Part 8

Avila ‘of the Knights’ was, before all else, a fortress. When the walls were built, churches and suburbs were left outside the enclosure, that the military advantages of the height on which the old town stands might not be lost. These walls of dark-red granite girdle Avila to-day, unbroken, formidable, intact. They rise so high that they shut out from view all that they enclose, except the towers of the cathedral. Near San Vicente the masonry is fourteen feet thick, and forty-two feet in height. Flanking defence is provided by eighty-six elliptical towers--thirty on the north, twelve on the west, twenty-five on the south, twenty-one on the east. These rise above the crenellated parapet at places by eighteen feet. The ten gateways are formed by two towers being brought together and connected with arches. The most impressive gates are the Puertas del Mercado and de San Vicente, the former admitting to the scanty remains of the old Alcazar, the latter facing the church of San Vicente. In both cases the flanking towers are connected at the level of their platforms by a high, arched and crenellated gallery. The actual gateway is defended by a portcullis, and the usual apertures for thrusting out lances, beams, etc. One of the gates, now walled up, was known as the Puerta de la Mala Ventura, in memory of a baseless tradition that it was the scene of the massacre by Alfonso el Batallador of certain Avilese nobles who had been given him as hostages for the little King Alfonso VII. of Castile. Nearly all the gates open on to squares or places of arms. A leisurely walk round these grand old walls is one of the most agreeable experiences of a journey in Spain, and carries the mind back to the days when knighthood was in flower. From their strength it is easy to see how the town could have been held by a limited number of Caballeros against the commoners of the suburb outside. There seems no reason to doubt that the walls were, as tradition avers, built by Raymond of Burgundy in the last decade of the eleventh century. Eight hundred men were employed upon them daily during nine years, under the direction of a Roman, Cassandro, and a Frenchman, Florin de Ponthieu.

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Built into the city wall at its eastern end is the noble cathedral of San Salvador, founded according to some by Fernán Gonzalez, Count of Castile, and begun a second time in 1091 by Alvár Garcia of Estella in Navarra. It is, perhaps, the finest example extant of the fortress-church of the Middle Ages. The oldest part is the apse, which makes a pronounced bastion or projection in the city wall. The external walls probably date from Alvár Garcia’s time, but the rest of the church must be from one to two centuries later.

The church consists of a nave, aisles, projecting transepts and a chevet, which has semicircular chapels built into the town wall and double aisle. The chevet is, architecturally, perhaps the most interesting part of the structure. Nothing at all is to be seen without of the chapels, over which is carried the ordinary rampart walk or allure; behind this rises a second battlemented wall, from which we look down on to the aisle roof of the chevet and clerestory of the central apse. This end of the cathedral appears from the exterior simply as an unusually massive round tower projecting from the wall. The west front is flanked by two towers, only one of which--the northern--is completed. This is a notable and fortresslike structure, recalling similar work in England. The strongly-defined buttresses finish in pinnacles, and are outlined at the angles with a ball enrichment, which is also to be seen on the pointed arches over the belfry windows. The windows themselves are round-arched, as are also those now filled up in a lower stage of the tower. The entrance is comparatively modern. On either side is the figure of a wild man with shield and mace--strange guardians of a church! On the spandrils of the arch are the figures of Saints Peter and Paul. The middle stage of this front is occupied by a curious retablo-like composition. In the various compartments are the figures of Christ and different saints, sheltered by ugly canopies; and surmounting this work is an extravagant and tasteless acroterium, displaying the arms of the Chapter. Behind and above this is the older and infinitely more graceful west window within an elliptical arch, and with delicate though elaborate traceries.

