Chapter 12

To judge from the ruins as well as from well-preserved edifices, Romanesque days must have been full of great architectural activity. One is constantly reminded of Toledo in climbing up and down the narrow streets, where one must often turn aside or find progress barred by Romanesque and Gothic courtyards or smelly culs-de-sac. Everywhere are Romanesque portals and arches, palaces and the apses and circular chapels of the age, bulging beyond the sidewalks into the cobblestones of the street. They seem indeed venerable. Some of the old palaces present a curious all-over design executed in Moorish manner and with Moorish feeling. It is carved into the sidewalk, showing in relief a geometrical, circular pattern, each circle filled with a quantity of small Gothic lancets, surely difficult both to design and to execute. Some of the old parish churches stand with their deep splays, round-headed arches and windows and broad, recessed portals almost as perfectly preserved as a thousand years ago. The Romanesque style died late and hard. Even in the thirteenth century, the city could boast thirty such parish churches. To-day they seem fairly prayer-worn. Beyond their towers stretch the plains in every direction, seamed by stone walls and dotted with gray rocks. Olive and poplar groves cluster round the small hillocks, rising here and there like camels' backs.

As long as the welfare and development of the city depended on strong natural fortifications, Segovia remained intact. To the twelfth and thirteenth centuries belongs her glory. Her power passed with the middle ages and their chivalry, and in the sixteenth century she was a dead city.

Villages, convents and churches lie scattered over the plain, the houses crowded together for protection against the blazing, scorching, pitiless sun. Standing by itself is the ancient and severe church, where many a knight-templar kept his last vigil before turning his back on the plains of Castile, and apart sleeps the monastery where Torquemada was once prior. They all crumble golden brown against the horizon.

Many a bloody fray or revolution upset the city during the middle ages. The minority of Alfonso XI witnessed one of the worst. The revolt which broke out in so many of the Spanish cities against the Emperor Charles V, proved most fatal to the Cathedral of Segovia.

The first Romanesque Cathedral had been built in honor of St. Mary, under the walls of the Alcazar, during the first half of the twelfth century. It was consecrated in 1228 by the papal legate, Juan, Bishop of Sabina. Some two hundred and fifty years later, a new and magnificent Gothic cloister was added to it by Bishop Juan Arias Davila, and likewise a new episcopal palace more fitting times of greater luxury and magnificence. This palace, despite the coming translation of the Cathedral itself, remained the abode of the bishops for the three following centuries. In the new cloisters a banquet of reconciliation was celebrated in 1474 by Henry IV and the Catholic Kings. It was held on the very spot whence Isabella had started in state on a journey proving so eventful in the history not only of Castile but of the entire Peninsula and countries beyond. Three years after the furious struggle which took place around the entrance of the Alcazar, Charles V issued the following proclamation:--

"The King: To the Aldermen, Justices, Councillors, Knights, Men-at-arms, Officials, and good Burghers of the city of Segovia. The reverend Father in Christ, Bishop of the church of this city, has told me how he and the Chapter of his church believe that it would be well to move the Cathedral church to the plaza of the city on the site of Santa Clara, and that the parish of San Miguel of the plaza should be incorporated in the Cathedral church; and this, because when the said Cathedral church is placed in a situation where the divine services may be more advantageously held, our Saviour will be better served and the people will receive much benefit and the city become much ennobled; it appears to me good that this plan should be carried out, desiring the good and ennoblement and welfare of the said city because of the loyalty and services I have always found in it, therefore I command and request that you unite with the said Bishop or his representative and the Chapter of said church and all talk freely together about this and see what will be best for the good of the said city, and at the same time consider the assistance that the said city could itself render, and after discussion, forward me the results of your combined judgment, in order that I better may see and decide what will be for the best service of Our Lord, Ourselves, and the welfare of the city. Dated in Madrid, the 2d day of October, in the year 1510.--I, the King."

While the discussion of the feasibility and expense of commencing an entirely new cathedral upon a new site nearer the heart of the city was at its height, the revolt of the Comunidades broke out, in 1520, and swept away in its burning and pillaging course the Romanesque edifice. This stood at the entrance to the fortress, where the fight naturally raged hottest. Only a very few of the most sacred images, relics and bones were carried to safety within the walls of the Alcazar before the old pile had been practically destroyed. Segovia was without a Cathedral church.

