Part 14 (1/2)
The church to which this steeple belongs is remarkable for the remains of an external cloister against the walls of the nave. There are several churches here which have the same feature, and in other parts of this book I have mentioned similar cases at Las Huelgas, Burgos, and at La Antigua, Valladolid. It looks like an arrangement for keeping the building cool, and is as good in its effect, as in so hot a climate it must be convenient.
Of the early churches here none is altogether so fine as that of San Millan. It stands in the southern valley, not far from the aqueduct, and exactly on the opposite side of the town to the Templars' Church. Like that, too, it is outside the walls, and in a scantily-peopled suburb.
It consists of a nave and aisles,[192] all finished at the east end with apses, and protected on both sides by cloisters similar to those of San Esteban, save that they are confined to the sides, and do not return across the west front. There is a low square lantern at the Crossing, and transepts which do not project beyond the aisles, and hardly show themselves, therefore, on the ground-plan. The central lantern is finished with a corbel-table, roofed with a low tiled roof, and lighted by a small window in each face. The apses are similar in style and detail to most of the early Spanish apses, having engaged shafts at intervals, richly wrought corbel-tables, and round-arched shafted windows. Both the transepts probably had flat gables, with single windows, like those in the apse, but the north transept has been destroyed for the erection of a steeple, which seems to have formed no part of the original plan. The most striking view of the church is from the north-west. The west front is quite unaltered, save by the addition of three little windows over the west door, and is a capital example of simple Romanesque. The gables are all of the same pitch, and the aisle walls are arcaded and pierced with windows above the cloister roofs. The cloister is a very rich composition, the shafts being coupled, with finely sculptured capitals, and the arches enriched with billet mouldings. The corbel-tables and cornices to these cloisters have evidently been carved at a date long after the original foundation of the church, the edge of the eaves-cornice being cut in a rich interlacing pattern of ivy-leaves, which cannot, I think, be earlier than from A.D. 1250 to 1270, and the heads, figures, and foliage on the corbels under it are all of the same character. There are fine north and south doors here, and there is a local peculiarity in their design which deserves notice. Their jambs consist of shafts set within very bold square recesses; and the number of orders in the arch is double that of those in the jamb, they being alternately carried on the capitals of the shafts, and upon the square order of the jambs. The effect is good, the bold s.p.a.cing of the shafts, and the ma.s.siveness of the intermediate square jambs, tending to give that effect of solidity which these early Spanish architects never tired in their attempts to attain.
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 26.
SAN MILLAN, SEGOVIA. p. 188.
NORTH-WEST VIEW.]
The interior of the church has been much modernized, but still enough remains to render the whole scheme intelligible. The arcades between the nave and aisles are all perfect; they are very plain, but spring from carved capitals of large size. The capitals of the nave arcades have their abaci planned with re-entering angles, so as exactly to fit the plan of the two square orders of the archivolt. Some of the caps are of foliage only, others are _histories_; one I remember having all round it the Adoration of the Magi, who are represented as large figures on horseback, and produce a most strange effect in such a place. The cross arches under the lantern are old, as also are those across the aisles, but the roof of the nave is now all under-drawn with plaster, and there are no means of telling precisely how it was originally covered; but, on the whole, I incline to the belief that it must have had a cylindrical vault, with quadrant vaults in the aisles, though it is possible, of course, that it had a flat wooden ceiling. The square piers in the nave favour this alternative, inasmuch as they seem to rise higher than they would have done had the roof been a stone vault. The pilasters against the aisle walls also run up to the level of the plate inside, and this (though it is modern) is higher than the springing of the nave arcades, and seems to prove that there have never been cross arches in the aisles. The external walls of the aisles above the cloister roofs are arcaded with plain arches between the pilasters, by which it is divided into bays, and the aisle windows are set within these arches. The lantern is modernized, but there still remain coupled cross ribs on its under side, and these, though they are plastered, being similar to those under the central vault of the Templars' Church, are probably original.
I wish much that I could put my hands on some doc.u.mentary evidence which would fix the exact date of this very fine and interesting church, for, from its importance, it may be considered to be a leading example; and there is no doubt that it very largely influenced the other churches of this important city. It is possible, however, from the character of some of the detail, that part of it is older than the Templars' Church, consecrated, as we have seen, in A.D. 1208; though other parts of the detail--as, for instance, that of the external cornices--cannot be earlier than A.D. 1250-1270. Before the last of these dates, therefore, I have no doubt the church was erected, though, as the arches are all, or nearly all, semi-circular, the greater part of the work was probably finished early in the century, if not in the twelfth century, and the decorations may have been completed afterwards.[193]
The non-introduction of pointed arches is certainly in favour of the earlier date, seeing that in the Templars' Church most of the main arches, rude as they are, are pointed; and were it not for the late character of some parts of San Millan, and looking only to the character of the plan and general design, I might have a.s.sumed its date to be about A.D. 1150. It is possible that the cloisters were added after the erection of the church.
The object of these external cloisters has been, I believe, matter of considerable discussion, yet I confess that they always seemed to me to be adopted mainly, if not solely, on account of the excessive heat in Spain in summer, and to be well worth our imitation when we have to erect churches in tropical climates. That they were confined very much to certain localities is perfectly true, but this is constantly the case, with local developments, in all parts of Europe; and here, no doubt, the idea once suggested by some early architect was frequently repeated by him, without taking the fancy of his brethren generally enough to make them repeat it elsewhere.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Capital in Cloister, San Martin, Segovia.]