Very much finer is the north porch, admitting not to the transept but to the nave. The elliptical arch has on each side six jambs, each of which is adorned with the figure of an apostle resting on the capital of a pilaster and sheltered beneath a canopy. The five orders of the arch are sculptured with reliefs of angels and prophets, alternating with wreaths. In the centre of the tympanum is the seated figure of Christ; and around Him, arranged in four horizontal divisions, are compositions representing the Betrayal and Last Supper, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Angelic Choir. Street recognises in this doorway the work of the architect of the portals of the cathedrals of Leon and Burgos. Before it are two lions couchant on pedestals, chained to the walls. The porch dates from the fourteenth century. Above it is a canopy begun in 1566, and intended to form a kind of triumphal arch. Crowning all is seen the figure of the Redeemer.

The north transept is pierced by a fine wheel-window of sixteen divisions. The windows of the clerestory are very large, and placed between great double flying buttresses. Since 1772 the upper and lower traceries have been blocked up, for a reason not apparent to the modern observer. The windows of the transept escaped this treatment, and are filled with good stained glass.

The nave is 130 feet long and 28 feet broad. The arches are supported by piers of four pilasters, the capitals of which show Romanesque influence. The aisles are only about half the height of the nave, and are 24 feet wide. Their pitched roof formerly admitted light into the nave through the triforium, now blocked up.

The outer walls of the chevet, as we have seen, are the most ancient part of the fabric, but the seven chapels formed within the thickness of the wall are of later date. The extraordinary beauty of this part of the church is due to the division of the ambulatory into two by a series of tall, slender columns carrying some excellent groining. The outer or recessed aisle is narrower than the inner, an inequality corrected very skilfully at the opening into the south transept by an imperceptible deviation in the line of columns. Very little light penetrates through the narrow slits in the chapel walls into this sombre, beautiful arcade.

Behind the reredos of the High Altar sleeps the learned bishop, Don Alonso Fernández de Madrigal, surnamed el Tostado and el Abulense, who died in 1455. The prelate, who was one of the most prolific writers that ever lived, is shown in alabaster writing at a desk. The framework of the tomb is adorned with reliefs of the Adoration of the Magi and Shepherds, of the Divine and Cardinal Virtues, and of the Eternal Father. This noble work has been variously ascribed to Berruguete and to Domenico Fancelli, whose more famous performance we shall see in the church of Santo Tomás.

In the chapel of Santa Ana is buried Don Sancho Davila, Bishop of Plasencia, who died in 1625. Most of the tombs in the chapels of the chevet belong, however, to the thirteenth century, though the dates on most of them are merely conjectural, and were inscribed in the sixteenth century by a prebendary of the cathedral.

The High Altar is backed by an elaborate retablo of the age of the Catholic Kings. It is divided into three stages, and was painted by Pedro Berruguete (father of the more famous Alonso), Santos Cruz, and Juan de Borgoña (father of Felipe). To the two first-named may be attributed the ten panels of the lowest stage, representing Saints Peter and Paul, the Four Evangelists, and Four Doctors of the Church, and the Transfiguration, Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, and Presentation in the Temple, in the second stage. To Borgoña we may ascribe the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging, Crucifixion, Descent into Hell, and Resurrection, in the third stage. To the right and left of the church are two beautiful Renaissance retablos in alabaster, illustrating the lives of Saints Secundus and Catharine, and two tasteful gilt iron pulpits. The light reaches the High Altar through two rows of thirteen windows, the lower ‘round-arched, of two horseshoe-headed lights divided by a shafted monial,’ and the upper ‘round-headed, broadish windows, with jamb-shafts and richly-chevroned arches.’ The fine stained glass is the work of Albert of Holland (1520-1525).

The choir was placed in the easternmost bay of the nave in 1531. The _trascoro_ or back of the choir is adorned with reliefs of the Adoration of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Presentation; smaller panels represent other scenes from the history of Christ and the Blessed Virgin. The frieze with its fourteen figures of prophets is the finest part of the work. The choir stalls were begun in 1527 by Juan Rodrigo, and completed by Cornelius of Holland in 1536. The carving is of varying merit. The upper panels appear to portray the martyrdoms of different saints, episodes in whose lives are shown on the panels below. The ornamentation of the columns and friezes is profuse and delicately done.

