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
A reference to my ground-plan[325] will show that the church remains
very much in the state which the documentary evidence describes. The
choir has nine chapels round its chevet, as described, and has lofty
arches, a series of very small openings in lieu of triforium, and a
clerestory of two-light windows, of decidedly late but still good
Middle-pointed character. The columns, in the usual Catalan fashion of
this age, are clusters of rather reedy mouldings, with no proper
division or subordination of parts, and consequently of poor effect, and
there is no division by way of stringcourses above or below the
triforium. On the exterior the east end is not seen to much advantage,
as it is built into and against a steep hill, so that at a distance of a
few feet only the eye is on a level with the top of the walls of the
chapels round the apse. The roofs, too, have all been modernized and
lowered. The only peculiarities here are a series of trefoiled openings,
just under the eaves of the roof, into the space over the vaulting, and
perhaps devised for the purpose of ventilation: and the gurgoyles
projecting from the buttresses, which are carved and moulded stones
finished at the end with an octagonal capital, through the bottom of
which the water falls, and which almost looks as if it were meant for
the stone head of a metal down-pipe.
When the choir was built, some considerable portions of the church
consecrated in A.D. 1038 were left standing. The nave was probably
entirely of this age; and a portion of what was no doubt one of the
original towers still remains on the north side, between the cloister
and the nave. This tower has pilasters at the angles and in the centre,
and is divided into equal stages in height by horizontal corbel-tables.
An apse of the same age remains on the east side of what seems to have
been the south transept of the early church: and from its position we
may, I think, assume with safety that the church was then finished with
three or five apses at the east, very much as in the church of San
Pedro, close by, which I shall have presently to describe. In addition
to these early remains there is also a magnificent and all but
unaltered cloister. I cannot find any certain evidence of its exact
date, though it seems to have existed in A.D. 1117, when an act of the
Bishop Raymond Berenger was issued in the “cloister of the
cathedral.”[326] The character of the work confirms, I think, this date.
The plan is very peculiar, forming a very irregular trapezium, no two of
the sides being equal in length. It has on all four sides severely
simple round arches carried on coupled shafts: these are of marble, and
set as much as 20 inches apart, so as to enable them to carry a wall 3
feet 1½ inches thick. This thickness of wall was quite necessary, as the
cloister is all roofed with stone, the section of the vaults on the
east, west, and south sides being half of a barrel, and on the north a
complete barrel vault.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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