Another example of the same cla.s.s, which in its original state must have been finer than San Millan, is to be seen in the church of San Martin.
Here the cloister was carried not only along the sides, but across the west front also, with a bold projecting west porch, breaking its lines, and giving great character and dignity to the whole scheme. The west doorway of the porch has statues in its jambs, and the detail seems to me to be all genuine thirteenth century work. The ill.u.s.tration of one of the cloister capitals will, I think, prove this; for though the old favourite device of couples of birds is repeated here, the lines are all extremely fine and graceful, and the carving of the abacus of an advanced kind. This church is, unfortunately, very much modernized throughout. It seems to have had three parallel apses at the east end, and transepts, against which the side cloisters of the nave were stopped. There is a modern lantern over the old crossing, and a tower to the west of it rising from out of the centre of the nave, which seems to be in part old. There were northern and southern as well as western doors, and openings in the cloister opposite each of them.
San Roman, a desecrated church near the palace of the civil governor, has a short nave, chancel, and apse, with a tower on the south side of the chancel. The walls are very lofty, and are all finished with corbel-tables at the eaves. The apse has three round-headed windows, and there is a n.o.ble north door, similar in design to those of San Millan, and with the abaci and labels richly carved. The west end has a small doorway, and a circular window over it, the former certainly, and the latter probably, not original. The lower stage only of the tower remains. This church must be of about the same age as San Millan.
San Facundo is similar in plan to San Roman, and of the same date. The detail of the apse is precisely the same as that of San Millan. There is a large west door, modernized, and an open cloister seems to have been added at a later date to the side of the church, and is now walled up.
This church is desecrated, and converted into a Museum of Paintings.
Santa Trinidad has a fine apse, and this is again of the San Millan pattern. It has carved stringcourses at the springing of the windows, and again just over their arches, and there are three-quarter engaged wall-shafts between the windows, and a richly sculptured eaves-cornice and corbel-table.
San Nicolas, close to Santa Trinidad, has two apses, each lighted with a single window, engaged wall-shafts, and the usual carved labels, abaci, and corbel-tables. The tower is on the north side, rises one stage above the roof, and is lighted with two round-arched belfry windows. A small apse was added rather later than the original fabric to the east of this tower, and before its erection the plan must have been almost the same as that of San Roman, but reversed. About a hundred yards from San Nicolas is another church which is almost an exact repet.i.tion of San Roman.
San Luine (?), in the Plazuela de Capuchinos, is of just the same cla.s.s as the rest, with nave, chancel, and apse, and a second apse east of the tower on the south side. There are no side windows here, and only a single light at the east end.
Another church, in the Plaza de Isabel II., is of the same plan as the last, with a modernized tower. The carving on the string-courses here is of the same kind of natural foliage that I have described at San Millan.
Near the aqueduct are two churches. One of them, S. Antholin (I think), has a tower at the north-east of the nave; its two upper stages have on each face two round-arched shafted windows, and the angles are treated in a precisely similar way to those of San Esteban, having bold splays with engaged shafts in their centres. Another church close to this is modernized, but retains its old tower, with the angles treated in the same way.
The church of San Juan has remains of an external cloister on one side.
The last church of this long, and I fear very dry, catalogue, is that of San Miguel, which stands in the Plaza near the cathedral. It has four bays of nave, shallow transepts, and a very short choir, which is, I think, apsidal, but almost concealed by a pagan Retablo. The whole is of late fifteenth-century date, and must, I think, be the work of the same hand as the cathedral. Some figures at the west end, representing St.
Michael and the Annunciation, have evidently been taken from some older building, and built into the walls here. There is a very beautiful triptych in the north transept, with a Descent from the Cross in the centre, which ought to be looked at. It is a fine work of, I suppose, the latter part of the sixteenth century.[194]
I have already mentioned the great Alcazar, and the old town walls and gateways. They are magnificent in their scale, and very picturesque. The Alcazar was burnt some two or three years ago, and is now roofless, and I was told that its interior had been completely destroyed. I foolishly omitted to verify this statement by personal inspection, and contented myself with the sight of the exterior. The walls of the front towards the city are all diapered in plaster, and here and there about the town several other examples of the same kind of work are to be seen. The patterns are generally tracery patterns of the latest Gothic, repeated over and over again, so as to produce a regular diaper throughout. I presume that it was executed with a frame cut out to the required pattern, so as to allow of the ground being cut back slightly, leaving the pattern lines formed in the original face of the plaster. This kind of decoration seems to be perfectly legitimate, and here, owing to the care with which the plaster has been made and used, it has stood remarkably well, though most of the patterns that I saw had evidently been executed in the fifteenth century.
In the front of the Alcazar these plaster patterns are carried not only all over the plain face of the walls, but also round the towers and turrets at the angles, so that the very smallest possible amount of wrought stone is introduced. The great tower or keep standing back a few feet only from the front is similarly ornamented, but has stone quoins bonded irregularly into the walls; in its upper stage it has windows surmounted by quaint stone canopies, and then a series of great circular turrets, corbelled boldly out from the face of the wall, and carried up a considerable height, give its extremely marked and Spanish air to this grand tower. These turrets are of stone, and between them is a parapet boldly corbelled out on machicoulis from the walls. With that contempt for uniformity which marks mediaeval artists, the keep is more than twice as broad on one side as on the other, and the great ma.s.s of wall and turret, roofs and spirelets, which crowned the whole building before the fire, well sustained its picturesque irregularity of shape.