In the south transept is the fine tomb of Don Sancho Davila, Bishop of Sigüenza, who died in 1534, and near him that of a namesake, whose effigy is clad in armour. This knight died before the walls of Alhama in a combat so furious that his scattered limbs had afterwards to be collected and pieced together by his friends. A curious tomb is to be seen near by: the figures of a knight in armour and an ecclesiastic repose on black coffins, the sides of which are sculptured with escutcheons upheld by woolly-haired savages; a monkey is seen pulling the negroes’ hair. In the chapel of San Miguel, at the north-west end of the nave, is an interesting tomb of the thirteenth century, representing a funeral, whereat the anguish of the mourners contrasts strikingly with the stoical indifference of the clergy.

The gorgeous chapel of San Segundo at the south-east of the apse, outside the town wall, was founded in 1595 by Bishop Manrique, on the model, it is said, of the Escorial. Magnificence, rather than good taste, characterises this chapel and its furniture. Frescoes by Francisco Llamas illustrate the life of the saint, whose ashes are contained in a Churrigueresque tabernacle. On the opposite side of the apse, but within the wall, is another excrescence, the Velada chapel, completed in the eighteenth century.

The sacristy is an ornate Renaissance structure, richly gilded and painted. The alabaster retablo over the altar of St. Barnabas is the work of a genius whose name unfortunately has not been handed down. The chamber also contains some curious fifteenth-century paintings relating to the life of St. Peter. Here may be seen the superb monstrance of Juan de Arfe, dated 1574, and therefore among his earliest works.

The cloister on the south side of the cathedral was built in the early sixteenth century on the site of an earlier one. There was an attempt made at the same time to restore, more or less at haphazard, all the tombs and epitaphs left from earlier times. At the angles are chapels, one of which, the Piedad, contains some good stained glass and iron-work. East of the cloister is the spacious apartment called the Cardinal’s Chapel, after Cardinal Davila y Mujica, whose tomb it contains. Here met the Junta of the Comuneros. The fine stained glass in the windows shows the skill of Juan de Santillana and Juan de Valdevieso, two famous glass-workers of Burgos.

In some respects more interesting than the cathedral, and probably more ancient, taken as a whole, is the Romanesque church of San Vicente, outside the walls, near the Segovia gate. It marks the site of the martyrdom of Vicente and his sisters, Sabina and Cristeta, who had taken refuge here to escape the persecution of Dacian, at the beginning of the fourth century. Their religion having been discovered, they were again apprehended, and put to death by their skulls being battered against the rocks. Their bodies were left unburied, but a great serpent came out of a hole near by and protected them from insult. A Jew approached the spot, led by spiteful curiosity, and was seized by the monster, which wound its coils about him. The terrified Hebrew invoked the name of Christ and was released. He was baptized, and secretly gave the martyrs honourable burial, subsequently raising a church over the scene of their martyrdom. So runs the tradition. These dissenters from the state religion of the Roman Empire are remembered and revered to this day, and magnificent fanes are rightly raised over their graves. Their ashes are preserved in reliquaries more costly than royal thrones, and kings kneel before their shrines. But no monuments are erected, no reverence paid to the equally high-minded and courageous dissenters from the state religion of the Spanish monarchy, who perished in the flames kindled by the Inquisition. The very city which delighted to honour Vicente and his sisters, and recorded its detestation of the lawful authority that put them to death, was the seat of the dreadful tribunal of Torquemada and the scene of cruelties worse than any perpetrated by the Romans.

The basilica raised by the converted Jew was swept away by the Moors, and the relics of the martyrs seem to have been transported elsewhere. They were recovered, at least in part, at the time of the resettlement of the city, and the present church was built by St. Ferdinand in 1252 to contain them; though parts of the fabric certainly seem, despite the absence of documentary evidence, to date from a century earlier. The church is built on sloping ground, the difficulties of the site being admirably overcome. The plan is cruciform, the nave and aisles terminating in apses. The crossing is surmounted by a square lantern, and the western front flanked by steeples. An open cloister runs along the outside of the south aisle.

