Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain Part 30

The materials used by Spanish architects and builders seem to have been granite, stone, and brick. Granite was used in some of the very earliest constructions; but after the introduction of Christian art into the country, nothing but stone was used for two or three centuries, when granite was again made use of. We see the same thing in England; and no doubt the admirable masons who played so important a part in the development of Christian architecture must have detested the hard, coa.r.s.e, and unyielding material, when they compared it with the more easily-wrought free-stones which lent themselves so kindly to their work. The Spanish masons were always, I think, skilful; and in the fifteenth century, when Gothic art was glowing forth in all the glory of decay, pre-eminently so. I know no mere execution of details more admirable in every way than that which we see, for instance, in the work of Diego de Siloe. It reaches the very utmost limit of skilful handiwork. It is not very artistic, but it is so clever that we cannot but admire it; and I doubt much whether the best of our own works of the same age can at all be put in comparison with it. It is generally marked by the extraordinary love of heraldic achievements which is so characteristic of the Spaniards. There are some of the facades of the later churches which are adorned with absolutely nothing but coats of arms and their supporters; and I know no work which is less interesting in spite of its extraordinary elaborateness. The decorations of parts of our Houses of Parliament give some idea of this sort of work, though they are by no means so painfully elaborate.

The masons seem to have worked together in large bodies, and the walls are marked in all directions with the signs which, then as now, distinguished the work of each mason from that of his neighbour, but I have been unable (save in one or two cases) to detect the mark of the same mason in more than one work; and from this it would seem to be probable that the masons were stationary rather than nomadic in their habits, a deduction which is fortified by the difference of general character which may, I think, be detected between the groups of marks in different buildings. Occasionally the number of men employed on one building seems to have been unusually large, and it is clear therefore that there were great numbers of masons in the country. In the small church of Sta. Maria, Benavente, there are the marks of at least thirty-one masons on the eastern wall; as many as thirty-five were at work on the lower part of the steeple at Lerida; whilst in one portion of Santiago Cathedral there appears to have been as many as sixty. These numbers would be large at the present day; and are very considerable even if compared with such a building as Westminster Abbey, where, in A.D. 1253, when the works were in full progress, the number of stone-cutters varied from thirty-five to seventy-eight.

The use of bricks was not, so far as I have seen, very great. They were used either in combination with stone, plaster, or tiles, or by themselves. Examples of their use in combination with stone may be seen at Toledo. Here, in all the Moorish or Moresque examples, the walls are built of rubble stone, with occasional bonding-courses of brick, and brick quoins. This kind of construction, which has been sometimes adopted of late years in England, is obviously good and convenient, but wanted, to some minds, the authority of ancient precedent; and here at Toledo we are able to show it from a very early period. In the very early Puerta de Visagra (circa A.D. 1108-1136) single bonding-courses of brick are used at a very short distance apart, whilst in the later works, such as the steeples of San Roman and La Magdalena, the bands are farther apart, and consist frequently of two or three courses of brick, whilst the stringcourses and corbel-tables are formed of projecting bricks, which are seldom, if ever, moulded. This, indeed, may almost be said to be the special peculiarity of Spanish brickwork; for in every other part of Europe, so far as I have seen, where bricks are much used, they were always more or less moulded. These examples are useful, however, as showing how very much richness of effect can be obtained by the use of the simple rough material in the simplest way. At Zaragoza, at Tarazona, at Calatayud, and elsewhere, the buildings and their steeples are covered with panels and arcades, formed by setting forward some of the bricks a few inches in advance of the face of the wall. In some cases, as in the Cimborio of Tarazona Cathedral, and the east wall of Zaragoza, the s.p.a.ces so left are filled in with extremely rich work in coloured tiles, the effect of which is far less garish and strange than might have been expected.

The most curious feature that I have noticed about Spanish brickwork is, that it always, or almost always, appears to have been the work of Moorish workmen, and not of the Christian workmen by whom the great churches throughout the country were erected. The Moors continued to live and work in many towns long after the Christians had recovered them; and wherever they did so, they seem to have retained, to a great extent, all their old architectural and constructive traditions. We see this most distinctly in the markedly different character of the old Spanish brickwork both from the other Spanish architectural developments of the day, and also from any brickwork of the same period that is seen in other parts of Europe. If after leaving Zaragoza the traveller were to cross the Pyrenees, and then make his way to Toulouse, he would find himself again in the midst of brick buildings, erected at various times from the twelfth to the sixteenth century; but he would find them utterly different in style from the brick buildings of the Zaragozan district, and thoroughly in harmony with the stone buildings which were being erected at the same time in the same neighbourhood. And this brings us in face of one of the most curious evidences of the extremely exotic character of most Spanish art. Spain was the only country in Europe, probably, in which at the same time, during the whole period from A.D. 1200 to A.D. 1500, various schools of architecture existed much as they do in England at the present day. There were the genuine Spanish Gothic churches (derived, of course, from Roman and Romanesque), the northern Gothic buildings executed by architects imported from France, and in later days from Germany, and the Moresque buildings executed by Moorish architects for their Christian masters. Of these schools I have already discussed two in this chapter, and I must now say a few words about the third.

