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 Cathedral is the first object of attraction, and its history is so
curious, that I need make no apology for proceeding without further
preface to say the substance of what I have been able to learn about it.
There was a cathedral here at a very early period; and when Gerona was
taken by the Moors, they converted it into a mosque, but, with their
usual liberality, allowed the services of the Church still to be carried
on in the neighbouring church of San Feliu, which for a time,
accordingly, was the cathedral church. In A.D. 1015 this state of
affairs had ceased, owing to the expulsion of the Moors, and the
cathedral was again recovered to the use of the Church. Considerable
works were at this time executed,[313] if, indeed, the cathedral was not
entirely rebuilt, as the old documents declare, and the altered church
was re-consecrated in A.D. 1038,[314] by the Archbishop of Narbonne,
assisted by the Bishops of Vique, Urgel, Elne, Barcelona, Carcassonne,
and others. In A.D. 1310 works seem to have been again in progress,[315]
and in A.D. 1312 a Chapter was held, at which it was resolved to rebuild
the head or chevet of the church with nine chapels,[316] for which, in
A.D. 1292, Guillermo Gaufredo, the treasurer, made a bequest in favour
of the work.[317] In A.D. 1325 I find that an indulgence was granted by
the Bishop Petrus de Urrea in favour of donors to the work of the
cathedral;[318] and the work, so far westward as the end of the choir,
was probably complete before A.D. 1346, inasmuch as in this year the
silver altar, with its Retablo and baldachin, were placed where they now
stand.[319] We know something of the architects employed during the
fourteenth century upon the works just mentioned. In 1312 the Chapter
appointed the Archdeacon Ramon de Vilarico and the Canon Arnaldo de
Montredon to be the _obreros_ or general clerical superintendents of the
progress of the works. In A.D. 1316, or, according to some authorities,
in February, 1320, an architect--Enrique of Narbonne--is first
mentioned; and soon after this, on his death, another architect of the
same city, Jacobo de Favariis by name, was appointed with a salary of
two hundred and fifty libras[320] a quarter, and upon the condition that
he should come from Narbonne six times a year[321] to examine the
progress of the works. In A.D. 1325 Bart. Argenta was the master of the
works, and he probably carried them on until the completion of the choir
in 1346.[322]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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