The western front is very beautiful. The southern tower or steeple wants a third or upper story, which was added to the north tower only in the fifteenth century. The second stories are arcaded, and splayed at their angles. On the third gable-like story of the north steeple are hung the bells, one of which bears the date 1158. These towers open only into the westernmost bay of the nave, which forms the porch of the church, opening on the outside with a high-pointed arch, and into the interior through a superb double doorway. Street speaks of this porch as follows: ‘The whole effect is fine, and the light and shade admirable and well contrasted; but the charm of the whole work seemed to me to lie very much in the contrast between the noble simplicity and solid massiveness of the architecture generally, and the marvellous beauty and delicacy of the enrichments of the western doorway, which is certainly one of the very finest transitional works I have ever seen.’ The shaft dividing the doors is sculptured with a figure of Christ seated on a pedestal. Statues of the twelve Apostles occupy the jambs. Over each door a round arch springs from luxuriantly carved capitals, flanked by the heads of bulls and lions. The tympana are occupied with representations of Dives and Lazarus, and the Release of a Blessed Spirit. The round arch which encloses the whole portal exhibits a marvellous profusion of delicate and rich ornamentation. A Spanish writer truly observes that the foliage looks as if the faintest breeze would stir it; the beasts seem ready to spring, and the birds as if, with the least effort, they might disentangle themselves and fly from the branches. Over the arch is a parapet and string-course, and a round-arched window opening into the nave.

The church is usually entered by the south door opening into the aisle beside the transept. The seven orders of the archivolt are almost devoid of ornament, but the capitals are carved with curious figures of wild beasts fighting. The monogram of Christ on the keystone of the innermost arch is rare in Castilian churches, and the rude sculptured figures on the capitals are very primitive and unsymmetrical. On one of the jambs the Virgin and the Angel Gabriel are sculptured; on another a curious mitred personage representing, it is believed, one of the ancestors of the Messiah.

This porch is older by two centuries than the cloister running along the south side of the church. It is in twelve semicircular arches, with a buttress between every three. Made of purple granite, it contrasts strikingly with the sandstone of the main edifice.

The north front is very plain and severe. The massive buttresses excited the enthusiasm of Street. The north door is of corresponding simplicity. Beside it, as at the side of the south door, are a couple of tombs, which seem to prove that the space round the church was at one time used as a burial-ground.

The eastern end is the most interesting part of the building. The central apse is larger and loftier than the adjoining apses. All three are divided perpendicularly by slender engaged shafts, terminating in capitals under the eaves; and horizontally by carved or moulded string-courses. The central apse has three round-headed windows; the lateral apses, two each. The capitals and corbels are everywhere very finely carved. There are few better examples of Romanesque work in the Peninsula. The square lantern is pierced on each side with a three-light window of Gothic design. At its angles it is surmounted by stone crosses.

The interior is impressive and thoroughly Romanesque. The piers are square, and rest on round bases. The capitals are carved with oak leaves. The arches are semicircular, and the vaulting pointed. Between two string-courses runs a triforium of round-arched openings, the windows of the clerestory being likewise rounded and of one light. The windows of the aisles have been closed up. The church is undergoing extensive repairs. The piers of the lantern seem to be of later date than the foundation of the church, and seem to indicate that the original lantern had at one time fallen in. The interior is octagonal, and pierced with four lancet stained-glass windows. On the chancel side is a fine fourteenth-century painting of the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Disciples.

The interior of the central apse is occupied by the High Altar, with an ugly baroque retablo which unfortunately conceals the graceful windows.