I do not propose to speak here of Moorish art, properly and strictly so called, but only of that variety of it which we see made use of by the Christians, and which throughout this volume I have called "Moresque."

Of these, the most remarkable that I have seen are in that most interesting city of Toledo, which, so far as I can learn, seems to surpa.s.s Seville in work of this kind, almost as much as it does in its treasures of Christian art. Here it is plain that, though Christians ruled the city, Moors inhabited it. The very planning of the town, with its long, narrow, winding lanes; the arrangement of the houses, with their closed outer walls, their _patios_ or courts, and their large and magnificent halls, speak strongly and decidedly in favour of the Moorish origin of the whole. And when we come to look into the matter in detail, this presumption is most fully supported; for everywhere the design of the internal finis.h.i.+ng and decorations of the houses and rooms is thoroughly Moorish, executed with the remarkable skill in plaster for which the Moors were noted, and with curious exhibitions here and there of a knowledge, on the part of the men who did them, of the Gothic details which were most in vogue at the time.

It may well be supposed that if the Moors were thus influenced by the sight of Christian art, the Christians would be not less so by the sight of theirs. I fully expected when I went first to Spain that I should find evidences of this more or less everywhere; I soon found that I was entirely mistaken, and that, though they do exist, they are comparatively rare and very unimportant. This will be seen if I notice some of the most remarkable of the examples.

(1.) In Toledo Cathedral the triforium of the choir is decidedly Moresque in its design, though it is Gothic in all its details, and has carvings of heads, and of the ordinary dog-tooth enrichment. It consists of a trefoiled arcade; in the spandrels between the arches of this there are circles with heads in them; and above these, triangular openings pierced through the wall; the mouldings of all these openings interpenetrate, and the whole arcade has the air of intricate ingenuity so usual in Moorish work. It might not be called Moresque in England, but in Toledo there can, I think, be no question that it is the result of Moorish influence on the Christian artist. So also in the triforium of the inner aisle of the same Cathedral the cusping of the arcades begins with the point of the cusp on the capital, so as to produce the effect of a horseshoe arch: and though it is true that this form of cusping is found extensively in French buildings in the country between Le Puy and Bourges, here, in the neighbourhood of the universal horseshoe cusping of the Moorish arches, it is difficult to suppose that the origin of this work is not Moorish also. The same may be said with equal truth of the triforium at the east end of Avila Cathedral.

(2.) The towers of the Christian churches in Toledo, at Illescas, at Calatayud, at Zaragoza, and at Tarazona, all appear to me to be completely Moresque. Those in Toledo make no disguise about it, the pointed arches of their window openings not even affecting to be Gothic in their mode of construction. So also in some of the churches of Toledo much of the work is completely Moresque. The church of Sta. Leocadia is a remarkable example of the mixture of Romanesque and Moresque ideas in the same building.

(3.) In many buildings some small portion of Moorish ornament is introduced by the Christian workman evidently as a curiosity, and as it were to show that he knew how to do it, but did not choose to do much of it. Among these are, (_a_) the traceries in the thirteenth-century cloister at Tarragona,[423] where the Moresque character is combined with the Christian symbol; (_b_) the interlacing traceries of the circular windows in the lantern of San Pedro, Huesca;[424] (_c_) the carving of a Moorish interlacing pattern on the keystone of a vault at Lerida; (_d_) the filling in of the windows of the Cloister at Tarazona with the most elaborate pierced traceries;[425] (_e_) the traceries of the clerestory of the aisle of the chevet of Toledo Cathedral; (_f_) and similar semi-Moresque traceries inserted in Gothic windows at Lugo, and many other places, where everything else is purely Gothic.

(4.) The introduction of coupled groining ribs, as in the vault of the Templars' Church at Segovia, and in that of the Chapter-house at Salamanca. The Moorish architects seem always to have been extremely fond of coupled ribs. We see them in several of the vaults in the church or mosque called Cristo de la Luz;[426] and the princ.i.p.al timbers of the wooden roofs of the synagogue "del Transito" are similarly coupled. It is an arrangement utterly unknown, so far as I remember, in Gothic work, and there can be no doubt that in these examples it is Moresque. The vault of the Chapter-house at Salamanca, which also has parallel vaulting ribs, produces, as will be seen[427] in the centre, the sort of star-shaped compartment of which the Moorish architects were always so fond.

