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
I give the plan of this church on Plate II., and am inclined to doubt
the exact truth of the statements I have just quoted. I believe the
church to be a cruciform structure of the fourteenth century, whose
chancel and chancel aisles reproduced the plan of Las Huelgas, but were
probably rebuilt in A.D. 1399. The so-called Capilla mayor is probably
the chapel on the north side of the north aisle, a very elaborate
semi-Renaissance erection, with an octagon vault, reproducing many of
the peculiarities of Spanish groining, supported upon pendentives
similar to those of which I have spoken in describing the later works in
the cathedral; and it is no doubt the work of one of the descendants or
pupils of Juan de Colonia. The late chapels on each side of the choir
have enormous wooden bosses at the intersection of the groining ribs,
carved with tracery, and with a painting of a saint in the centre. This
mixture of painting and sculpture is very much the fashion in Spanish
wood-carvings, and the altar Retablos often afford examples of it. In
the floor of this church are some curious effigies of black marble, with
heads and hands of white.[54] Two such remain in the east wall of one of
the southern chapels, where they lie north and south.
The Retablos of the two chapels, north and south of the choir, are very
sumptuous works.
Against the north-west pier of the crossing there stands what is perhaps
the most uncommon piece of furniture in the church, an iron pulpit. It
is of very late date, but I think quite worthy of illustration. The
support is of iron, resting on stone, and the staircase modern. The
framework at the angles, top and bottom, is of wood, upon which the
ironwork is laid. The traceries are cut out of two plates of iron, laid
one over the other, and the ironwork is in part gilded, but I do not
think that this is original. The canopy is of the same age and
character, and the whole effect is very rich, at the same time that it
is very novel.[55] I saw other iron pulpits, but none so old as this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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