The shrine of San Vicente and his brethren is placed on the south side of the crossing. In the ages of faith this was an object of extraordinary sanctity. Men were sworn on the tomb, and it was universally believed that the arms of those who bore false witness thereon withered away. The practice was forbidden by law under Ferdinand and Isabel. Notwithstanding, grave doubts existed as to the actual whereabouts of the martyrs’ bodies. To set the matter at rest, the Bishop Martin de Vilches, in the reign of Enrique III., decided on a thorough examination of the tomb. Having celebrated Mass, he caused the sarcophagus to be opened. Dense vapour immediately issued forth, and the bishop thrust in his hand, to withdraw it a second later, convulsed with a violent pain, and covered with blood. He proceeded no further with the investigation, and ordered the tomb to be closed, satisfied that it contained the holy relics. The imprint of his blood-stained hand was left on a tablet placed inside the arches on which the sarcophagus rests. This appears to date from the thirteenth century, and is carved with interesting reliefs. The baldachino covering it is carried on four bold columns, and was added by Bishop de Vilches, whose arms it bears. The figure at the apex appears to represent San Vicente.

In the south transept is a tablet with an inscription declaring that there lie the remains of the Jew who gave the martyrs decent burial. Close by is the shrine, executed by Francisco de Mora, of San Pedro del Barco, a saint of absolutely unknown antecedents, and mentioned as far back as 1302.

The crypt has been modernised. On it may be seen the rock on which the tutelary saints suffered martyrdom, and a miraculous image, called Nuestra Señora de la Sotteraña, which is obviously far from possessing the antiquity its devotees claim for it.

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Characteristics very similar to San Vicente are exhibited by the church of San Pedro in the picturesque Mercado Grande. Dating from the latter part of the twelfth century, we find here also the apsidal east end, the square lantern, and the entrances at the west end and beside the transepts. The western porch is very fine, and above it is a very beautiful wheel-window. The north doorway is more richly sculptured, and is later than the rest of the fabric. There are a few points of difference between this church and that previously described. There is no triforium, and the clerestory windows are of a single light, and much larger than those of the nave. As at San Vicente, the apsidal chapels have been spoilt by injudicious painting. In the transept are the tombs of the rival families of Blasco Jimeno and Esteban Domingo, distinguished by shields of six and thirteen bezants respectively. The church is in every respect a noble edifice, but loses interest after you have visited the almost identical basilica of San Vicente. Nor will your attention be long engaged by the modern monument to the illustrious natives of Avila in the centre of the market-place, crowned by the statue of Santa Teresa. Here took place in 1491 the _auto da fé_ of the Jew, Benito Garcia, found guilty of murdering a Christian child, and stealing a consecrated Host for the purpose of sacrilegious rites. It should be added that no particular child could be put forward by the prosecution as having been murdered, and the suppositious victim went down to posterity simply as the Niño de la Guardia--la Guardia being the village where the crime was supposed to have taken place. The body was conveniently assumed to have been taken up to heaven. Its disappearance did not benefit the luckless Hebrews, two of whom, before the execution of Garcia, were torn to pieces by red-hot pincers.

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The town proper having always been regarded as an acropolis, the greater number of churches are situated outside the walls. Several of these, like those already described, are of considerable interest. The doughty Nalvillos is said to lie beneath the flags of the church of Santiago. San Andrés is an interesting Romanesque structure, spoilt, however, by the addition of an incongruous sacristy. To the north-west of the town, near the river (Adaja), is the curious little sanctuary of San Segundo, with a wooden roof, and rather suggestive of Norman architecture. It marks the spot whereon fell an unfortunate Saracen, who was pushed over the turret above by the sainted Secundus. Some of the ashes of that muscular Christian are preserved here, beneath the fine alabaster statue which represents him kneeling with an open book before him. The sanctuary is believed to occupy the site of the earliest Christian church of Avila. The actual edifice is not nearly so old as the ruined and abandoned church of San Isidore, now fast crumbling away.

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