Some Account of Gothic Architecture in SpainStreet, George Edmund
History
Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain
Street, George Edmund
Architecture, Gothic -- Spain; Church architecture -- Spain
The three stages of the western towers are, I think, respectively of the
twelfth, thirteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The second or intermediate
stage is arcaded, and has its angles planned with a shaft set in a broad
splay precisely in the mode we see so commonly adopted in the Segovian
towers.[177] The upper stage is finished with gables on each face, the
gable being fringed with a line of granite trefoils in not very good
taste. Gil Gonzales Dávila[178] says that the tower of this church was
built by alms in A.D. 1440. He refers, no doubt, to the upper stage, the
design of which agrees with this statement. I was not able to learn how
it had originally been roofed; but my impression is that it probably had
two stone gabled roofs intersecting each other.
In addition to the western door there is another fine entrance on the
south side of rather earlier date than the other, and now always in use
as the ordinary entrance to the church. Descending here by some steps
from the cloister, we find ourselves in the impressive interior, and are
at once struck by some features which are of rare occurrence in this
part of Spain. The columns are of very bold, perhaps heavy, design, and
rest on circular bases. Their front portion is carried up on a bold and
massive groining pier in front of the main wall; the arcades are
severely simple, the arches semi-circular, and the capitals richly
carved. A carved stringcourse is carried round the church above the
arches, and there is the very uncommon arrangement (in this country) of
a well-developed triforium; each bay here having a round-arched opening,
subdivided into two smaller openings, divided by a massive column with
sculptured capital. Another stringcourse divides the triforium and
clerestory, which has also round-arched windows of one light. The
vaulting, both in the nave and aisles, is quadripartite, the only
remarkable feature in it being the massive size of the ribs.
The three eastern apses are vaulted with waggon-vaults over their
western compartments, and semi-domes over the apses, and the transepts
are roofed with waggon-vaults. All the latter have cross arches or ribs
below them carried on engaged shafts, and the side walls of the chancel
and chancel-aisles are arcaded below the vaulting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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