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 tympanum of the doorway, and of the circular window above, are sharp
geometrical works, very delicately executed. The upper part of the
western gable above the circular window seems to have had three windows,
but these are now partially destroyed. The hinges and knockers of the
western doorway are elaborately designed, covered with pierced
traceries, made with several thicknesses of metal. The doors are
diapered all over with iron plates, nailed on with copper nails, and
with copper ornaments in the centre of each plate. The buttresses are
bold, but rather clumsily designed. The statues of the door-jamb are
carried round their lower parts, and the stage above is occupied with
traceried panels. A great crocketed pinnacle conceals the set-off, and
forms, with the flat pediment of the doorway, a group in advance of the
real face of the western wall. Other crocketed pinnacles probably
finished the angle buttresses on each side of the main gable, but they
are now destroyed.
The north side of the nave is not easily seen, being enclosed within
walls and behind houses; but the south side is fairly open to view.
Here, however, much of the original design is now completely concealed
by modern additions. The two western bays have chapels, added in the
fifteenth century; the third bay a domed chapel of the seventeenth
century; and there are two other late Gothic chapels in the two bays
nearest the south transept. On the north, side chapels have been added
in the same fashion, those in the two western bays alone being mediæval.
From the west side of the south transept a fair view is obtained of the
best portion of the old exterior. The transept gable is extremely flat
in pitch; the buttresses are all carried up straight to the eaves, and
the trefoiled eaves-arcading, which recalls the favourite brick
eaves-cornices of the Italian churches, is returned round them at the
top, and a deep moulding, covered with billets, is carried along over
the eaves-arcading. The original semi-Romanesque window, with its very
broad external splay, still remains in the bay of the transept next to
the Crossing; but the other windows have been altered; and there is a
rich traceried rose window in the southern façade. The exterior of the
lantern is certainly not very attractive. The entire absence from view
of its roof is a fault of the most grievous kind; though, otherwise, its
windows, recalling as they do the traceries of our own first-pointed,
are not at all to be condemned. I doubt very much whether this lantern
was ever a fine work on the exterior; but we may well be content to have
anything so fine as the interior, and may fairly pardon its architect
for his failure to achieve a more complete success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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