In the centre of the city, on the very crest of the hill, lay the only clearing within the walls. Here at one end of the plaza was the site of the convent mentioned by Emperor Charles, which had long sheltered the nuns of Santa Clara. They had abandoned it for other quarters, and the adjacent convent of San Miguel had become unpopular and was dwindling into insignificance. Both could thus in this most free and commanding location give way to a new and larger cathedral, distant from what would always prove the rallying point of civic strife. Following the mighty wave of revolt which had swept the city, came a great receding wave of religious enthusiasm to atone in holy fervor for the impious act recently committed. Citizen and noble alike proposed to build an edifice which would be much more to the glory of Saint Mary than the shrine which they had so recently pulled down. Lords gave whole villages; women, their jewels; and the citizens, the sweat of their brows. We find in the archives of the Cathedral the following entry by the Canon Juan Ridriguez[b]:

"On June 8th, 1522, ... by the consent and resolution of the Lord Bishop D. Diego de Rovera and of the Dean and Chapter of the said church, it was agreed to commence the new work of the said church to the glory of God and in honor of the Virgin Mary and the glorious San Frutos and all saints, taking for master of the said work Juan Gil de Hontañon, and for his clerk of the works Garcia de Cubillas. Thursday, the 8th of June, 1552, the Bishop ordered a general procession with the Dean and Chapter, clergy and all the religious orders."

The corner stone was laid and the masonry started at the western end under the most renowned architect of the age. Juan Gil had already worked on the old Segovian Cathedral, but had achieved his great fame on the new Cathedral of Salamanca, started ten years previously, whose walls were rising with astounding rapidity. His clerk was almost equally skilled, always working in perfect harmony with his master and carrying out his designs without jealousy during the "maestro's" many illnesses and journeys to and from Salamanca. Garcia lived to work on the church until 1562, and the old archives still hold many drawings from his skillful hand.

The two late Gothic Cathedrals are so similar in many points that they are immediately recognizable as the conception of the same brain. Segovia is, however, infinitely superior, not only in the magnificent development of the eastern end with its semicircular apse, ambulatory, and radiating apsidal chapels, as compared with the square termination of Salamanca, but, throughout, in the restrained quality of its detail and the refinement of its ornamentation. How far the abrupt and uninteresting apsidal termination of Salamanca was Juan Gil's fault, it is difficult to say, for we find records of its having been imposed upon him by the Chapter as well as of his having drawn a circular apse. Fortunately, the Segovian churchmen had the common sense to leave their architect alone in most artistic matters and allow him to make the head of the church either "octagonal, hexagonal, or of square form." Where Salamanca has been coarsened by the new style, Segovia seems inspired by its fidelity to the old.

The similarity of the two churches is visible throughout. The general interior arrangements are much alike. The stone of the two interiors is of nearly the same color, and the formation and details of the great piers are strikingly similar. There is the same thin, reed-like descent of shafts from upper ribs, the same, almost inconspicuous, small leaves for caps, and, in both, the bases terminate at different heights above the huge common drum, which is some three feet high. Externally, there are analogous buttresses, crestings, pinnacles and parapets, and a concealment of roof structure, but there is none of the vanity of Salamanca in the sister church of Segovia. The last great Gothic church of Spain, though deficient in many ways, was not lacking in unity nor sincerity. The flame went out in a magnificent blaze.

Such faithfulness and love as possessed Juan Gil for his old Gothic masters seems well-nigh incredible. He designed, and during his activity there of nine years, raised the greater portions of Segovia in an age when Gothic building was practically extinct, when Brunelleschi was building Santa Maria del Fiore, and the classic revival was in full march. Segovia and Spaniards were as tardy in forswearing their Gothic allegiance as they had been their Romanesque. Not until the beginning of the sixteenth century does the reborn classicism victoriously cross the Pyrenees, and then only in minor domestic buildings. The last manifestations of Gothic church-building in Spain were neither weak nor decadent, but virile, impressive and logical. Segovia Cathedral may be said to be the last great monument in Spain, not only of Gothic, but of ecclesiastical art. Thereafter came the deluge of decadence or petrification. What must not the power of the Church, as well as the religious enthusiasm of the populace, have been during this extraordinary sixteenth century! It is almost incredible that this tiny city, in a weak little kingdom, and so few miles from Salamanca, had the spirit for an undertaking of the size of this Cathedral church, so soon after Salamanca had entered on her architectural enterprise. Either of the two seems beyond the united power of the kingdom.

Even more remarkable than the starting of Segovia in the Gothic style at so late a date, was the fact that the architects succeeding Juan Gil, who were naturally tempted to embody their own ideas and to employ the new style then in vogue, should nevertheless have faithfully adhered to the original conception and completed in Gothic style all constructive and ornamental details everywhere except in the final closing of the dome and a few minor exterior features. Naturally the Gothic of the sixteenth century was not that of the thirteenth,--not that of Leon or Toledo, nor even of Burgos,--it had been modified and lost in spirit, but still its origin was undeniable.

