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 church[337] consists of a nave and aisles of four bays, the arches
being very rude, and the piers plain and square. There are north and
south transepts, the former having one, and the latter two eastern
apsidal chapels; and the choir is also finished with an apse. There is
another apse at the north end of the north transept. The nave is roofed
with a round waggon-vault with plain cross-ribs carried on engaged
shafts; and there is a clerestory of single-light windows which, on the
inside, break up partly into the vault of the roof. The aisles are
roofed with half-waggon or quadrant vaults, and the apses with
semi-domes. The octagonal steeple is built above the north transept, and
has in the eastern wall of its first stage two apsidal recesses, which
seem to have been intended for altars, and are roofed with semi-domes.
The detail of some of the work at the east end is of an unusual kind: it
is built in stone and black volcanic scoriæ, and its rude character is
evidence of its early date. Any one who is acquainted with the noble
church at Elne, near Perpiñan, will remember the similar use of volcanic
scoriæ there, and will be led to class the two monuments together as
works of the same hand and period. The view of the exterior of the
church from the north-west is very striking. There is a fine western
door with a good deal of carving very delicately and elaborately
wrought, one of the capitals having a very careful imitation of a
fern-leaf on it; above the doorway a horizontal cornice is carried all
across the front, and over this is a fine rose window. The side walls
are finished with dentil-courses; and the clerestory--which is carried
up very high above the springing of the vault inside--is finished with
an eaves-arcading also. There were no windows in the side walls of the
aisle; and the clerestory windows, and a window at the west end of the
north aisle, have bold splays on the outside as well as inside.
The steeple has been much altered; but the original design of the two
upper (and octagonal) stages seems to have had a two-light window with a
bold central shaft, angle-pilasters, and stringcourses, with shallow
arcading below them.
On the south side are the cloisters. They are locked up and in ruins;
and though I tried two or three times, I was never able to gain
admission to them; but I saw them from the hill above, and they looked
at this distance as if they were designed very much after the pattern of
those attached to the cathedral. The arches are round, and carried on
coupled detached shafts, with piers in the centre of each side of the
cloister. The roof seems to have been a barrel-vault, but great part of
it has now fallen in. All this havoc and ruin is owing, like so much
that one sees in Spain, to the action of the French troops during the
Peninsular war.[338]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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