(5.) The Moorish battlement is used extensively on walls throughout Spain. It is weathered on all sides to a point, and covers only the battlements, and not the s.p.a.ces between them.[428]

(6.) The Moorish system of plastering was considerably used, not only at Toledo, but also to a late period on the Alcazar and on houses and towers at Segovia. Here, however, though the system of design and the mode of execution are altogether Moorish, the details of the patterns cut in the plaster are generally Christian.

(7.) The Moorish carpentry is very peculiar, and is constantly introduced in late Gothic work. Most of my readers have probably seen the ingenious puzzles which the Moors contrived with interlacing ribs in their ceilings at the Alhambra, ill.u.s.trated with so much completeness by Mr. Owen Jones; these patterns are constantly used in Gothic buildings for door-framing; and examples of this kind of work may be seen frequently, and especially in towns--like Valencia and Barcelona--on the eastern coast.

These evidences of Moorish influence upon Christian art in Spain are, it will at once be seen, rather insignificant, and serve on the whole to prove the fact, that Christian art was nearly as pure here as it was anywhere. This is precisely, I think, what might have been expected. For where a semi-religious war was for ages going on between two nations, and where art was, as it almost always is--G.o.d be praised--more or less religious in its origin and object, nothing can be imagined less probable than that their national styles of art should be much mixed one with the other. It is probable, on the contrary, that each would have a certain amount of pride in this practical way of protesting against his enemy's heresies, so that art was likely to a.s.sume a religious air even greater and deeper than it did elsewhere.

The mention of the religious element in art leads naturally to the consideration of that art which most objectively ministered to the teaching of religious truths and history--the art of Painting. The admirable and interesting work of Mr. Stirling[429] begins just where I leave off, and almost treats the painters before Velasquez, Murillo, and Joanes as though they had never existed. But in truth I suppose it is necessary that the whole subject should be studied from the beginning; and though we can never hope for such a mine of information about mediaeval Spanish painters as Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have given us about their Italian contemporaries, it is not, I think, unreasonable to suppose that a good deal of information might still be obtained. I regret very much that in all my Spanish journeys my time has been so fully occupied with purely architectural work that I have never been able to pay so much attention as they seemed to deserve to the early paintings that I saw. Yet the works of Borgona at Avila, the paintings round the cloister and choir-screen at Leon, the painted Retablos at Barcelona, Toledo, and elsewhere, seemed to me to be often very full of beauty both of drawing and colour. Their number is very great, and most of them are still in the very places for which they were originally painted. Their character appears to me to be utterly different from that to which we are accustomed as marking Spanish painting. Almost all our ideas are formed, as it seems to me, on the work of a school of painters who, adopting religious art as their special vocation, and shutting themselves out almost entirely from any representation of any other kind of subject, contrived unfortunately to take the gloomy side of religion, and to paint as though an officer of the Holy Office was ever at their elbow. How contrary this spirit to that of the earlier men, who, so far as I have seen, painted just as naturally religious men, cheerful, hearty, and unaffected by the souring influence of the Inquisition, might be expected to paint! Their work appears to me to give them an intermediate place between the tenderly delicate treatment of the early Italian masters, and the intensely realistic and consequently very mundane style of the early German painters; but it is always bright, cheerful, and agreeable both in manner and choice of subject. The names of but a few of these early men are preserved, and unfortunately next to nothing beyond their names. Among them are Ramon Torrente of Zaragoza, who died in 1323; Guillem Fort, his pupil; Juan Cesilles of Barcelona, who at the end of the fourteenth century contracted for the painting of the Reredos at Reus, and some of whose handiwork may not impossibly remain among the Retablos still preserved in the cloister chapels of Barcelona Cathedral; Gherardo d'Jacobo Starna (or Starnina), born at Florence in 1354, who before the end of the fourteenth century spent several years painting in Spain; Dello, also of Florence, and a friend of Paolo Uccello, who died somewhere about 1466-70;[430] Rogel, a Fleming, who painted a chapel at Miraflores in A.D. 1445; Jorge Ingles (probably an Englishman), who was painting in Spain circa A.D. 1450; Antonio Rincon,[431] who was born at Guadalajara in 1446, studied under Ghirlandaio for a time, and, subsequently residing at Toledo, painted in A.D. 1483 the walls of the old sacristy, and died circa 1500, with the reputation of being the painter who had most contributed to the overthrow of the mediaeval style; finally, Juan de Borgona, who may be mentioned as one of the latest and greatest of the earlier school, and almost the only one of them whose known works are still to be seen. His great work appears to have been a series of paintings round the cloister of Toledo Cathedral, which have all been destroyed; besides which he executed other works in the sacristy, chapter-house, and Mozarabic chapel there, and in the Cathedral at Avila. The feature which strikes one the most in these early works is the strange way in which sculpture and painting are combined in the same work. The great Retablos which give so grand an effect to Spanish altars are frequently adorned with paintings in some parts and sculptured subjects in others. The frames to the pictures are generally elaborate architectural compositions of pinnacles and canopies, and consequently the art is altogether rather decorative than pictorial in its effect. Sometimes, when the altar is small, and the Retablo close to the eye, this is not so much the case, and I have seen many of the pictures in these positions look so thoroughly well as to give a very high impression of the men who produced them. They are almost all painted on panel, and, as might be expected, on gold grounds. Old wall-paintings are comparatively rare: I have seen no important series save that which I have described at Leon, and of the later of these some at least appeared to me to be extremely Florentine in their character.