In 1525 Segovia was fairly started. House after house that impeded the progress of the work was destroyed, until up to a hundred of them had been razed. Santa Clara was kept for the services until the very last moment, when a sufficient portion of the new building was ready for their proper celebration.

It was unusual to start with the western end, the apse and its surrounding arches being the portion necessary for services. In Segovia, however, as well as in the new Salamancan Cathedral, the great western front was the earliest to rise. Gil did not live to finish it, but it is evident that, as long as he directed, the work drew the attention of the entire artistic fraternity of the Peninsula. We find constant mention in old documents of the visits and the praise of illustrious architects, among them Alfonso de Covarrubias, Juan de Alava, Enrique de Egas, and Felipe de Borgoña. Gil's clerk-of-the-works, Cubillas, succeeded him as "maestro," and under him the western front with its tower, the cloisters, and the nave and aisles as far as the crossing, were virtually completed by 1558. Aside from the manual labor, "it had taken more than forty-eight collections of maravedis" to bring it to this point. The magnificent old cloisters erected by Bishop Davila beside the old Cathedral in 1470, had been spared the fury of the mob, and in 1524 they were moved stone by stone to the southern flank of the new Cathedral. This would have been a remarkable feat of masonry in our age, and, for the sixteenth century, it was astonishing. Not a stone was chipped nor a piece of carving broken. Juan de Compero took the whole fabric apart and put it together again, as a child does a box of wooden blocks.

The 15th of August, 1558, when the first services were held in the Cathedral, was the greatest day in Segovia's history. Quadrado, probably quoting from old accounts, tells us, "The divine services were then held in the new Temple. People came to the festival from all over Spain, and music, from all Castile. At twilight on August 14th, 1558, the tower was illuminated with fire-works, the great aqueduct, with two thousand colored lights, and the reflection of the city's lights alarmed the country-side for forty leagues round. The following day, the Assumption of Our Lady, there was an astonishing procession, in which all the parishes took part and the community offered prizes for the best display. The procession went out by the gate of Saint Juan, and, after going all around the city, returned to the plaza, where the sacrament was being borne out of Santa Clara. There was a bull-fight, pole-climbing, a poetical competition and comedies. The generosity of the donations corresponded to the pomp of the occasion. Ten days afterwards the bones were taken from the old church and reinterred in the new one, among which were those of the Infante Don Pedro, Maria del Salto, and different prelates."

The bones of the two former were laid to rest under the arches of the cloister. Don Pedro was a little son of King Henry II who had been playing on one of the iron balconies in front of the Alcazar windows, and, while his nurse's back was turned, pitched headlong over the precipice into eternity and the poplar trees three hundred feet below. The nurse, who knew full well it would be a question of only a few hours before she followed her princely charge, anticipated her fate and jumped after him. Maria del Salto ("of the leap") was a beautiful Jewess who, having been taken in sin, was forced to jump from another of Segovia's steep promontories. Bethinking herself of the Virgin Mary as a last resource, she invoked her assistance while in mid-air, and the blessed saint immediately responded, causing the Jewess to alight gently and unharmed. It was naturally a great pious satisfaction to the Segovians to carry to the new edifice such cherished bones.

With services in the church, the building was well under way. Juan Gil's son, Rodrigo Gil, had worked on Salamanca as well as very ably assisted Cubillas. Upon the latter's death, in 1560, Rodrigo became maestro mayor. Three years later, when the corner stone of the apse was laid, the Chapter seems to have seriously discussed the advisability of finally deviating from the original Gothic plans and building a Renaissance head. It was, however, left to Rodrigo, who loyally adhered to his father's original designs, and when he died in 1577, there was fortunately but little left to do. Indeed, most of what followed in construction, repair or decoration was rather to the detriment than embellishment of the church. It was consecrated in 1580. Chapels were added to the trasaltar by Rodrigo's successor, Martin Ruiz de Chartudi; the lantern above the crossing was raised by Juan de Mogaguren in 1615; five years later, the northern porch was erected and Renaissance features invaded the edifice. Like most Spanish churches, it has been constantly worked upon and never completed.

The plan is admirable,--at once dignified and harmonious, and the semicircular Romanesque termination is striking. The total length is some 340 feet, its entire width, some 156; the nave is 43 and the side aisles are 32 feet wide. It is thus logical, symmetrical, and fully developed in all its members. Beyond the side aisles stretches a row of chapels separated from each other by transverse walls. As the transepts, which are of the same width as the nave, do not project beyond the chapels of its outer aisles, the Latin cross disappears in plan. The nave, aisles and chapels consist of five bays up to the crossing crowned by the great dome. Beyond this comes the vault of the Capilla Mayor and the semicircular apse surrounded by a seven-bayed ambulatory, or "girola," and an equal number of radiating pentagonal chapels. The chevet is clear in arrangement and noble in expression. Entrances lead logically into the nave and side aisles of the western front and into the centres of the northern and southern transepts, while cloisters which abut to the south are entered through the fifth chapel. When Segovia was built, Spaniards were thoroughly reconciled to the idea of placing the choir west of the crossing and the Capilla Mayor east, and consequently the latter was designed no larger than was requisite for its offices, and a space was frankly screened off between it and the choir for the use of the officiating clergy. The third and fourth bays of the nave contained the choir.

