IV Lugo
What Santiago was as regards ecclesiastical politics, Lugo, one of the three cities on the Miño River, was as regards civil power. It was the nominal capital of Galicia, and at one time, in the reign of Alfonso the Chaste, it was intended to make it the capital of the nascent Spanish kingdom, but for some reason or other Oviedo was chosen instead as being more suitable. Since then the city of Lugo has completely fallen into ruins and insignificance.
It first appears in history when the Romans conquered it from the Celts. It was their capital and their Holy City; in its centre was Lupa’s Bower, where the Romans built a magnificent temple to Diana. Some mosaics of this edifice have been discovered recently, and the peculiar designs prove beyond a doubt that the mythological attributions of the Celts were made use of and intermingled with those of the Latin race—not at all a strange occurrence, as Lupa and Diana seem to have enjoyed many common qualities.
Under the Roman rule, the city walls, remains of which are still standing in many places, were erected, and Locus Augusti became the capital of the northern provinces.
All through the middle ages, when really Oviedo had usurped its civil, and Santiago its religious significance, Lugo was still considered as being the capital of Galicia, a stronghold against Arab incursions, and a hotbed of unruly noblemen who lost no opportunity in striking a blow for liberty against the encroaching power of the neighbouring kingdom of Asturias, and later on of Leon. When at last the central power of the Christian kings was firmly established in Leon and Castile, in Lugo the famous message of adhesion to the dynasty of the Alfonsos was voted, and the kingdom of Galicia, like that of Asturias, faded away, the shadow of a name without even the right to have its coat of arms placed on the national escutcheon.
The ecclesiastical history of the city of Lugo is neither interesting nor does it differ from that of other Galician towns. Erected to a see in the fifth century, its cathedral was a primitive basilica destroyed by the Moors in one of their powerful northern raids in the eighth century. The legendary bishop Odoario lost no time in building a second basilica, which met the same fate about two hundred years later, in the tenth century. Alfonso the Chaste, one of the few kings of Asturias to take a lively interest in Galician politics, ordered either the reconstruction of the old basilica or the erection of a new temple.
Those were stormy times for the city: between the rise and stand of ambitious noblemen, who, pretending to fight for Galicia’s freedom, fought for their own interests, and the continual encroachments of the proud prelates on the rights and privileges of the people, barely a year passed without Lugo being the scene of street fights or sieges. As in Santiago, one prince of the Church lost his life, murdered by the faithful (sic) flocks, and many, upon coming to take possession of their see, found the city gates locked in their faces, and were obliged to conquer the cathedral before entering their palace.
The new basilica suffered in consequence, and had to be entirely rebuilt in the twelfth century. The new edifice is the one standing to-day, but how changed from the primitive building! Thanks to graceless additions in all possible styles and combinations of styles, the Romanesque origin is hardly recognizable. Consequently, the cathedral church of Lugo, which otherwise might have been an architectural jewel, does not inspire the visitor with any of those sentiments that ought to be the very essence of time-worn religious edifices of all kinds.
The general disposition of the church is Roman cruciform; the arms of the cross are exceedingly short, however, in comparison to their height; the croisée is surmounted by a semicircular vaulting (Spanish Romanesque).
The nave shows decided affinity to early Gothic, as shown by the ogival arches and vaulting. The presence of the ogival arches (as well as those of the handsome triforium, perhaps the most elegant in Galicia) shows this church to be the first in Galicia to have submitted to the infiltration of Gothic elements. This peculiarity is explained by the fact that, in 1129, the erection of the cathedral was entrusted to one Maestro Raimundo, who stipulated that, in the case of his death before the completion of the church, his son should be commissioned to carry on the work. He died, and his son, a generation younger and imbued with the newer architectural theories, even went so far as to alter his father’s plans; he built the nave higher than was customary in Romanesque churches, and gave elegance to the whole structure by employing the pointed arch even in the triforium, otherwise a copy of that of Santiago.
The most curious and impressive part of the building is that constructed by Maestro Raimundo, father, namely the aisles, especially that part of them to the right and left of the choir; they are, with the croisée, the best interior remains of the primitive Romanesque plans: short, even stumpy, rather dark it is true, for the light that comes in by the narrow windows is but poor at its best, they are, nevertheless, rich in decorative designs. The wealth of sculptural ornaments of pure Romanesque in these aisles is perhaps the cathedral’s best claim to the tourist’s admiration, and puts it in a prominent place among the Romanesque cathedrals of Spain.
Not the same favourable opinion can be emitted when it is a question of the exterior. The towers are comparatively new; the apse—with the peculiar and salient addition of an octagonal body revealing Renaissance influence—is picturesque, it is true, but at the same time it has spoilt the architectural value of the cathedral as a Romanesque edifice.
The northern façade, preceded by an ogival porch so common in Galicia, contains a portal of greater beauty than the Puerta de la Plateria in Santiago, and stands forth in greater prominence than the other named example of twelfth-century art, by not being lost among or depressed by flanking bodies of greater height and mass. As regards the sculptural ornamentation of the door itself, it is felt and not only portrayed: the Christ standing between the immense valves of the vesica piscis which crowns the portal is an example of twelfth-century sculpture. The iron-studded panels of the doors have already been praised by Street, who placed their execution likewise in the twelfth century.
Excepting this portal—a marvel in its class with its rounded tympanum richly ornamented—the portion of the building doubtless more strongly imbued than any other with the general spirit of the edifice is that part of the apse independent of the octagonal addition previously mentioned, and which is dedicated to “La Virgen de los Ojos Grandes”—the Virgin of the Large Eyes. (She must have been Andalusian!) Of the true apse, the lower part has ogival arched windows of singular elegance; the upper body, also semicircular in form, but slightly smaller, has round-headed windows. Both the ogival windows of the first and the Romanesque windows of the second harmonize wonderfully, thanks to the lesser height and width of the upper row. The buttresses, simple, and yet alive with a gently curving line, are well worth noticing. It is strange, nevertheless, that they should not reach the ground, but only support the upper body, and unite it with the lower, forming thus a sort of crown for the latter’s benefit.
Personally—and the author must be excused if he emit his opinion—he considers the old apse of the cathedral in Lugo to be one of the finest pieces of architecture to be met with in Galicia. It belongs to what has been called the period of Transition (compare previous remarks in another chapter concerning this style), and yet it has a character of its own not to be found elsewhere, and the harmony of ogival and Romanesque has been so artfully revealed that it cannot fail to appeal to the tourist who contemplates it carefully.