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
development so rapid as it was in England and in the north of France,
and consequently such churches as the cathedrals of Tarragona, Lérida,
and Tudela were rising in Spain at the same time as the more advanced
and scientific, but perhaps less forcible and solemnly grand cathedrals
of Salisbury, Lincoln, and Wells were being built in England.
I hardly know when I have been much more struck than I was with the view
of the interior of the transept, of which I give an engraving. For
though the picturesque furniture of later times, the screens and
pulpits, the organs and other furniture, are in great contrast with the
glorious solidity of the old work, the combination of this with them
makes a singularly beautiful picture.
The nave of the cathedral at Tarragona has been a good deal altered by
the introduction of large fourteenth-century clerestory windows of three
lights. There is not and there never was a triforium, and the clerestory
throughout was, I have no doubt, the same in design that it still is in
the transepts, lighted by a simple round-headed window in each bay. The
groining has transverse arches or ribs of very large size, diagonal ribs
formed with a bold roll moulding only, and no wall ribs.
[Illustration: No 34.
TARRAGONA CATHEDRAL. p. 280.
VIEW ACROSS TRANSEPTS.]
The lantern over the Crossing still remains to be described. It is
octagonal in plan, segmental arches being thrown across the angles of
the square base to support its diagonal sides. The groining springs from
immediately above the apex of the main arches, and the light is admitted
by windows alternately of three and four lights. Its interior is very
fine. The ribs of its eight-celled vault are very bold, and the
dog-tooth enrichment is freely used round all the arches and along the
string-courses. The diagonal or canted sides of the lantern are carried
on pointed arches, the space below which is filled in with pendentives,
with the stones arranged in courses radiating from the centre. Such a
form of pendentive is rarely seen in works of this age. The details of
this lantern are all rather rude, and its height is not great, as it
rises only some twenty-five feet above the roofs. The outside has at
each angle a buttress, with an engaged shaft in front of it, and the
windows are all set within simple enclosing arches. Their tracery is
that of ordinary first-pointed windows, the three-light windows having
lancet lights, with the centre light longer than the others, and the
four-light windows having the two centre lights longest. The old outside
roof is destroyed; but the finish of the lanterns of Lérida and of the
old cathedral of Salamanca seems to make it pretty certain that it was
intended to have a pyramidal or domical stone roof. Access is now gained
to the top of the lantern by means of a passage boldly carried on an
arch which is thrown from the belfry window of the south-east steeple to
the side of the lantern. I ought to have mentioned that the upper stage
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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