This general review of the whole course and history of Spanish art seemed to be necessary in order to give point and intelligible order to the various descriptive notices which have been given in the previous chapters of this book. It is probable that some of my readers may after all think that I have had but little that was new to tell them. Possibly this may be so. The history of art repeats itself everywhere in obedience to some general law of progress; and it might have been a.s.sumed beforehand that we should find the same story in Spain as in France, Germany, or England. But the real novelty of my account is, I take it, this,--that whereas generally men credited Spain with forming an exception to a general rule, my business has been to show that, on the whole, she did nothing of the sort. Just as we obtained a French architect for our Canterbury, as the people of Milan obtained one from Germany for their cathedral, as the architect of St. Mark at Venice borrowed from the East, as he of Perigueux from St. Mark, as he of Cologne from Amiens or Beauvais, so Spain profited, no doubt, from time to time, by the example of her French neighbours. But at the same time she formed a true branch of art for herself, and one so vigorous, so n.o.ble, and so worthy of study, that I shall be disappointed indeed if her buildings are not ere long far more familiar than they now are to English Ecclesiologists.

I think, too, that the occasional study of any ancient school of architecture is always attended with the best possible results to those who are themselves attempting to practise the same art. It recalls us, when necessary, to the consideration of the points of difference between their work and ours; and thus, by obliging us to reconsider our position, may enable us to see where it is defective, and where the course we are pursuing is evidently erroneous. I have already noticed incidentally, in more than one place in this work, the n.o.ble air of solidity which so often marks the early Spanish buildings; I need hardly say that in these days none of us err on this side, and that in truth our buildings only too often lack even that amount of solidity which is necessary to their stability. And this leads me naturally to another questionable feature in modern work, which is to a great extent the cause of our failing in the matter of solidity. These n.o.ble Spanish buildings were usually solid and simple; their mouldings were not very many, and their sculptures were few, precious, and delicate. There was little in them of mere ornament, and never any lavish display of it.

Sculpture of the human figure was but rarely introduced, and whatever sculpture there was, was thoroughly architectural in its character. How different is the case now! Hardly a church or public building of any kind is built, which--whatever its poverty elsewhere--has not sculpture of foliage and flowers, birds and beasts, scattered broadcast and with profusion all over it. However bad the work, it is sure to be admired, and as it is evidently almost always done without any, or with but little interference of the architect, he is often tempted to secure popularity for his work in this easiest of ways. I know buildings of great cost which have been absolutely ruined in effect by this miserable practice; and I know none in the middle ages in which so much carved work has been introduced, as has been in some of those which have recently been erected. I believe it to be a fact that more carving--if the vulgar hacking and hewing of stone we see is to be called carving--has been done in England within the last twenty years than our forefathers accomplished in any fifty years between A.D. 1100 and 1500!

And I believe equally that, if we limited ourselves to one-tenth of the amount, there would be more chance of our having time to think about it and to design it ourselves.

The same misfortune that has befallen us with foliage will soon befal us with figures. It has suddenly been discovered that every architect ought to be able to draw the human figure, and soon, I fear, we shall see it become the fas.h.i.+on to introduce figures without thought or value everywhere. If men would but look at some of our own old buildings, they would see how great is still the work which has to be done before we understand how to emulate the merits of those even among them which have no sculpture of any kind in their composition, and how great the architect may be who despises and rejects this cheap kind of popularity.[432] And they ought to take warning, by the comparison of old work and old ways of working with new, of those too attractive but most dangerous schemes for seducing them from the real study of their art into other paths, certain, it is true, of popularity, but full of snares and pitfalls, which, as we see on all sides, entrap some of those even who ought to have been aware of their danger.

