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 windows here are plain, round-arched lancets, but those in the
clerestory of the nave are two-light windows, with a plain circle in the
head, and richly moulded. The most striking architectural feature on the
outside is the western steeple, which well deserves illustration, being
full of peculiarity and vigour. The belfry-windows are singularly
varied, for they are of three lights on the west, of two very wide
lights on the south, and of two narrow lights on the east side. The
tracery in all consists of uncusped circles, packed together in the same
fashion as in the clerestory of Burgos Cathedral. The west window is of
two lights, with simple piercings in the tympanum, and between it and
the west doorway are a number of corbels all across the west front,
which seem to prove that there was a pent-house roof across the whole of
it. This must have largely added to the picturesqueness of the
building, whilst at the same time it must, in such a climate, have been
a most wise expedient for sheltering the doorway from the heat. The west
doorway is a really fine work, but terribly mutilated. It has six series
of subjects, in as many lines of archivolt moulding, the innermost order
containing angels only: the second, figures with books or instruments of
music: the third, angels again: the fourth, the Resurrection (with the
Last Judgment, occupying the centre of this and the next order): the
fifth and sixth, subjects from the life of our Lord, beginning with the
Annunciation on the left. The outside moulding consists of a bold
bowtell, with another arranged in continuous cusping in front of it, as
in some of our own transitional work. The lower stage of the tower has a
groined gallery, in which are the stalls, lectern, and organ.
It is much to be lamented that the finish of the steeple is not
original, for we should then have had a complete example of a fine
parish church, which must have been building from circa A.D. 1190 to
circa A.D. 1250; but an early building unaltered on the exterior is a
treat for which one generally sighs in vain in Spain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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