As one enters the church, there is a consciousness of joy and order. The stone surfaces are just sufficiently warmed and mellowed by the glorious light from above. The piers are very massive and semicircular in plan; the foliage at their heads underneath the vaulting is so delicate and unpronounced that it scarcely counts as capitals. The walls of the chapels in the outer aisles, as well as round the ambulatory, are penetrated by narrow, round-headed windows, as timid and attenuated as those of an early Romanesque edifice; the walls of the inner aisle, by triple, lancet windows; and the clerestory of the nave, by triple, round-headed ones. Under them, in the apse, is a second row of round-headed blind windows. None of them have any tracery whatever. The glass is of great brilliancy of coloring and exceptional beauty, but the designs are as poor as the glazing is glorious. In the smaller windows, the subjects represent events in the Old Testament; in the larger, scenes from the New. Around the apse much of the old, stained glass has been shamefully replaced by white, so as to admit more light into this portion of the building.

There is no triforium, but a finely carved late Gothic balcony runs around the nave and transepts below the clerestory. In the transepts, this is surmounted by a second one underneath the small roses which penetrate their upper wall surfaces. Both nave and side aisles are lofty, the vaulting rising in the former to a height of about 100 feet and, in the latter, to 80 feet, while the cupola soars 330 feet above. The vaulting itself is most elaborate and developed. While the early Gothic edifices have only the requisite functional transverse, diagonal and wall ribs, we now find every vault covered with intermediate ones of most intricate designs. Especially over the Capilla Mayor in its ambulatory chapels and around the lantern, this ornamentation becomes profuse,--everywhere ribs are met by bosses and roses. The general effect of the endless cutting up of the vaults into numberless compartments by the complicated system of lierne ribs is one of restlessness. One misses the logical simplicity of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and is reminded of the decadent surfacing of late German work and the ogee, lierne ribs of some of the late English, in which the true ridges can no longer be distinguished from the false.

Looking up into the dome over the crossing, we see that the pendentives do not rise directly above the four arches, but spring some fifteen feet higher up above a Gothic balustrade which is surmounted by elliptical arches pierced by circular windows. The dome, disembarrassed of the ribs which still cling to some of its predecessors, is finely shaped,--a thorough Renaissance piece of work. Light streams down through the bull's eye under the lantern.

There is considerable difference in the design as well as workmanship ofthe many rejas. Tremendous iron rails, surely not as fine as those of Seville, Granada, or Toledo, but still very remarkable, close the three sides of the Capilla Mayor and the front of the choir. The emblematical lilies of the Cathedral rise in rows one beside the other, as one sees them in a florist's Easter windows. Rejas close off similarly all the outer chapels from the side aisles.

Among the very few portions of the old Cathedral which remained intact after the fury of the Comunidades, were the choir stalls and an exquisite door. The former were placed in the new choir and the latter became an entrance to the transplanted cloisters. It was indeed fortunate that these stalls were spared, for they are among the most exquisite in Spain and excelled by few in either France or Germany.

Wood-carving had long been a favorite art in Spain, one in which the Spaniards learned to excel under the skillful tutelage of the great masters from Germany and Flanders. The foreign carvers settled principally in Burgos, where there grew up around them apprentices eager to fill the churches with statues, retablos, choir stalls, and organ screens executed in wood. The art of carving became highly honored. An early ordinance of Seville referring to wood-carving, masonry and building, esteems it "a noble art and self-contained, that increaseth the nobleness of the King and of his kingdom, that pacifieth the people and spreadeth love among mankind conducing to much good." In the numerous panels of cathedral choir stalls, there was a wonderful opportunity for relief work and the play of the fertile imagination and childlike expressiveness of the middle ages. Curious freaks of fancy, their extraordinary conceptions of Biblical scenes, the events and personages of their own day, could all be portrayed and even carved with wonderful skill. Leonard Williams, in his "Art and Crafts of Older Spain," tells us that "the silleria consists of two tiers, the _sellia_ or upper seats with high backs and a canopy, intended for the canons, and the lower seats or _sub-sellia_ of simpler pattern with lower backs, intended for the _beneficados_. At the head of all is placed the throne, larger than the other stalls, and covered in many cases by a canopy surmounted by a tall spire."