An Architect's Note-Book in Spain: principally illustrating the domestic architecture of that country.Wyatt, M. Digby (Matthew Digby), Sir
History
An Architect's Note-Book in Spain: principally illustrating the domestic architecture of that country.
Wyatt, M. Digby (Matthew Digby), Sir
Architecture -- Spain
The building, of which the main block of the façade shown in my sketch,
is about one hundred feet long, by about sixty-five feet high, contains
no less than three Patios of different styles. It was designed by Pedro
Gumiel, and, as originally planned, finished in 1533, by Rodrigo Gil.
The whole façade which is of marble, with the exception of the basement
of grey granite, was no doubt entirely the work of the last named
architect. The structure has been well illustrated, architecturally, in
the great government publication--the "Monumentos Arquitectonicos de
España"--to which the student may be referred for the details of this
immense establishment. About it, in the days of its full prosperity,
there were grouped no less than eleven thousand students, and nineteen
colleges. Nothing shows, perhaps, more clearly the "high estate" from
which the poor Spain of the present day has fallen, than a contrast
between the muster rolls of the University of Madrid of late years, and
those of Salamanca, and Alcala, in the sixteenth century.
The visitor to the "Colegio" of Alcala should on no account omit to see
the chapel built by Gil de Ontañon, since within it rests the Wolsey of
Spain. Upon a monument of white marble, by the skilful hand of Domenico
of Florence, reposes an effigy of Cardinal Cisneros. A lithograph of
this and of the quasi-Mudejar style of the chapel is given in the work
of Villa Amil,[20] and we may well take to heart the concluding sentence
of the description of it by Patricio Escosura:--"Una pregunta, y
concluimos; ¿Cuantos monumentos como el que acabamos de ejaminar
dejarémos nosotros en herencia à nuestros nietos?"[*]
[Illustration: PLATE 33
ALCALA DE HENARES
ARZOBISPADO
MDW 1869]
PLATE XXXIII.
_ALCALA-DE-HEÑARES._
WINDOW OF THE ARZOBISPADO.
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