Chapter 13

Few of the many Gothic stalls are finer than those of Segovia. The contrast with the work above them, as well as with that which backs onto them, is doubly distressing. The tremendous organs above are a mass of gilding and restless Baroque ornamentation, while their rear is covered by multicolored strips of stone which would have looked vulgar and gaudy around a Punch and Judy show and here enframe the four Evangelists. The chapels and high altar are uninteresting, decorated in later days in offensive taste. Apart from these furnishings, which play but a small part, it is rare and satisfying to survey an interior in which there has been so much decorative restraint, in which the constructive and architectural lines dominate the merely ornamental ones, and where harmony, severity and excellent proportions go hand in hand. Were it not for the cupola and a few minor details, there would be added to these merits, unity of style.

The cloisters are rich and flamboyant, but nevertheless more restrained than those of Salamanca. They are elaborately subdivided, carved and festooned, and, in the bosses of the arches, they carry the arms of their original builder, Bishop Arias Davila. Just inside their entrance lie three of the old architects, Rodrigo Gil de Hontañon, Campo Aguero, and Viadero. The old well in the centre is covered with a grapevine, and nothing could be lovelier than the deep emerald leaves dotted with purple fruit growing over the white and yellow stonework.

Few Spanish cathedrals can be seen to such advantage as Segovia, its situation is so unusual and fortunate. In mediæval towns closely packed within their city walls, there could be but little room or breathing space either for palace or hovel, and the buildings adjacent to a cathedral generally nestled close to its sides. The plaza of Segovia is unusually large compared to the area of the little city. The clearing away of Santa Clara and San Miguel and all the smaller surrounding edifices condemned for the Cathedral site, left much room also in front of the western entrance for a fine broad platform as well as an unobstructed view from the opposite side of the square. Most of the flights of granite steps leading to it from the streets below are now closed by iron gates and overgrown with grass and weeds. The days of the great processions are past, when the various trades, led by their bands of musicians, filed up to deliver their offerings towards the construction, and the staircases are no longer thronged by devout Segovian citizens anxious to see the daily progress of the work. The platform is paved with innumerable granite slabs which in the old Cathedral covered the tombs of the city's illustrious citizens, whose names may still be easily deciphered.

Taken as a whole, the façade is bald and void of charm. It is neither good nor especially faulty, of a certain strength, but without interest or merit. It is logically subdivided by five pronounced buttresses marking the nave, side aisles and outer row of chapels. Their relative heights and the lines of their roofing are clearly defined. To the north, a rather insignificant turret terminates the façade, while to the south rises the lofty tower, three hundred and forty-five feet above the whole mountain of masonry, the most conspicuous landmark in the landscape of Segovia. It consists of a square base of sides thirty-five feet wide, broken by six rows of twin arches; the first, the third and the sixth are open, the last is a belfry. The present dome curves from an octagonal Renaissance base, the transitional corners being filled with crocketed pyramids similar to the many crowning buttresses and piers at all angles of the church below. The dome and lantern are almost exact smaller counterparts of those crowning the crossing. They were put up by the same architect, Mogaguren, who certainly could not have been over-gifted with artistic imagination. The tower had varying fortunes,--much to the distress of the citizens, it has been twice struck by lightning. The wooden structure and lead covering were burned and melted by the fire which followed the first catastrophe, but fortunately it was soon put out by the rain which saved the Cathedral and city. After the second thunderbolt, in 1809, the surmounting cross was replaced by a lightning-rod.

The nave is entered by the Perdon portal, which, under a Gothic arch, is subdivided into two elliptical openings. Peculiarly late Gothic railings here, as elsewhere, crown the masonry and conceal the tiling of the sloping roofs.

Rounding the church to the south, we find the view obstructed by the cloisters and sacristy; only the façade of the transept, ascended from the lower ground by a flight of steps, remains visible. The southern doorway is quite denuded, and even its buttresses rise without as much as a corbel to soften their lines. When one has, however, dodged through the tortuous, narrow, malodorous streets and come out opposite the apse and northern flank, the whole bulk of the logical organic body of the church becomes visible with its larger squat and higher lofty domes towering into the blue. To the same Renaissance period as the two domes belongs the classical portal of Pedro Brizuela, leading to the northern transept. The view from the northeast is particularly fine. Every portion of the structure is expressed by the exterior lines. One above the other rise chapels, ambulatory, apse, transepts and lanterns, each level crowned by its sparkling balustrade. The sky is jagged by the crocketed spires which terminate the flying buttresses, the piers and the angles of the wall surface. Here the Latin cross may be seen, and the sub-divisions of every portion of the interior. There is no deception nor trickery. It is simple and straightforward. Its artistic merits may be small, the forest of carved turrets rising all around the apse, tiresome, but this final impression of Spanish Gothic was thoroughly sincere.

