VI Zaragoza
While certain cities may lay claim to having been at one time or another the capital of the united kingdom of Leon and Castile, and while, in fact, two often held the rank at the same time, Zaragoza, from its reconquest by the Christians to the unification of the Spanish monarchy, was the undisputed capital of the kingdom of Aragon. We must not expect on that account to find that it was any more amenable to the royal authority, or any less turbulent than the cities of the sister state. On the contrary, nowhere in the Peninsula was liberty more highly prized or more strenuously vindicated, than in the chief city of Aragon. And it holds what out of Spain, at any rate, will be considered the honourable distinction of having offered the most determined resistance to the establishment of the Inquisition. Many cities in the dominions of His Catholic Majesty are entitled to style themselves ‘most heroic.’ None assuredly deserve the description better than this, the Numantia of modern Spain.
An Iberian town seems to have existed here from the remotest times, and to have been known as Salduba. On its annexation by the Romans, it was rechristened Caesaraugusta, and under that name is referred to by Pompeius Mela as the most famous of the inland cities of Tarraconensis. Christianity took root here at an early date. Bishops of Caesaraugusta are mentioned by St. Cyprian, and the local martyrology includes the names of Saints Valerus, Vincent, and Engracia. When, in the year 542, Zaragoza was besieged by the Franks under Childebert, the exposition of the relics of these martyrs is said to have sufficed to propitiate the enemy and to preserve the town from destruction.
In the year 713 the city opened its gates to Muza, the Moorish invader, without, as Don Francisco Codera believes, striking a blow. The Crescent reigned over Zaragoza for four centuries. During that time there were many changes of rulers. The blood of martyrs again watered the soil under the cruel Wali, Othman Aben Nasr, though generally throughout the period of Muslim domination the Christians enjoyed the same freedom as their co-religionists, under the same yoke, in other parts of Spain. Their principal church having been converted into a mosque, San Pablo was, during this period, their place of worship.
In the year 778 occurred the famous expedition of Charlemagne, around which an almost impenetrable veil of poetry and legend was woven through the Middle Ages. Hoseya al Arabi having been superseded in the government of the city by order of the Khalifa, Abd-ur-Rahman, appealed for assistance to the great Emperor of the West, who, for motives which remain obscure, entered Spain with a considerable force. On reaching Zaragoza, he found that Al Arabi had already regained possession of the city; and either on that account, or because his late ally refused to open the gates, he retraced his steps towards the north. In the pass of Roncesvalles his rearguard was attacked and cut up by the mountaineers—a reverse which has been immortalised as the occasion of the death of the Paladin Roland, and commemorated in the legendary lore of nearly every European tongue.
At the latter end of the ninth century Zaragoza (or Sarakusta, as it was called by the Moors), shook off the yoke of the Khalifas, and under the sway of the renowned Hafsûn became for a short time an independent state. More lasting was the monarchy set up at the close of the eleventh century, on the break-up of the Spanish Khalifate, by the vigorous Almundhir Ben Hud, whose power extended from Lerida to Guadalajara, from the mountains of Biscay to the Mediterranean. His son and successor, Suleyman, made the mistake of dividing his dominions among his four sons, Sarakusta being assigned to the eldest, Ahmed Almuktader. But, united or disunited, the Moors of north-eastern Spain were incapable of offering an effective resistance to the ever-growing power of the Christian kingdom of Aragon. In the spring of 1118, Alfonso el Batallador appeared before the walls of Zaragoza with a formidable host. The city held out till the garrison witnessed the total defeat of an army sent to their relief by the Almoravides. All hope being then gone, the gates were opened on December 18, 1118, and Zaragoza became the capital of the kingdom of Aragon.
As such, it was endowed with a very liberal charter—the fuero, of which we read so often in Aragonese history. The defence of these liberties was intrusted to twenty magistrates, who were invested with authority to deal in the most summary and drastic fashion with evildoers, whatever might be their station. Nor did they hesitate, in after years, to raze the castles of any barons who threatened the peace of the city. Domestic affairs were regulated by twelve jurates, representing the twelve parishes. Pedro II. amplified these privileges, and decreed that the municipality should not be responsible for its acts even to the sovereign.
