The Cathedrals of Northern Spain

It is a la mode to write prefaces. Some of us write good ones, others bad, and most of us write neither good nor bad ones.

The chapter entitled "General Remarks" is the real introduction to the book, so in these lines I shall pen a few words of self-introduction to such readers as belong to the class to whom I have dedicated this volume.

My love for Spain is unbounded. As great as is my love for the people, so great also is my depreciation for those who have wronged her, being her sons. Who are they? They know that best themselves.

Spain's architecture is both agreeable and disagreeable, but it is all of it peculiarly Spanish. A foreigner, dropping as by accident across the Pyrenees from France, can do nothing better than criticize all architectural monuments he meets with in a five days' journey across Spain with a Cook's ticket in his pocketbook. It is natural he should do so. Everything is so totally different from the pure (sic) styles he has learned to admire in France!

But we who have lived years in Spain grow to like and admire just such complex compositions as the cathedrals of Toledo, of Santiago, and La Seo in Saragosse; we lose our narrow-mindedness, and fail to see why a pure Gothic or an Italian Renaissance should be better than an Iberian cathedral. As long as harmony exists between the different parts, all is well. The moment this harmony does not exist, our sense of the artistically beautiful is shocked--and the building is a bad one.

Personality is consequently ever uppermost in all art criticism or admiration. But it should not be influenced by the words pure, flawless, etc. Were such to be the case, there would be but one good cathedral in Spain, namely, that of Leon, a French temple built by foreigners on Spanish soil. Yet nothing is less Spanish than the cathedral of Leon.

Under the circumstances, it is necessary, upon visiting Spain, to discard foreignisms and turn a Spaniard, if but for a few days. Otherwise the tourist will not understand the country's art monuments, and will be inclined to leave the peninsula as he entered it, not a whit the wiser for having come.

To help the traveller to understand the whys and wherefores of Spanish architecture, I have written the "Introductory Studies." I hope they will enable him to become a Spaniard, or, at least, to join the enthusiastic army of Hispanofilos.

C. RUDY.

MADRID, July, 1905

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

PART I. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES

I. General Remarks 11

II. Historical Arabesques 18

III. Architectural Arabesques 35

IV. Conclusion 66

PART II. GALICIA

I. Santiago de Campostela 75

II. Corunna 89

III. Mondonedo 95

IV. Lugo 102

V. Orense 110

VI. Tuy 120

VII. Bayona and Vigo 131

PART III. THE NORTH

I. Oviedo 137

II. Covadonga 145

III. Leon 150

IV. Astorga 167

V. Burgos 174

VI. Santander 188

VII. Vitoria 192

VIII. Upper Rioja 196

IX. Soria 209

PART IV. WESTERN CASTILE

I. Palencia 219

II. Zamora 230

III. Toro 244

IV. Salamanca 251

V. Ciudad Rodrigo 269

VI. Coria 278

VII. Plasencia 284

PART V. EASTERN CASTILE

I. Valladolid 293

II. Avila 302

III. Segovia 312

IV. Madrid-Alcala 321

V. Sigueenza 335

VI. Cuenca 342

VII. Toledo 349

Appendix 369

Index 387

[Note of Transcriber of the ebook]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Leon Cathedral (See page 154) Frontispiece

Cloister Stalls in a Monastic Church at Leon 48

Typical Retablo (Palencia) 50

Mudejar Architecture (Sahagun) 64

Santiago and Its Cathedral 82

Church of Santiago, Corunna 92

General View of Mondonedo 96

Mondonedo Cathedral 98

Northern Portal of Orense Cathedral 116

Tuy Cathedral 128

Oviedo Cathedral 140

Cloister of Oviedo Cathedral 144

Apse of San Isidoro, Leon 164

Burgos Cathedral 180

Crypt of Santander Cathedral 190

Cloister of Najera Cathedral 202

Santa Maria la Redonda, Logrono 204

Western Front of Calahorra Cathedral 207