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
“two florins or twenty-two sueldos” a week. His assistant received fifty
sueldos a year for clothes and three sueldos and six dineros a day for
his double office of substitute for the principal architect and workman.
Roque no doubt was able to work elsewhere, whilst his assistant, or
clerk of the works, was confined to one work; in this way the apparent
strangeness of the similar pay to the two men is explained.[287] Roque,
who is said to have commenced the cloister, was succeeded by Bartolomé
Gual, who was one of the architects summoned to advise about the
cathedral of Gerona in 1416, and then described himself as master of the
works at Barcelona cathedral; and, finally, Andres Escuder placed the
last stone of the vault on September 26, A.D. 1448.
[Illustration: No. 36.
BARCELONA.
EAST END OF THE CATHEDRAL. p. 298.]
Having thus shortly stated the history of the building, let me now
attempt to describe its architecture and construction. It will be seen
that the plan is cruciform. The transepts do not, however, show much on
the exterior, as they form the base of the towers which are erected, as
at Exeter cathedral, above them. The plan of the chevet is very good; it
presents the French arrangement of an aisle and chapels round the apse
in place of the common Spanish triapsidal plan; but the detail is all
completely Catalan. The arches of the apse are very narrow and
stilted, and the columns throughout are composed of a rather confused
jumble of thin mouldings awkwardly arranged. Above the main arches is a
very small arcaded triforium, and above this a range of circular
windows, one in each bay. The groining springs from the capitals of the
main columns, so that the triforium and clerestory are both enclosed
within its arched wall-rib; they are consequently very disproportioned
in height as compared with those of northern churches. But here the
architect evidently intended to grapple with the difficulties of the
climate, and, designing his whole church with the one great object of
minimizing the light and heat, he was compelled to make his windows
small. The clerestory windows were traceried, and filled with rich
stained glass, which was well set back from the face of the wall. The
result is a perfect success as far as light and shade and the ordinary
purposes of a Spanish congregation are concerned, but the difficulty of
taking notes, sketches, or measurements, in most parts of the church,
even at mid-day, can hardly be imagined. The dark stone of which the
whole church is built increases not a little the sombre magnificence of
the effect. There is nothing peculiar about the chapels of the chevet;
but under the centre of the choir, and approached by a broad flight of
steps between two narrower flights which lead to the high altar, is the
small crypt or chapel already mentioned as that in which the remains of
Sta. Eulalia are enshrined. An inscription[288] records the date of the
translation of her remains to this spot in A.D.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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