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 great rose-window of the north transept, though later, is not much
more so than the work I have been describing. It has an outer ring of
twelve cusped circles, six within these, and one in the centre. The
whole is filled with old glass. The centre circle has the Crucifixion;
the six circles round it St. Mary, St. John, and four Angels; and the
outer circles figures of the twelve greater prophets, pointing towards
our Lord. The ground of the centre circles within the cusps is a light
pure blue, and the cusps are filled with conventional foliage. The whole
is fastened to rings of iron, in the usual way, and is the best example
of stained glass now remaining in the cathedral.
The works undertaken here in the fourteenth century were very
considerable. The north doorway, the doorway of St. Catherine, leading
from the cloisters; the clerestory in the nave and nave-aisles and
transepts, and probably the whole of the four western bays of the nave;
the screens round the Coro, the chapel of San Ildefonso, and some other
portions, were all of this period; and the dates of many of them being
certain, they give admirable opportunities for the study of the detail
of the Spanish middle-pointed style. The north door has three statues in
each jamb, and a central figure of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord. The
arch has in its three orders different orders of angels, and the
tympanum is divided into four spaces by horizontal divisions, containing
the following subjects: (1) The Annunciation, the Salutation, the
Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents; (2)
the Marriage at Cana, the Presentation, the Dispute with the Doctors,
the Flight into Egypt; (3) the Marriage at Cana continued all across;
and (4) the Death of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The whole is good work of
the end of the fourteenth century. The doorway of St. Catherine, which
opens into the cloister, is mainly remarkable for its elaborate
mouldings, but has a central figure of the saint and two others standing
on capitals, and under canopies, on either side of the doorway. The arch
is crocketed and covered with a profusion of small carving, and with
coats-of-arms of Castile and Leon. The label is crocketed, and between
the doorway and the vault of the cloister a rose window and two windows
of two lights each are picturesquely grouped. The other great doorways
are almost all modernized and uninteresting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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