VII

SEVILLE

"Wen Gott lieb hat, dem giebt er ein Haus in Sevilla."

Seville is ever youthful, for the blood which courses in her veins absorbs the sunlight. Venice is the city of dreamy love, Naples, of indolence, Rome, of everlasting age, but Seville keeps an eternal youth.

What picturesqueness, what color, what passion blend with memories of Andalusia!

All sunny land of love! When I forget you, may I fail To ... say my prayers!

And Seville is the queen of Andalusia, of noble birth, proud and beautiful. Distinctly feminine in her subtle, indefinable charm, like a woman she changes with her surroundings, and her mutability adds to her fascination. We never fathom nor quite know her, for she is one being as she slumbers in the first chalky light of morning, another, in the resplendent nakedness of noontide, overarched by the indigo firmament, and yet another, in the happy laughter of evening when her mantle has turned purple and her throbbing life is more felt than seen. The roses, hyacinths and crocuses have closed in sleep, but the orange groves, the acacia, and eucalyptus, jasmine, lemon, and palm trees and hedges of box fill the air with heavy, aromatic perfume. To the exiled Moors she was so sweet in all her moods that they said, "God in His justice, having denied to the Christians a heavenly paradise, has given them in exchange an earthly one." With the oriental languor of her ancestors, she keeps the freshness and sparkle of the dewy morn. She is as gay and full of youthful vitality as her Toledan sister is old and worn and haggard. While Toledo is sombre and funereal, Seville is alive with the tinkling of silver fountains, the strumming of guitars and mandolins, and the songs of her women. She lies rich and splendid on the bosom of the campagna, fruitfulness and plenty within her embattled walls. "She is a strange, sweet sorceress, a little wise perhaps, in whom love has degenerated into desire; but she offers her lovers sleep, and in her arms you will forget everything but the entrancing life of dreams."

Andalusia and Seville justly claim an ancient and royal pedigree, which through all the vicissitudes of centuries has still left its stamp upon them. Andalusia was the Tarshish of the Bible, whither Jonah rose to flee. Her commerce is spoken of in Jeremiah, Isaiah, the Psalms, and the Chronicles: "Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches, with silver, iron, tin, and lead they traded in thy fairs" (Ezekiel xxvii, 12).

In passing the Straits of Hercules, Seville and Ceuta alone caught Odysseus' eye:--

Tardy with age Were I and my companions, when we came To the Strait pass, where Hercules ordain'd The bound'ries not to be o'erstepp'd by man. The walls of Seville to my right I left, On th' other hand already Ceuta past.

_Inferno_, xxvi. 106-110.

The honor of founding the city of Seville seems to be shared by Hercules and Julius Cæsar. In the popular mind of the Sevillians, as well as through an unbroken chain of mediæval historians and ballad-makers, Hercules is called its father. Monuments throughout the city bear witness to its founders. On one of the gates recently demolished the inscription ran,--

Condidit Alcides, Renovavit Julius urbem. Restituit Christo Fernandus tertius heros.

The Latin verses were later paraphrased in the Castilian tongue over the Gate of Zeres:--

Hercules me edifico, Julio Cesar me cerco, de meno y torres altes y el rey santo me ganó, Con Garci Perez de Vargas.

"Hercules built me, Julius Cæsar surrounded me with walls and high towers, the Holy King conquered me by Garcia Perez de Vargas." Statues of the founder and protector still stand in various parts of the city.

In the second century B. C., the shipping of Seville made it one of the most important trade centres of the Mediterranean. Phœnicians and Greeks stopped here to barter. In 45 B. C., Rome stretched forth her greedy hand, and Cæsar entered the town at the head of his victorious legion. Eighty-two years later the Romans formed the whole of southern Spain into the "Provincia Bætica." With its formation into a Roman colony, Seville's historical background begins to stand out clearly and its riches are sung by the ancients. "Fair art thou, Bætis," says Martial, "with thine olive crown and thy limpid waters, with the fleece stains of a brilliant gold." The whole province contained what later became Sevilla, Huelva, Cadiz, Cordova, Jaen, Granada and Almeria. Seville, or Hispalis, became the capital and was accordingly fortified with walls and towers, garrisoned and supplied with water from aqueducts and adorned with Roman works of art. After the spread of Christianity during the later Emperors, Seville was important enough to be made the seat of a bishop.

With the fall of Rome, Hispalis was overrun by hordes of Goths and Vandals. They held possession of the country until they were conquered in 711 by the Moors, who, after crossing the strait between Africa and Europe, gradually spread northward through the Iberian peninsula. The Goths made Hispalis out of the Roman Hispalia, and the Arabians in their turn, unable to pronounce the p, formed the name into Ixbella, of which the Castilians made Seville.