The history of Zaragoza during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries is full of instances of civil strife, of faction fights, and of struggles with the royal authority. The citizens refused to recognise Alfonso III. as king till he had been crowned within their walls. They paid dearly for their arrogance under Pedro IV., who hanged thirty of their number at the Toledo gate, and burnt the articles of the Union—a pact extorted from one of his predecessors—in a public assembly.
Under Fernando I. the city’s privileges were further curtailed. But as licence and disorder showed no signs of abating, a kind of vigilance committee was formed in 1454, headed by Jimeno Gordo. This worthy put down all disturbances with iron hand, and waged war on the neighbouring barons. His career was cut short in 1474 by Ferdinand the Catholic, who caused him to be publicly executed. All the disorderly elements of the city rejoiced at his death.
The introduction of the Inquisition met with much opposition in several Spanish towns, but nowhere more than at Zaragoza. Deputations were sent from the states of Aragon to wait on the king at Valladolid, to urge upon him the withdrawal of the obnoxious tribunal, without avail. Such contemptuous indifference to the laws and wishes of the people of Aragon roused the Zaragozans to a dangerous pitch of exasperation. About midnight, September 14, 1485, a party of six men entered the cathedral, and found the Inquisitor, Pedro de Arbues of Epila, in prayer before the altar. They at once transfixed him with their swords and knives, but only a few of the blows struck home, thanks to the shirt of mail which the victim, like most of the Inquisitors, wore beneath his cassock. The deed, of course, only riveted the chains of the Holy Office more firmly upon the Aragonese.
Most of the assassins were captured, and perished in the flames. De Arbues was canonised in 1664. There can be no question that the Inquisition was established contrary to the laws of the country, and that the man met his death through presuming to discharge unlawful functions. He died for having broken the law, his executioners for having vindicated it.
The persistent encroachments of the Crown upon their constitutional rights during the next century met with strenuous resistance from the people of Aragon. The long-impending storm burst in 1590. Antonio Pérez, having incurred the anger of Philip II., fled to Zaragoza, and invoked the protection of the states. According to the fueros, he was then confined in the prison of the Manifestacion pending his trial. But the Holy Office impudently removed him from the custody of the law, and threw him into their prison of the Aljaferia. A popular tumult followed. Pérez was released and taken back to his first prison. The Viceroy, the Marqués de Almenara, died of chagrin, it is said, at the insults he had received from the crowd. Four months later a fresh riot broke out, and enabled Pérez to make good his escape to France.
Philip now sent an army of 14,000 men into Aragon to re-establish his authority on the ruins of the constitution. The Justiciary, Juan de Lanuza, summoned the people to defend their country. But the Castilians dispersed this hastily collected force at the first encounter, and entered Zaragoza unopposed on December 12. Juan de Lanuza and many other persons of note were judicially murdered; the leaders of the aristocracy were imprisoned, and the city sacked from end to end.
Never again did Zaragoza raise its head in defiance of the King of Spain. The fueros continued nominally in force till 1707, when they were formally abrogated by Philip V. in revenge perhaps for the defeat sustained before the walls at the hands of Stanhope and Stahremberg. But the spirit of the people was far from being crushed. They might bow before their own king, but they would not bend the knee to a foreigner. Zaragoza’s defence in 1808 is one of the most glorious episodes in the history of the nation. When the revolution broke out at Madrid on May 2, the citizens expelled the Governor, Guillelmi, and elected as leader Don Jose Palafox, a young noble of great personal courage and charm. He was assisted by a priest named Santiago Sas, his secretary Boggiero, who is said to have penned all his proclamations, and by three peasant leaders, ‘Tio’ Jorge, ‘Tio’ Marin, and Mariano Cerezo. All their equipment for war consisted at the outset of 220 men, a few muskets, and sixteen guns; yet when Lefebvre Desnouettes arrived before the place on June 15, he met with so stubborn a resistance that he was compelled to proceed cautiously. He reduced the city indeed to a heap of ruins, but he had not taken it when Dupont’s surrender at Bailen obliged him, on August 15, to raise the siege.
