Читать книгу Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain - George Edmund Street - Страница 14

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THE road from Leon to Astorga is bad, and traverses a very uninteresting country. A good part of the old walls of Astorga still remains, with the usual array of lofty round towers at short intervals: they were in process of partial demolition when I saw them, and I noticed that they were in part constructed with what appeared to be fragments of Roman buildings. There is a rather picturesque Plaza de la Constitucion here, one end of it being occupied by a quaint town-hall of the seventeenth century, through an archway in the centre of which one of the streets opens into the Plaza. A number of bells are hung in picturesque slated turrets on the roof, and some of them are struck by figures.

The only old church I saw was the cathedral. A stone here is inscribed with the following words in Spanish: “In 1471, on the 16th of August, the first stone of the new work of this holy church was laid;” and there is no doubt that the church is all of about this date, with some additions,—chiefly, however, of Retablos and other furniture,—in the two following centuries. The character of the whole design is necessarily in the very latest kind of Gothic; and much of the detail, especially on the exterior, is quite Renaissance in its character. The east end is finished with three parallel apses, and the nave is some seven or eight bays in length, with towers projecting beyond the aisles at the west end, and chapels opening into the aisles between the buttresses. The light is admitted by windows in the aisles over the chapel arches, and by a large clerestory. These windows are fortunately filled with a good deal of fine early Renaissance glass, which, though not all that might be wished in drawing and general treatment, is still remarkable for its very fine colour. Arches of the same height as the groining of the aisles open into the towers, the interior view across which produces the effect of a sort of western transept, corresponding with a similar transept between the nave and the apsidal choir. The detail is throughout very similar to that of the better known cathedrals at Segovia and Salamanca, the section of the columns being like a bundle of reeds, with ingeniously planned interpenetrating base mouldings, multiplied to such an extent that they finish at a height of no less that ten feet from the floor. Another evidence of the late character of the work is given by the arch mouldings, which die against and interpenetrate those of the columns, there being no capitals. Beyond a certain stateliness of height and colour which this small cathedral has in common with most other Spanish works of the same age, there is but little to detain or interest an architect. But stateliness and good effects of light and shade are so very rare in modern works, that we can ill afford to regard a building which shows them as being devoid of merit or interest.

From Astorga the road soon begins to rise, and the scenery thenceforward for the remainder of the journey to la Coruña becomes always interesting, and sometimes extremely beautiful. The country can hardly be said to be mountainous, yet the hills are on a scale far beyond what we are accustomed to; and the grand sweep of the hill sides, covered occasionally with wood, and intersected by deep valleys, makes the whole journey most pleasant. One of the prettiest spots on the road, before reaching Villafranca, is the little village of Torre, where a quaint bridge spans the brawling trout-stream; and where the thick cluster of squalid cottages atones to the traveller, in some degree, by its picturesqueness, for the misery in which the people live. They seem to be terribly ill off, and their chimneyless hovels—pierced only with a door and one very small window or hole in the wall, into which all the light, and out of both of which all the smoke have to find their way—are of the worst description. The village churches appear to be, almost without exception, very mean; and all have the broad western bell-turret, so popular in this part of Spain.

In ten hours from Astorga, passing Ponferrada on the way, from the hill above which the view is very fine, Villafranca del Vierzo is reached; and this is the only place of any importance on the road. Its situation is charming, on a fine trout-stream, along whose beautiful banks the road runs for a considerable distance; and it is the proper centre for excursions to the convents of the Vierzo, of which Mr. Ford gives an account which made me anxious to examine them, though unfortunately the time at my disposal put it completely out of the question. These old towns, of the second or third rank, have a certain amount of picturesque character, though far less than might be expected of external evidence of their antiquity. Here, indeed, the picturesqueness is mainly the result of the long tortuous streets, and the narrow bridges over the beautiful river, which make the passage of a diligence so much of an adventure, as to leave the passengers grateful when they have gained with safety the other side of the town. The Alameda here is pleasantly planted; and the town boasts of an inn which is just good enough to make it quite possible for an ecclesiologist to use it as headquarters in a visit to the convents of the Vierzo, whilst any one who is so fortunate as to be both fisherman and ecclesiologist could scarcely be better placed.

Villafranca has one large, uninteresting, and very late Gothic church, into which I could not get admission; the other churches seemed to be all Renaissance in style.

I arrived at Lugo after a journey of more than thirty hours from Leon. Like Astorga it is surrounded with a many-towered wall, which still seems to be perfect throughout its whole extent. The road passes along under it, half round the town, until at last it turns in through an archway, and reaches the large Plaza of San Domingo, in which is the diligence Fonda. This was so unusually dirty even to the eyes and nose of a tolerably well-seasoned traveller, that I was obliged to look for a lodging, which, after a short search, I discovered; and if it was not much better, it was still a slight improvement on the inn. In these towns lodgings are generally to be found; and as they are free from the abominable scent of the mules, which pervades every part of all the inns, they are often to be preferred to them. Mine was in a narrow street leading out of the great arcaded Plaza, which, on the day of my arrival, was full of market-people, selling and buying every kind of commodity; and on the western side of this Plaza stands the cathedral.