Sculpture in moderation is above everything beautiful. Sculpture in excess is very offensive. These Spanish churches teach us this most unmistakably if they teach us anything at all; and as the main object of the study of ancient art--the main object of those who wish to "stand in the old ways where is the truth"--is to derive lessons for the present and future from the practice of the past, I am sure that, in applying the results of my study of Spanish art in the warning which I here very gravely give, I am only doing that which as an artist I am bound to do, if I care at all for my art.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE SPANISH ARCHITECTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

The history of the architects of the middle ages has never been written, and so few are the facts which we really know about them, that it may well be doubted whether it ever can be. Yet were it possible to do so, few subjects would be more interesting. To me it always seems that the most precious property of all good art is its human and personal character. I have always had an especial pleasure in tracing out what appear to be such similarities between different buildings as seem to prove, or at least to suggest, that they were designed by the same artist; for, just as in painting, a work becomes far more precious if we know it to be really the handiwork of a Giotto or a Simone Memmi, so in the sister art a building is far more precious when we know it to be the work of an Elias of Dereham, an Alan of Walsingham, or an Eudes de Montreuil; and if we are able, as in their case to start with the knowledge that certain men did certain works, the interest of such investigations is at once manyfold enhanced.

This is precisely the point at which we have now arrived in regard to Spanish buildings; for the notices of their architects which I have given in various parts of this book are so numerous that I think I shall do well to collect them together in their order; and to sum up, as much as one can learn from the doc.u.ments relating to them, as to the terms on which they carried on their work, and generally, indeed, as to the position which they held.

In the earliest period, and just when any information would have been more than usually interesting to us, I have been able to learn next to nothing of any real value as to the superintendents of Spanish buildings.

One of the first notices of an architect is that contained in an inscription in San Isidoro, Leon, to the memory of Petrus de Deo, of whom it was said, "Erat vir mirae abstinentiae, et multis florebat miraculis;" and, what is even more to our purpose, he is said to have built a bridge. He "superaedificavit" the church of San Isidoro, and, from the reference to his saintly life, one is inclined to suspect that he must have been a priest and probably a monk; if so, it is important to note the fact, inasmuch as almost all the other architects or masters of the works referred to in all books I have examined, seem to have been laymen, and just as much a distinct cla.s.s as architects at the present day are. The expression "superaedificavit" does not tell us much as to the exact office of Petrus de Deo; but the next notice of an architect is not only one of the earliest, but also one of the most curious; this is in the contract entered into by the Chapter of Lugo with their architect Raymundo of Monforte de Lemos, in A.D. 1129; and from the terms of his payment, which was to be either in money or in kind, it is clear that, whatever his position was, he could not leave Lugo, but was retained solely for the work there. The terms of the contract are very worthy of notice, and may be compared with some of the similar agreements with, the superintendents of English works, who frequently stipulated for a cloak of office and other payments in kind, though I doubt whether we know of any English contract of so early a date. It is clear from the payment of an annual salary, and an engagement for the term of his life, that Maestro Raymundo was distinctly an architect, not a mere builder or contractor; it seems that he was a layman, and that his son followed the same profession. The t.i.tle given him in the contract, "Master of the works," is, as we shall find, that which in course of time was usually given to the architect; though I am not inclined to think that it makes it impossible that he should also have wrought with his own hands. Indeed, the very next notice of an architect is of one who certainly did act as sculptor on his own works. This was Mattheus, master of the works at Santiago Cathedral. The warrant issued by the king Ferdinand II., in A.D. 1168, granted him a pension of a hundred maravedis annually for the rest of his life,[433] and, though the amount seems to be insignificant, the fact of any royal grant being made proves, I think, not only the king's sense of the value of a fine church, but also somewhat as to the degree of importance which its designer may have attained to, when he was recognized at all by the king. On the other hand, when twenty years later the same man (no doubt) wrote his name exultingly on the lintels of the church doorway, which was only then at last finished,[434] there can be no doubt that he had been acting there both as sculptor and architect: and if, from a modern point of view, he lost caste as an architect, he no doubt gained it as an artist; and even now, if one had to make the choice, one would far rather have been able honestly to put up one's name as the author of those doorways, than as the builder of the church to which they are attached. It will be noticed that here, just as at Lugo, the master of the works was appointed at a salary for his lifetime, and held his office precisely in the same way as do the surveyors of our own cathedrals at the present day.