The French reappeared in December 1808, to the number of 18,000 men, under the command of Marshals Lannes, Moncey, Mortier, and Junot. The city was attacked on two sides at once, but more especially from the Jesuit convent on the left bank of the Ebro, which the Spaniards had neglected to secure. What followed may be read in the pages of Napier. The besiegers breached the wall near the convent of Santa Engracia, and the combat was continued day after day in the streets of the town. Every house was held as a fortress, every few yards of street was defended by a barricade. In answer to the summons to surrender rang Palafox’s defiant ‘War to the knife and to the last ditch!’ The women in many cases fought beside the men. When Maria Agustin saw her sweetheart fall at his post, she took the linstock from his hand and fired the gun herself. The fame of this ‘Maid of Saragossa’ has penetrated every land. For twenty-one days the fighting continued in the streets. Finally, on February 21, 1809, the defenders capitulated on honourable terms. The town was a smoking heap of ruins and of dead. Zaragoza had shown an astonished world that the spirit of Saguntum and Numantia yet lived in Spaniards. And, we doubt not, it still lives.
The city soon arose from the ashes. It rapidly recovered its prosperity, which took a fresh impetus on the opening of the four railways, east, west, north, and south. Here you see both the Old and the New Spain—the one with its heroic, glorious memories, the other with its promise of things as great and happier.
The City
Zaragoza stands on the right bank of the Ebro in an oasis in the desert of Aragon. Nothing could be more attractive than the immediate environs, or more desolate than the country a few miles farther out. Such a situation was familiar to the Berber conquerors, who made themselves at home here and left their mark on the architecture of the city long after the last ‘Tagarin’ Moor had been expelled. Not, of course, that Zaragoza is to be compared as regards Musulman architecture with Seville, Cordova, Granada, and Toledo; but the Moor has left behind him unmistakable evidences of his presence, and an interesting monument called the Aljaferia, which endures, though oft and oft restored, to this day.
The name seems to be derived from Jaffir, a not uncommon name among the Moors, and borne perhaps by one of the Beni Hud dynasty, for whom the building served as a palace. At the conquest in 1118 it was allotted by Alfonso the Battler to the Benedictine order. In the fourteenth century it again became the residence of royalty, and doubtless was entirely transformed and repaired. It was the scene of great splendour at the coronation of King Martin, and of several of his successors. To-day it presents a sad and dilapidated appearance. The imposing staircase, decorated with fine stucco work, is the creation of the Catholic sovereigns, who seem to have had some idea of reconstituting the past glories of the palace in true Moorish style. The ceilings of some of the chambers are in the artesonado style—the work of fifteenth-century artificers. The most beautiful is to be seen in the Salon de la Alcoba, where was born in 1271 the sainted Princess Isabel, afterwards Queen of Portugal, and persistently confounded by English writers with St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Everywhere among the decorations appear the devices and mottoes of Ferdinand and Isabel.
Genuine Moorish work is to be seen in a little octagonal chamber opening off the patio. Of the eight arches, two are in horseshoe shape, and the others formed by irregular and capricious curves. The columns are almost hidden in the walls. The ceiling is modern, and unfortunately cuts off the view of the elegant ajimeces and arabesques of the upper stage. The ornamentation recalls that of the Alhambra. This chamber—said by some, on no particular authority, to have been a mosque—was the seat of the Inquisition down to 1706. The guide points out a cell called La Torreta, in which—according to Verdi’s opera Il Trovatore—Manrico was confined. The opera is founded on a legend of Zaragoza, and the libretto was written by Garcia Gutierrez, a native of the city.
Some may enjoy the beautiful view of the Pyrenees obtained from the Aljaferia more than the building itself.
Probably only a few fragments of this old palace are older than the Cathedral of La Seo. This is the name commonly given in Aragon to the cathedral church, and comes, of course, from the Latin sedes, like our own word ‘See.’ Zaragoza became the metropolitan city of Aragon in 1318, and the archiepiscopal dignity was reserved as far as possible to the illegitimate sons of the kings. The city has now two cathedrals, which are used for alternating periods of six months. The Seo is the older of these, and occupies the site of the Moorish mosque—some say, even of an earlier Christian temple dating from Roman times. The church was, at all events, entirely rebuilt between 1188 and 1432, several Moorish names being mentioned among the architects. It can hardly be said to have been completed till the year 1550. Here were crowned the Kings of Aragon, and here, as we have related, was slain the Inquisitor, Pedro de Arbues.
