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
[Illustration: Chapels of the Chevet. Toledo Cathedral.]
The planning of the whole church was uniform throughout. The columns are
all circular, surrounded by engaged shafts, which, in the great piers in
the transept, are trefoiled in section. There do not appear to have been
chapels anywhere in the side walls of the nave, save on the south side
of the south aisle, where the chapel of Sta. Lucia appears to be of the
same age as the church, and is recorded to have been founded by
Archbishop Rodrigo, with an endowment for two chaplains to say masses
for the soul of Alonso VI.[238] This chapel has triple groining-shafts
in the angles, a good triplet, with dog-tooth and engaged jamb-shafts,
in the south wall, and a window of two lancets, with a circle in the
head, in the east wall. On the west side of this chapel is an extremely
rich recessed arch in stucco, of late Moorish work--a curious contrast
to the fine pointed work of the chapel.
[Illustration: No. 31.
TOLEDO CATHEDRAL p. 246.
INTERIOR OF NORTH AISLE OF CHOIR]
The original scheme of the church is only to be seen now in the choir
and its aisles. These are arranged in three gradations of height,--the
choir being upwards of a hundred feet, the aisle round it about sixty
feet, and the outer aisle about thirty-five feet[239] in height. The
outer wall of the aisle is pierced with arches for the small chapels
between the buttresses, the design and planning of which are shown
clearly in the illustration which I give. The intermediate aisle has in
its outer wall a triforium, formed by an arcade of cusped arches; and
above this, quite close to the point of the vault, a rose window in each
bay. It is in this triforium that the first evidence of any knowledge on
the part of the architect of Moorish architecture strikes the eye. The
cusping of the arcade is not enclosed within an arch, and takes a
distinctly horseshoe outline, the lowest cusp near to the cap spreading
inwards at the base. Now, it would be impossible to imagine any
circumstance which could afford better evidence of the foreign origin of
the first design than this slight concession to the customs of the place
in a slightly later portion of the works. An architect who came from
France, bent on designing nothing but a French church, would be very
likely, after a few years’ residence in Toledo, somewhat to change in
his views, and to attempt something in which the Moorish work, which he
was in the habit of seeing, would have its influence. The detail of this
triforium is notwithstanding all pure and good; the foliage of the
capitals is partly conventional, and, in part, a stiff imitation of
natural foliage, somewhat after the fashion of the work in the
Chapter-house at Southwell; the abaci are all square; there is a
profusion of nail-head used in the labels; and well-carved heads are
placed in each of the spandrels of the arcade. The circular windows
above the triforium are filled in with cusping of various patterns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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