Much about the same time, in A.D. 1175, a most interesting doc.u.ment was drawn out, binding one Raymundo, a "Lambardo,"[435] to execute certain works in the cathedral at Urgel, in Cataluna. It is very difficult to say whether this Raymundo was the architect and builder, or only the builder, of the church, though I incline to believe he was both. He was to complete his work in seven years, employing four "Lambardos," and, if necessary, "Cementarios," or wallers, in addition; and in return he was to be paid with a Canon's portion for the rest of his life. The mode of payment, the engagement for life, and the fact that there is no mention whatever of any materials to be provided by Raymundo, as well as the absence from the contract of any reference to a master of the works, lead, I think, to the conclusion that he was in truth the architect, but that he also superintended the execution of the works, and contracted for the labour.[436]

The next notice I find of an architect is in A.D. 1203, when the architect of Lerida Cathedral, one Pedro de c.u.mba, is described as "Magister et fabricator," and there can be no doubt, therefore, that he not only designed but executed the work, which, as we go on, we shall find to have been a not very uncommon custom; but it is rare, nevertheless, to see this t.i.tle of "Fabricator" given to the architect, who is usually "Magister operis," and no more;[437] as, indeed, we see in the case of the successor of Pedro de c.u.mba, one Pedro de Penafreyta, who is described on his monument by this t.i.tle only.

In the thirteenth century we have the names of several architects, but nothing more than their names; and the only point which seems worthy of special note is that, so far as I can learn, none of them were ecclesiastics; whilst, from first to last, I have found no reference to anything like freemasonry. Indeed, on both these points, the history of Spanish architects seems to be singularly conclusive; and there can be little doubt that they carried on their work entirely as a business, and always under very distinct and formal engagements as to the way in which it was to be done.

In the fourteenth century the earliest notice is that contained in an order of the king, in 1303, dated at Perpinan, and directed to his lieutenant in Mallorca, requiring him to go at once "c.u.m Magistro Poncio" to Minorca, to arrange about the building a town wall, which the king wishes to have built with round towers, "sicut in muro Perpiniani;"

and two years later the king writes again, "Item audivimus turrim nostram Majoricarum, ubi stat angelus ictu fulgens fuisse percussam et aliquantulum deformatam. Volumus quod celeriter sicut magister Poncius et alii viderint faciendum celeriter restauretur."[438] Here it is, to say the least, doubtful whether Master Ponce was architect and adviser only, or also the mason who was to do the work. But this could not have been the case with the two architects of Narbonne, employed in the rebuilding of the cathedral at Gerona, one of whom was appointed in A.D.

1320-22 at a salary of two hundred and fifty sueldos a quarter, and under agreement to come from Narbonne six times a year. Here, whilst the old plan of making the architect enter into a kind of contract is adhered to, we seem to have a distinct recognition of a cla.s.s of men who were not workmen, but really and only superintendents of buildings--in fact, architects in the modern sense of the word. About the same time, Jayme Fabre (or Fabra), a Mallorcan, seems to have been one of the greatest architects of his day, and to have given a very important impulse to the princ.i.p.al provincial development of architecture of which we see any evidence in Spain--that of Cataluna. From a contract entered into in A.D. 1318, between him and the Superior and brethren of the convent of San Domingo at Palma, in Mallorca, it seems that he was bound by an older agreement to execute the works of their church; and that he then promised to come back whenever required to Palma, from Barcelona, whither he was going to undertake another work at the desire of the king and the bishop. This "other work" was the cathedral, and here we know that Fabre was employed till A.D. 1339, when he and the workmen[439] of the church put the covering on the shrine which contained the relics of Sta. Eulalia, in the crypt. It is impossible to read the account of the completion of the shrine of Sta. Eulalia at Barcelona, without feeling that Fabre superintended a number of masons, and acted in fact as their foreman, though this is no reason whatever why he should not also have designed the work they executed. He seems to have carried on the two works at Barcelona and Palma at the same time; for, on the 23rd June, A.D. 1317, a year only after his agreement with the convent of San Domingo at Palma, he was appointed master of the works of Barcelona Cathedral, with a salary of eighteen sueldos each week, and payment of his expenses on his voyages to and from Mallorca. Soon after this time, in A.D. 1368, the fabric rolls of the cathedral at Palma, in Mallorca, record the name of Jayme Mates, who was "Maestro Mayor" of the work at Palma, and had a salary of twenty pounds a year, besides six sueldos a day for the working days, and two for festivals.[440]

In the same year we have the very interesting contract between the Chapter of San Feliu, Gerona, and Pedro Zacoma, the master of the works of the steeple; by this, it seems, he did not contract for the work, but had permission to employ an apprentice on it, and he was not to undertake any other work without the consent of the "Operarius," or Canon in charge of the works, save a bridge on which he was already engaged. He was to be paid by the day, with a yearly salary in addition.

I have given the contract at p. 332 of this volume. Zacoma is called in it the "Master of the work of the belfry." He must have been employed constantly at the church, or it would not have been necessary to prevent his undertaking other works; and in such a building a man could hardly have been constantly employed, without absolutely working as a mason.