The west front was completed as late as 1685 by Julian Garza and Juan Bautista Contini. It is in the classical style of that period, and is in two stages separated by a broad entablature. The lower stage is adorned with massive Corinthian columns, and pierced with three doorways; the upper story is decorated with three statues of Christ and the Apostles Peter and Paul, by Giral, placed in niches; above is a pediment finished with an ugly finial. This front is flanked by an octagonal tower of four stages, each smaller than the lower one, and is therefore not inaptly compared by Ford to a telescope. This structure is in the same style and reveals the same want of taste as the adjoining façade. The third stage contains the belfry. The whole is surmounted by a weather-vane and steeple, perched on a Moorish-looking dome. The statues of the Apostles on the belfry are by Acali. There is no other façade worthy of notice; but the Puerta de la Pavostria is in the better and earlier classic style of the sixteenth century. It derives its name from a functionary known as the Pavorde, who here distributed alms.
Street, who did not consider this cathedral in general interesting, has much to say about a portion of brickwork at the north-east angle, inlaid with small tiles in diapers, red, blue, green, white, and buff on white. The eminent architect sees in this an interesting specimen of Moorish work, and praises the grave quiet of the whole decoration (Gothic Architecture in Spain, xvii. 372).
The church is of unusual breadth, there being two aisles and a row of chapels on each side of the nave. ‘The nave and aisles,’ says the authority we have just quoted, ‘are all roofed at the same level, the vaulting springing from the capitals of the main columns, and the whole of the light is admitted by windows in the end walls, and high up in the outer walls of the aisles. In this respect Spanish churches of late date almost always exhibit an attention to the requirements of the climate, which is scarcely ever seen in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and this church owes almost all its good effect to this circumstance, for it is in light and shade only, and neither in general detail nor in design that it is a success.’
The vaultings are adorned with gilded pendants and bosses, very much in the Moorish style. The light red marble pavement, with rays diverging from the yellow marble bases of the columns, appears to have been intended to suggest a reflection of the roof with its ogive vaultings above. The decoration is tasteful and not elaborate. The capitals are sculptured with putti upholding escutcheons with animals and foliage.
Over the chancel is the lantern, octagonal in plan, which replaced an earlier one in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. The work was undertaken by Enrique de Egas, only at the express command of the king. The lower part is adorned with statues in niches, and with the canting arms (the half-moon) of the family of Archbishop de Luna.
The reredos of the High Altar is of alabaster and in the Gothic style. It was executed at the order of (and not by, as we have seen erroneously stated) Archbishop Dalmacio de Mur (1430-1456). The seven compartments are filled with compositions representing the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, the burial of St. Vincent, and episodes in the history of St. Valerus; with statues of the two latter saints, angels, and New Testament scenes. In all, the expressions and the draperies are exquisitely rendered. Don J. M. Quadrado is of opinion that this superb work was executed by Pedro Johán of Cataluña, Ans, Gombao, Caspar, and Gil Morlán successively.
Before the High Altar the coronation took place, and the king, robed like a deacon, prostrated himself before the primate. On the gospel side is the wooden coffin which contains the ashes of Maria, daughter of Jaime lo Conqueridor, who died in 1267. At her side is the noble marble tomb of Archbishop Don Juan de Aragon, brother of Ferdinand the Catholic, with statues of the Mater Dolorosa, attended by Saints Jerome, Martin, and Francis. Here are also the tombs of Archbishop Don Alonso, natural son of Ferdinand the Catholic, and of his natural son, also Archbishop, Don Fernando. The first-named did not take orders till after the birth of his son and successor, and only celebrated one mass, deeming himself unworthy of the sacerdotal functions. Beneath a tablet is deposited the heart of the Infante Baltasar Carlos, eldest son of Philip IV., carried off by smallpox at the age of seventeen. His portrait is familiar to students of Velazquez.
