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 earliest of the distinctly Moorish buildings is a little
mosque--now called the church of “Cristo de la Luz”--which was standing
at the time of the entrance of Don Alonso VI. into the city, on Sunday,
May 25, 1085. He entered by the old Puerta de Visagra, and, turning into
this the first mosque on his road, ordered mass to be said, and hung up
his shield there before he went further. No doubt the nave of the
building is still very much in the state in which he found it; it is
very small, only 21 ft. 7¼ in. by 20 ft. 2 in., and this space is
subdivided into nine compartments by four very low circular columns,
which are about a foot in diameter. Their capitals are some of those of
which I have just spoken; they are all different, and, it seemed to me,
more like Moorish work than the other capitals of the same class at San
Roman and Sta. Cruz. The arches, of which four spring from each capital,
are all of the round horseshoe form; above them is a string-course, and
all the intermediate walls are carried up to the same height as the main
walls. They are all pierced above the arches with arcades of varied
design, generally cusped in very Moorish fashion, and supported on
shafts; and above these each of the nine divisions is crowned with a
little vault, formed by intersecting cusped ribs, thrown in the most
fantastic way across each other, and varied in each compartment. The
scale of the whole work is so diminutive that it is difficult, no doubt,
to understand how so much is done in so small a space; but, looking to
the early date of the work, it is impossible not to feel very great
respect for the workmen who built it, and for the ingenious intricacy
which has made their work look so much larger and more important than it
really is.[210] It is, indeed, an admirable instance of the skill and
dexterity in design which seem to have marked the Moors so honourably
from the first, and which must have made them, as far as one can judge,
in every respect but their faith so much the superiors of their
Christian contemporaries. An apse has been added for the altar, but this
is evidently a much later addition to the old mosque. The exterior face
of the walls is built of brick and rough stone. The lower part of the
side wall being arcaded with three round arches, within the centre of
which is a round horseshoe arch for a doorway; above is a continuous
sunk arcade of cusped arches, within which are window openings with
round horseshoe heads. The lower part of the walls is built with single
courses of brick, alternating with rough stonework; the piers and arches
of brick, with projecting labels and strings also of unmoulded brick.
The arches of the upper windows are built with red and green bricks
alternated. The horseshoe arches here are built in the usual Moorish
fashion, the lower part of the arch being constructed with bricks laid
horizontally, and cut at the edge to the required curve; and about
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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