It may be thought that the "Operarius" was the real architect; but I find, at this time, that most collegiate and cathedral churches had a Canon whose special duty it was to make arrangements with the master of the works. Sometimes they are called "Canonigos fabriqueros," at others "Obreros," or else, as in this case, "Operarii." Some examples of the application of these terms may be given to prove what I say:--In A.D.

1312, for instance, the Chapter of Gerona appointed two of their own body--one an archdeacon, the other a Canon--to be the obreros of their works.[441] In A.D. 1340 the "Operarius" was gathering alms in Valencia and the Balearic Isles for the works at Gerona Cathedral.[442] In an inscription of A.D. 1183, at S. Trophime at Arles, Poncius Rebolli is called "Sacerdos et operarius;" at Palencia, in A.D. 1321, there was an "Obrero," or Canon in charge of the works, as he is described by Davila.[443] In the inscription on a stone in the choir of Lerida Cathedral,[444] the two offices of the "operarius" and the "magister et fabricator" are contrasted, and the double office of the latter seems to make it impossible that the former can have been the architect. The fabric rolls of Exeter Cathedral contain, in A.D. 1318, a payment to the "Custos operis" for the adornment of the high altar: and, no doubt, he held the same post as the Operarius in Spain.

At the end of this century Juan Garcia de Laguardia was named "Master-mason" of the kingdom of Navarre, by a royal writ, at the wage of three sueldos a day. His t.i.tle adds another to those already mentioned.

In A.D. 1391 Guillermo colivella undertook to make twelve statues of the apostles, at Lerida, at the price of 240 sueldos for each statue; and subsequently, in A.D. 1392, he is styled "Magister operis" of the see of Lerida, and "Lapicida," and he had the superintendence of the stained gla.s.s windows which Juan de San Amat was making for the apses of the church, with the stories of the apostles.[445] He was evidently, I think, a builder, and yet held very much the office of a modern architect as superintendent of the whole work. Jayme Fabre describes himself as "Lapicida," but was also the "Master of the fabric" at Barcelona; whilst Roque, who succeeded Fabre at Barcelona, was also called master of the works only, and received three sueldos and four dineros a day, besides a hundred sueldos a year for clothing.

Just about this period we have what appears to me to be a rather important reference to the separate offices of the architect and builder in the same work; for it seems that during the construction of the tower of the cathedral at Valencia, one Juan Franck acted as architect, with a succession of men as builders and contractors under him.[446] I confess I do not adduce this example with much confidence, inasmuch as one of them was Balaguer, whose mission to Lerida has already been mentioned, and who is moreover termed, in a contemporary doc.u.ment, an "accomplished architect."

In the fifteenth century the notices of architects are more numerous, and their position becomes much more clearly defined.

In A.D. 1410 a contract was entered into by one Lucas Bernaldo de Quintana--master mason, as he is called in it--for the rebuilding of the church at Gijon in the Asturias. In this contract[447] there is no reference of any kind to plans, or to a directing architect or superintendent of any kind; but the dimensions and form of the building are all carefully described in such a way as to lead to the conclusion that the notary who drew up the contract had some sort of plan before him. It is said, for instance, "that the church is to be twenty-five yards long by twelve and a half wide, with three columns on each side, three vaults each with three ribs crossing them, and all the arches, pilasters, &c., as well as the door (which is to be twelve and a half feet high by eight wide), to be of wrought stone. There is to be a turret for two bells over the door, &c." "Item, the 'master' is to be allowed to use the materials of the old church." The contract was entered into on March 10, 1410, and the key of the building was to be delivered up on the 1st of May, 1411, and finally two sureties were bound with the contractor. The whole deed is so very formal and careful in its terms, that there can be no doubt that Quintana acted as architect as well as builder, for otherwise the name of the architect would necessarily have been mentioned.

It was in A.D. 1415 that the Valencian authorities sent their architect on a tour of inspection among church steeples in Cataluna, and as far as Narbonne, on the other side of the Pyrenees, in order that they might be sure of a good design for their own; but this is a very rare, if not an unique, instance of such a proceeding. In the year following the Junta of Architects was a.s.sembled at Gerona, and we have in it the first example of that habit so common in this day, of consulting bodies of men, instead of trusting in one skilled man, which from this time forth seems to have been extraordinarily popular in Spain. Incidentally, the records of the proceedings of this Junta are valuable, as giving the names of many architects and the works on which they were then engaged; but they are still more valuable as showing how decided and independent of each other in their opinions these men were. All of them probably were architects; but it is observable that all but two call themselves "Lapicidae;" that two of them held somewhat inferior offices--one being the "Socius" of the magister operis, and the other, "Regens," in the place of the master. Another is "Magister sive sculptor imaginum;" and two only--Antonino Antigoni and Guillermo Sagrera--call themselves masters of the works. Their answers seem to prove that they were all men of considerable intelligence, but at the same time generally disposed, just as a similar body would be now, to declare rather for the usual than the novel course. It is to their credit that they all maintained the perfect practicability of the work proposed, and the judgment of the Chapter seems to have been as much influenced by economical considerations as by artistic, seeing that a majority of the architects decided against the proposed plan on artistic grounds, whilst some of them said that it would certainly be the least costly. It was intended at first that two of the architects consulted should be asked to prepare a plan for the work; but this does not seem to have been done after all, the plan of the master of the works at the cathedral having been agreed to and carried into execution.

