize the extreme similarity between such work as we see here, and that which we see in the cloister at Elne, near Perpinan, and, to go still farther afield, at S. Trophime at Arles.
And if any Spanish readers of these pages object to my a.s.sumption that the stream flowed from France westward, they must prove the exact converse, and a.s.sume that this Romanesque work was developed from Roman work in Spain, and thence spread to Elne and Arles, a position which none, I suppose, will be bold enough to take.
The nave remains to be described; and to do this well and adequately, it is necessary to use, not indeed many, but certainly strong, words.
Guillermo Boffiy, master of the works, might well cling fondly to his grand scheme, for his proposal was not less, I believe, than the erection of the widest pointed vault in Christendom. Such a scheme might be expected to meet then in Spain, as it most certainly would now in this country,[327] a good deal of criticism, and many objections, on the score of its impracticability; and it is to the honour of the Chapter that they had the good sense to consult experts and not amateurs as to the steps to be taken, and then, having satisfied themselves that their architect was competent to his work, that they left it entirely in his hands.
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 41
GERONA CATHEDRAL p. 322
INTERIOR LOOKING EAST]
The clear width of this nave is 73 feet, and its height is admirably proportioned to this vast dimension.[328] It is only four bays in length; each bay has chapels opening into it on either side, and filling up the s.p.a.ce between the enormous b.u.t.tresses, whose depth from the front of the groining shaft to their face is no less than 20 feet. Above the arches which open into the side chapels is a row of small cusped openings, corresponding with those which form the triforium of the choir; and above these are lofty traceried clerestory windows. The groining-ribs are very large and well moulded. At the east end of the nave three arches open into the choir and its aisles; and above these are three circular windows, the largest of which has lost its tracery.
And here it is that the magnificence of the scheme is most fully realized. A single nave and choir, all of the same enormous size, would have been immeasurable by the eye, and would have been, to a great extent, thrown away; here, however, the lofty choir and aisles, with their many subdivisions, give an extraordinary impression of size to the vast vault of the nave, and make it look even larger than it really is.
In short, had this nave been longer by one bay, I believe that scarcely any interior in Europe could have surpa.s.sed it in effect. Unfortunately, as is so often the case among those who possess the most precious works of art, there is now but little feeling in Gerona for the treasure it possesses in this wondrous nave, for the stalls and Coro have been moved down from their proper place into the middle of its length, where they are shut in and surrounded by a high blank screen, painted in the vulgarest imitation of Gothic traceries, to the utter ruin, of course, of the whole internal perspective. It would be a grand and simple work of restoration to give up here, for once, the Spanish usage, and to restore the stalls to the proper choir. I say ”restore,” because it is pretty clear that they could not have been in the nave when they were first made, inasmuch as this was in A.D. 1351, sixty-six years before its commencement. A deed still remains in the archives of the cathedral, by which we ascertain this fact, for by it a sculptor from Barcelona agreed, on June 7th, 1351, to make the stalls at the rate of 45 libras of Barcelona for each.[329] The detail of some parts of the woodwork is exceedingly good, and evidently of the middle of the fourteenth century, so that it is clear they are the very stalls referred to in the agreement. There is ample length in the proper choir for them, and they must have been moved into the nave in unwise obedience to the common modern Spanish arrangement, which was certainly never more entirely unfortunate and destructive of effect than it is here.
It will be seen, by reference to the Appendix, that though the architects consulted were fairly unanimous as to the possibility of building the single nave, they were by no means so in their recommendation of it as the best plan. The general feeling seems to have been decidedly adverse to it; and we may a.s.sume that the Chapter decided on it partly because it was already commenced, and partly because it promised to be a cheaper plan than the other. There seems also to have been great dread on the part of the Chapter of interfering in any way with the wall which now forms the east end of the nave, for fear lest, when it was cut into for the introduction of the respond of the nave arcade, the whole should give way.
Paschasius de Xulbe, one of the architects questioned, gives the valuable answer, that if the nave is of triple division in width, the groining of the choir must be raised in order that it may correspond in its measurements to its third; from which it is pretty clear that he spoke of a then recognized system of proportioning the height to the width of a building.