The choir occupies two of the five bays west of the crossing. It is in the Gothic style, and closed by a modern railing. In the centre is the tomb of Archbishop de Mede, from whose time the choir dates. The stalls are of Flemish oak. The fine lectern dates from 1413. The trascoro, or back of the choir, is a gorgeous plateresque affair in marble and stucco, the work of Tudelilla of Tarazona, who flourished about 1538. His are the statues of the martyrs Vincent and Laurence, the four reliefs illustrating their martyrdom, and that of San Valero, and the groups of cherubim. The tabernacle is in a not untasteful baroque style, and has side columns of black marble and a good crucifix. This figure of Christ is said to have addressed Canon Funes, afterwards Bishop of Albarracin, who is shown on his knees regarding it. The sides of the choir are adorned with statues of saints, including that of Pedro de Arbues, on the very spot where he was slain.
Few of the chapels are of interest, and all but one have been disfigured with baroque portals. In the chapel of San Bernardo is the fine tomb and effigy by Morlánes of Archbishop Don Fernando de Aragon, above being a retablo representing the Betrayal and the Crucifixion. Close by lies Doña Ana de Gurrea, mother of the prelate (died 1527). The chapel of San Gabriel, founded by Gabriel de Zaporta, is notable for its fine bronze reja and plateresque adornments. In the chapel of San Dominguito del Val are preserved ‘the remains of the third child crucified by the Jews in hatred of Christ towards the year 1250’; and the chapel of San Pedro de Arbues contains that worthy’s body, his kneeling effigy by José Ramirez, and paintings by Jimenez of Tarazona. In the chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Blanca are collected the tombs of sundry archbishops. The chapel of San Miguel owes its origin to a ghastly legend. Passing through the pine grove of Villaroya, the Archbishop Don Lope de Luna heard a voice calling him. He turned and saw that it proceeded from a severed head which came leaping towards him. The decapitated man had called on the Archangel at the moment the axe descended, and life was miraculously preserved in his head till he had made his confession, and was absolved by the primate. De Luna’s tomb is a triumph of Gothic art. He is shown with mitre and crozier, reclining on a sarcophagus which is sculptured with twenty-eight figures of friars in various attitudes. In niches in the wall surrounding the tomb are beautifully carved figures of ecclesiastics and grandees, full of vigour and expression. The name of the sculptor of this fine work is unhappily unknown.
In the sacristy is to be seen the Gothic cross of gold and jewel-work, on which the kings of Aragon swore to observe the fueros. Some of the vestments are very fine. A casulla is said to have come from old St. Paul’s, London, at the time of the Reformation. There is a magnificent custodia, dating from 1537, and a fine silver reliquary, sent from Avignon in 1405 by Benedict XIII. (the anti-pope, De Luna). In the Sala Capitular are pictures attributed to Ribera and Zurbarán. The fine tiled pavement of this room is modern.
The church of Santiago is mentioned as far back as 1121, and retains a few Romanesque features. Here the saint is said to have lived on his visit to Spain; and in the porch the magistrates of the city used to assemble and to administer justice.
The most important church in Zaragoza after the Seo is, in Street’s estimation, that of San Pablo, built in 1259. The octagonal steeple is faced with tiles in much the same way as the part of the cathedral wall above described, and is certainly a later addition to the structure. The nave is of four bays and terminates in a five-sided apse. The aisle is continued all round the church, and communicates with the nave by pointed arches in an extraordinarily thick wall. In the left aisle are five early and highly interesting Gothic retablos. The elaborate reredos of the High Altar, with its reliefs of the Passion and of the Acts of St. Paul, is hardly worthy of the master—Damian Forment—to whom it has been hastily attributed. Ford suggests that it is the work of one of his pupils.
The church of Santa Engracia, which figured prominently in the great siege, commemorates the massacre of a number of Christians of both sexes by the soldiery of Dacian. The bodies of the saints, Engracia and Lupercius, having been discovered here in 1389, the church already built on the spot was enlarged, and finally rebuilt with great splendour by Ferdinand the Catholic. A terrific explosion on August 13, 1808, completely wrecked the fabric, leaving little more than the plateresque portal, believed to have been designed by Morlánes. The entrance is through a round arch recessed within another, and surrounded by a retablo-like arrangement of niches containing groups. The outer arch is flanked by four statues of doctors of the Church in niches, and surmounted by statues of Ferdinand and Isabel.