There cannot be a shadow of doubt that at the beginning of the fifteenth century most of the superintendents of buildings, in Cataluna at any rate, were sculptors or masons also. Their own description of themselves is conclusive on this point; at the same time their answers are all given in the tone and style of architects, and it is quite certain that, had there been a superior cla.s.s of men--architects only in the modern sense of the word--the Dean and Chapter would have applied first of all to them. The answers which these men gave ought to be carefully read, as they are valuable from several points of view. Several of them seem to speak of some recognized system of proportioning the height of a building to its width; one of them suggests using light stone for the vaulting; and another, Arnaldo de Valleras, was evidently anxious to supplant the existing master of the works, and announced what he would do if the works were intrusted to him. I cannot help thinking that they had before them the plans of Guillermo de Boffiy, and that the similarity of the suggestions made by some of them as to the position of the windows and the proportions of the work are to be taken as an evidence of their desire to affirm what he had proposed.

In the same year in which this Junta of architects a.s.sembled at Gerona, one of their number--Guillermo Sagrera--was acting as the architect of the church of S. John, Perpinan, a building which is still remarkable for the enormous width of its nave. Ten years later he contracted for the execution of the Exchange at Palma, in Mallorca, according to plans which he presented, and upon certain specified conditions, from which it appears very clearly that Sagrera was both builder and architect, being bound to find scaffolding and all materials. The only difference one can see between Sagrera and an ordinary builder or contractor of the present day is, that he presented the plans himself, and that there is no trace whatever of any architect or superintendent over him. It is doubted by some whether this mixture of the two offices of builder and architect was ever allowed in the middle ages; but this agreement (of which I give a translation in the Appendix) is conclusive as regards this particular case, and we may be tolerably sure that such a practice must have been a usual one, or it would hardly have been adopted in the case of so important a building.

Sagrera seems to have remained a long time at Palma, but having quarrelled with his employers there, and his dispute having been carried before the King of Aragon, at Naples, for settlement, the completion of the work was intrusted to one Guillermo Vilasolar, "lapicida et magister fabricae," who bound himself on March 19th, A.D. 1451, to complete the works which had been commenced. Two of the clauses in this agreement are worth quoting; they are as follow:--

1st. "That I, the said Guillermo Vilasolar, am bound to execute within the next coming year all the traceries and terminations or cornices which I have to make in the six windows of the said Exchange of Felanix stone, in the following form:--The traceries of two of the said windows according to the design which I have delivered to you, and the traceries and the cornices of the remaining four windows just as they were commenced by Master Guillermo Sagrera, formerly master of the fabric of the said Exchange; which traceries and cornices of all the said six windows I am bound to make entirely at my own cost, with all necessary scaffolding, stone, lime, gravel, and wages for the complete finis.h.i.+ng of the said traceries and cornices.

"_Item._--That for making all the said traceries and cornices as described, in the said six windows, you, the said honourable guardians, shall be bound to give and pay of the goods of the college to me, the said Guillermo Vilasolar, two hundred and eighty pounds of Mallorcan money in the following way, viz.: fifty pounds down, and the remainder of the said two hundred and eighty pounds when the said traceries and cornices to the said six windows shall have been executed."

So that here again, just as in the case of Guillermo Sagrera, we have a mason contracting for his work, and himself making the drawing according to which it is to be done.

After his quarrel with the authorities at Palma, Sagrera seems to have undertaken work for the King in the Castel Nuevo at Naples, for which he used stone from Mallorca, and where he was styled "Proto-Magister Castri Novi." His work at Palma seems, from the accounts I have been able to obtain, to have much resembled that of the Lonja at Valencia, which I have described and ill.u.s.trated in this volume.

In A.D. 1485, when Calahorra cathedral was rebuilt, an architect seems to have been so formally appointed, that the words used appear to me to be quite worth transcribing here: "Miercoles a ocho dias del mes de junio, ano a nativitate Domini, millessimo quatorcentessimo octuagessimo quinto cpit aedificari Capella mayor S. Mariae de Calahorra.