To the Moors, Andalusia was the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. What was lacking, their genius and husbandry soon supplied. The land which they found uncultivated soon became a garden filled with exotic flowers and rich fruits, while they adorned its cities with the noblest monuments of their taste and intelligence. They divided their territory (el Andalus) into the four kingdoms of Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada, which still exist as territorial divisions. To-day the three latter contain only the ruins of a great past. Seville alone remains in many respects a perfectly Moorish city. Her courts, her squares, the streets and houses, the great palace and the tower are essentially Arabian and bear witness to the magnificence of her ancient masters.

They had lost all the rest of Spain except Granada before Cordova and Jaen surrendered, and finally Seville fell into the hands of Ferdinand III of Castile in 1248, and its Christian period began. Three hundred thousand followers of the detested faith were banished from Seville, and slowly the power of the Catholic Church began to rise and the agricultural beauty and industry of the surrounding province to wane.

The city was divided into separate districts for the different races, the canals were dammed up, the water-works fell to pieces, the valley was left untilled, and fruit trees were unpruned and unwatered. Hides bleached in the sun and webs rotted on the looms, sixty thousand of which had woven beautiful silk fabrics in the palmy days of the Moors.

Ferdinand the Holy was a great king, of a saintliness and greatness still acknowledged by the soldiers of Seville. After eight centuries they still lower their colors as they march past the great shrine of the Third Ferdinand, in the church which he purged from Mohammedanism and dedicated to the worship of the Christians' God and the Holy Virgin.

After him, Seville became the theatre of momentous deeds and events that had a far-reaching influence on the history of the country. Into her lap was poured the riches of the New World; within her halls Queen Isabella laid the foundation of her united kingdom; from Seville came the intellectual stimulus that revived the arts and letters of the whole Peninsula. Here were born and labored Pedro Campaña, Alejo Fernandez, Luis de Vargas, the several Herreras, Francisco de Zurbaran, Alfonso Cano, Diego de Silva Velasquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Miguel Florentino. The riches of the western world made of Seville a second Florence, where art found ready patrons, and literature, cultivated protectors. She rivaled the great schools of Italy and the Netherlands, but out of her secret council chambers came the Institution of the Holy Office, the scourge that withered the nation. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, forty-five thousand people were put to death in the archbishopric of Seville. Finally, under Philip II, Seville and her great church rose to stupendous wealth and power.

"When Philip II died, loyal Seville honored the departed king by a magnificent funeral service in the Cathedral. A tremendous monument was designed by Oviedo. On Nov. 25th, 1598, the mourning multitude flocked to the dim Cathedral while the people knelt upon the stones, and the solemn music floated through the air. There was a disturbance among a part of the congregation. A man was charged with deriding the imposing monument and creating disorder. He was a tax-gatherer and ex-soldier of the city named Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Some of the citizens took his side, for there was a feud between the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities in Seville. The brawler was expelled from the cathedral,--but he had his revenge. He composed a satirical poem upon the tomb of the King which was read everywhere in the city:--

_To the Monument of the King of Seville_

I vow to God I quake with surprise, Could I describe it, I would give a crown, And who, that gazes on it in the town But starts aghast to see its wondrous size; Each part a million cost, I should devise: What pity 'tis, ere centuries have flown, Old time will mercilessly cast it down! Thou rival'st Rome, O Seville, in my eyes! I bet, the soul of him who's dead and blest, To dwell within this sumptuous monument, Has left the seats of sempiternal rest! A fellow tall, on deeds of valour bent, My exclamation heard. "Bravo," he cried, "Sir Soldier, what you say is true, I vow! And he who says the contrary has lied!" With that he pulls his hat upon his brow, Upon his sword-hilt he his hand doth lay, And frowns--and--nothing does, but walks away!"[16]

Far more ineffaccable even than the record left by Philip's life upon the history of Seville and Spain is that of this immortal soldier and scribbler, who "believed he had found something better to do than writing comedies."

The soft, sonorous syllables of Guadalquivir (from the Arabic Wad-el-Kebir, or The Great River) would picture to the imaginative eye a river far more poetic than the sluggish stream that loiters across the wide plain and fruitful valley until it pierces the amber girdle of crenelated walls and embattled towers which enclose the treasures of Seville. On its broad bosom have swept the barks and galleys of Phœnicia and Greece, of Roman, Goth, and Moor. On its shores Columbus lowered the sails of his caravel and presented Spain with a new world on Palm Sunday, 1493; Pizarro and Cortez here first embarked their greedy and daring adventurers; hither Pizarro returned with hoards of gold and silver treasures from Mexico and Peru, for the Council of the Indies restricted all the trade of the colonies to the port of Seville. The valley through which the river descends is sheltered from the cold tablelands lying northward by the Sierra Moreña chain. Gray olive trees, waving pastures, and fields of grain cover its slopes. A soft, tempered wind whispers through the grassy meadows of La Tierra de Maria Santissima, and the atmosphere is so dry and clear that far away against the horizon objects stand out in clear silhouette. So vivid are the colors that the smoky olive groves, the orange and lemon-colored walls, the fir trees, the chalky white of the stucco, the fleshy, prickly leaves of the cacti, and the tall standards of the aloes seem photographed on the brain.

