Cathedral Cities of SpainCollins, W. W. (William Wiehe)
History
Cathedral Cities of Spain
Collins, W. W. (William Wiehe)
Cathedrals -- Spain; Spain -- Description and travel
I still sit in the sun rolling cigarettes; it is extraordinary how soon
the custom becomes a habit, and think of all this. A string of donkeys
passes with baskets stuffed tight with half a dozen large long-funnelled
water cans. They have come in with fresh drinking water from the spring
up the Darro under the Alhambra hill, and a little later the
water-sellers will be offering glasses of the refreshingly cool contents
of their cans. Granada is a city running with water, but the pollution
from the drains and the never-ending ranks of women on their knees
wrinsing clothes in its two streams, into which, by the way, all dead
refuse is thrown, makes that which is fit to drink a purchasable
quantity only.
I watch the peasants from the Vega, who come in with empty panniers
slung across their donkeys, scraping up the dirt of the streets which
they take away to fertilise their cottage gardens. Herds of goats go by
muzzled until milking is over. They make for that bit of blank wall
opposite, and stand licking the saline moisture which oozes from the
plaster in the shade. The goats of Granada are reckoned the finest in
Spain, and, as is the custom throughout Andalusia, graze in the early
spring on the tender shoots of the young corn. This not only keeps them
in food, but improves the quality of that part of the crop which reaches
maturity. I could sit all day here if only the sun stood still. My
companion removed himself half an hour ago and it is getting chilly in
the shade, so up and on to the Cathedral.
What a huge Renaissance pile it is. Built on the Gothic plans of Diego
de Siloe it is undoubtedly the most imposing edifice of this style in
Spain. Fergusson considers its plan makes it one of the finest churches
in Europe. The western façade was erected by Alonso Cano and José
Granados, and does not follow Siloe's original design. The name of the
sculptor-painter is writ in big letters throughout the building. To him
are due the colossal heads of Adam and Eve, let into recesses above the
High Altar, and the seven pictures of the _Annunciation_, _Conception_,
_Presentation in the Temple_, _Visitation_, _Purification_ and
_Assumption_ in the Capilla Mayor. The two very fine colossal figures,
bronze gilt, which stand above the over-elaborated pulpits; a couple of
beautiful miniatures on copper in the Capilla de la Trinidad; a fine
Christ bearing the Cross and a head of S. Pedro over the altar of Jesus
Nazareno, are also by Cano. Many other examples from his carving tools
and brush are to be found in the Cathedral, of which he was made a
"Racione" or minor Canon, after fleeing from Valladolid when accused of
the murder of his wife. The little room he used as a workshop in the
Great Tower may still be visited and his remains lie tranquilly beneath
the floor of the _coro_.
[Illustration: GRANADA. EXTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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