This is a church of very considerable architectural value and interest. It was commenced early in the twelfth century, under the direction of a certain Maestro Raymundo, of Monforte de Lemos. His contract with the bishop and canons was dated A.D. 1129; and by this it was agreed that he should be paid an annual salary of two hundred sueldos of the money then current; and if there was any change in its value, then he was to be paid six marks of silver, thirty-six yards of linen, seventeen “cords” of wood, shoes and gaiters as he had need of them; and each month two sueldos for meat, a measure of salt, and a pound of candles. Master Raymundo accepted these conditions, and bound himself to assist at the work all the days of his life; and if he died before its completion, his son was to finish it.[132]

The church built by Raymundo is said to have been finished in A.D. 1177,[133] and still in part no doubt remains.[134] It consists of a nave and aisles of ten bays in length, transepts, and a short apsidal choir, with aisle and chapels round it. The large central eastern chapel is an addition made in A.D. 1764; and the west front is a very poor work of about the same period. There is an open porch in front of the north transept, and a steeple on its eastern side.

The design and construction of the nave and aisles is very peculiar, and must be compared with that of the more important, cathedral at Santiago. This had been finished, so far as the fabric was concerned, in the previous year, and evidently suggested the mode of construction adopted at Lugo.

Here the arches, with few exceptions, are pointed; but otherwise the design of the two churches is just the same. The nave has a pointed barrel-vault; the triforium, however, has quadripartite vaulting throughout, in place of the half barrel-vaults used at Santiago; and the buttresses externally are connected by a series of arches below the eaves. The triforium consists in each bay of two pointed arches under a round enclosing arch, carried upon coupled shafts, which have rudely sculptured capitals. The five eastern bays of the nave appear at first sight to have no arches opening into the aisles; but upon closer examination the outline of some low arches will be found behind the stall work of the Coro. These arches are all blocked up; but if they were originally open they are so low that they could not have made the effect very different from what it now is. It looks, in fact, at first sight, as if the present arrangement of the Coro were that for which the church was originally built, and as if the nave proper was always that part only of the church to the west of the present Coro which opens to the aisles with simple pointed arches of the whole height of the aisle. But on further examination we find that the vaulting of the aisles in the four eastern bays is a round waggon-vault, and this, of course, limited the height to which it was possible to raise the arches between the aisle and the nave; and it is therefore probable that their height is not to be attributed so much to the wish to define a Coro in the nave, as to the fault of the architect, who did not at first perceive the advantage of using a quadripartite vault instead of a waggon-vault. The three bays west of these have the former kind of vaulting without ribs, and with windows both larger and higher from the floor than the simple round-arched openings which light the four eastern bays. The eighth and ninth bays are evidently rather later than the rest; and the western bays, again, are quite subsequent additions. The crossing has a quadripartite vault, and the transepts waggon-vaults like those of the nave.

No. 15. LUGO CATHEDRAL. p. 131. INTERIOR OF TRANSEPT, LOOKING NORTH-WEST.

[larger view] [largest view]

It is pretty clear that the work was commenced upon the scheme which we still see in the bays next the crossing, and carried on gradually with alterations as the work went on, and probably as it went on the architect discovered the mistake he was making in confining himself to waggon-vaulting in the aisles. It is somewhat remarkable that, with the example of Santiago so near, such a scheme should ever have been devised, unless, indeed, the work was commenced earlier than the date assigned, of which I see no evidence.

The choir shows the same gradual variation in style; and I have considerable difficulty in assigning a precise date to it. It is clear, however, that the whole of it is of much later date than the original foundation of the cathedral; and it is probable, I think, that it was reconstructed in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The windows in the chapels of the chevet are of two lights, with a small quatrefoil pierced in the tympanum above the lights. The mouldings of the groining are extremely bold and simple. The aisle-vaulting, too, is very simple and of early-pointed character, whilst the clustered columns round the apse look somewhat later. There is, however, no mark of alterations or additions; and I think, therefore, that the whole of this work must be of the same date, and that the difference visible between the various parts of it may be put down to the long lingering of those forms of art which had been once imported into this distant province, and to the consequent absence of development. The sculpture of the capitals in the chevet is nowhere, I think, earlier than about the end of the thirteenth century, though that in the chapels round it, being very simple, looks rather earlier.

Unfortunately all the upper part of the choir was rebuilt about the same time that the eastern chapel was added. It has strange thin ogee flying buttresses, large windows, and a painted ceiling.

Here, as at San Isidoro, Leon, the Host is always exposed, and, as I have mentioned before, two priests are always in attendance at faldstools on each side of the Capilla mayor in front of the altar.

The interior, of course, has been much damaged by the destruction of the old clerestory of the choir. It is, nevertheless, still very impressive, and much of its fine effect is owing to the contrast between the bright light of the nave and the obscure gloom of the long aisles on either side of the Coro. The length of the nave, too, is unusually great in proportion to the size of the church; and though much of the sculpture is rude in execution, it is still not without effect on the general character of the building.

On the north side of the nave a chapel has been added, which preserves the external arrangement of the windows and buttresses in the earliest part of the building, as they are now enclosed within and protected by it. The simple and rather rude buttresses are carried up and finished under the eaves’ corbel-tables with arches between them, so as to make a continuous arcade the whole length of the building on either side.

The north doorway is of the same age as the early part of the church, and has a figure of our Lord within a vesica in the tympanum, and the Last Supper carved on a pendant below it. The head of the door-opening is very peculiar, having a round arch on either side of this central pendant. The door has some rather good ironwork. The porch in front of it is a work of the fifteenth century, or perhaps later, and is open on three sides.