In a fair and fruitful land lies the city, and her spires pierce a smokeless, unspotted sky.

In the heart of the city, set down in the very centre of her life of song and laughter and childish simplicity, surrounded by crooked streets and great airy courts, in the widest sunlit square, lies her Cathedral.

The first impression made by a building is generally not only the most distinct but the truest. That produced by Seville's Cathedral is its immensity of scale.

Toledo la rica, Salamanca la fuerta, Leon la bella, Oviedo la sacra, Sevilla la grande,

runs the Spanish saying. The size is overpowering. Each of the four side aisles is nearly as broad and high as the nave of Westminster Abbey, while the arcades of Seville's nave have twice the span. To the impressionable sensitiveness of Théophile Gautier it was like a mountain scooped out, a valley turned topsy-turvy. Notre Dame de Paris might walk erect under the frightful height of the middle nave; pillars as large as towers appear so slender that you catch your breath as you look up at the far-away, vaulted roof they support.

Here are the first impressions of two early Spanish writers. Cean Bermudez finds that, "seen from a certain distance, it resembles a high-pooped and beflagged ship, rising over the sea with harmonious grouping of sails, pennons, and banners, and with its mainmast towering over the mizzenmast, foremast, and bowsprit." Caveda is struck by "the general effect, which is truly majestic. The open-work parapets which crown the roofs; the graceful lanterns of the eight winding stairs that ascend in the corners to the vaults and galleries; the flying buttresses that spring lightly from aisle to nave, as the jets of a cascade from cliff to cliff; the slender pinnacles that cap them; the proportions of the arms of the transept and of the buttresses supporting the side walls; the large pointed windows to which they belong, rising over each other, the pointed portals and entrances,--all these combine in an almost miraculous effect, although they lack the wealth of detail, the airy grace, and the delicate elegance that characterize the cathedrals of Leon and Burgos."

Such are the varying impressions of ancient critics. To the student's question, "To what period of architecture does the Cathedral of Seville belong?" we must answer, "To no period, or rather to half a dozen." Authorities and writers will give completely different information, and Seville has found more willing and loving chroniclers than any other of Spain's churches. Gallichan classes it as the "largest Gothic cathedral in the world," and Caveda calls it "a type of the finest Spanish Gothic architecture."

The interior of the main body of the church is pure, severe Gothic, the sacristy major, highly developed Renaissance; the main portions of the exterior are what might be termed for want of a better word "Spanish Renaissance--plateresco"; other details are Moorish, classical, late florid Gothic, rococo, and so forth. As if to add to the incongruity of the architectural hodge-podge, it is surrounded by shafts of old Roman columns as well as Byzantine pillars from the original mosque, sunk deep into the ground and connected with iron chains. The total impression to any student of architecture is one of outraged law and order, composition and unity. Recalling the carefully membered and distinctly developed plan of the great Gothic churches of France, the expressive exteriors of the huge Renaissance cathedrals of Italy, the satisfying perspective of English monastic temples, one feels the hopelessness of attempting a comparison between this huge, impressive undertaking and any accepted standards or schools. It is something so entirely different and apart, a mighty and unbridled effort which cannot be classified nor grouped with other churches, nor studied by methods of earlier architectural training. It is full of romance,--a building romantic as the Cid, a child of architectural fervor or even architectural furor. Centuries of Spanish history and religion and the various temperaments of different and inspired races have created it and fostered its growth. Like many of its sister churches, the artisans that labored on it were gathered from different lands and their work stretches through centuries of time and architectural thought. There is the sparkling, oriental fancy of the Mudejar, the classic training of the Italian, the brilliant color and technique of the Fleming and Dutchman, the skilled and masterful chiseling of the German, and the restless pride and domination of the Spaniard. You find it expressed in every way,--on canvas, in wood and clay and stone, on plaster and in glass. It is a museum of art from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, with portions still waiting for the work of the twentieth. The artists range from Juan Sanches de Castro, "the morning star of Andalusia," in 1454, to Francisco Goya, the last of the great Spanish painters.

It is colossal, incongruous, mysterious, and elusive. It breathes the spirit of the middle ages with all their piety and loyalty to church and crown, and their unparalleled ardor in building religious temples. Gazing at it, you feel the same religious fervor that flung the arches of Amiens and Chartres high into the northern air and rounded the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore under Lombardy's azure vault.