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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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