The existing church, clumsily restored by the Hermits of St. Jerome, contains some interesting tombs of the martyrs. They appear to date from the fifth century. One is decorated with reliefs in the rudest Byzantine style, the subjects being Adam and Eve and the Serpent, and the sixteen martyrs, whose relics are enclosed. The pillar is shown at which Santa Engracia was flogged by order of Dacian, and a well which is believed to contain the bones of innumerable martyrs.
It is curious and painful how constantly the memorials of religious fanaticism confront one in this beautiful country. Here we are shown the spot where a Christian suffered for his faith; there where a Jew perished; there where a Moor died for conscience’ sake. Persecution naturally engenders a vindictive and intolerant temper in its victims, and these, become the masters, are hardened, not softened, by affliction. Religion, too, in Spain was almost always identified with race. The Moor, the Jew, and the Lutheran were not only infidels or heretics, but aliens—the political and racial enemies of the Spaniard. In fact, religious intolerance in the Peninsula cannot be said to have assumed such unnatural forms as in France and Germany, where men of the same blood and language cut each other’s throats, and vied with each other in doing the most harm to their native lands.
To the dawn of the sixteenth century also belonged the famous leaning tower at Zaragoza, the Torre Nueva, now demolished; while the Lonja or Exchange commemorates the reign of Juana la Loca, or as the inscription states, of her and her son, Don Carlos, ‘conregnantes’ (1551). This is one of the many buildings scattered over Spain and Europe generally which were intended to accommodate brokers and business men, who resolutely refuse to swarm in the appointed spots—witness our own Royal Exchange, the Lonjas of Seville and Granada, etc. The exterior belongs to no recognised style. The round-headed door is flanked by two windows of similar shape; above runs a sort of imitation gallery, then two more rows of round-headed windows, finished off with a fine eaves-cornice. The soffits of the arches are elaborately carved. At each corner of the edifice is a little tower, roofed with white and green tiles. The interior is divided into a nave and aisles by twenty-four columns, of which seventeen are embedded in the walls. From their Ionic capitals spring seventeen arches, which at the points of intersection are studded with gilt bosses. The Lion of Zaragoza may be distinguished among the decorations, and over the door and on the walls the arms of Spain. O’Shea says that the ‘gigantones’—gigantic figures representing the four quarters of the globe, carried about in processions—are kept here.
A great many of the fine old mansions (solares) of the aristocracy and merchants of Zaragoza disappeared in the siege, or to permit of modern improvements. Those which remain date mostly from the sixteenth century. The finest, on the whole, is the Casa de la Infanta, so-called as having been the residence of La Vallabriga, a lady banished from Madrid for marrying the Infante Don Luis. The house was built by a rich merchant named Gabriel Zaporta in the middle of the sixteenth century. A square entrance admits to a court, round which runs a gallery, upheld by columns on fluted pedestals, and formed of caryatide figures interlocked. On these rest the capitals, elaborately carved with masks, and on these again is borne the gallery, the arches and parapet of which are enriched with medallions, masks, grotesques, and foliage. The decoration is a fine specimen of the plateresque style. The staircase, in the same style, is worthy of note.
The fine old Casa de Comercio, described in several guide-books of recent date, no longer exists. The noble mansion of the Counts of Sastago housed Philip III. in 1599; and the Audiencia occupies the site of the ancestral home of the De Luna family, to which belonged the anti-pope Benedict XIII. and the wicked Count in Verdi’s opera.
We have left almost to the last that ambitious but meretricious memorial of the decadence, the new cathedral, or Iglesia del Pilar. The Apostle James (Santiago), according to tradition, visited the city forty years after the birth of Christ. He was favoured by a vision of the Blessed Virgin, poised on a pillar of jasper, and attended by angels. He built a modest chapel on the spot, which soon became a great resort of pilgrims. This was replaced in the thirteenth century by a large church, which was demolished to make room for the present building, erected in 1686 by Don Francisco Herrera. The design, bad enough in itself, was made worse by Ventura Rodriguez seventy years later. The exterior hardly merits description, though the domes or cupolas with their brilliant green, yellow, and white tiling are not without a certain bizarre beauty.
Spanish writers are as severe as others in their condemnation of this spacious edifice: ‘The baroque style’ (says Don J. M. Quadrado), ‘as timid and clumsy in the general proportion of the work as it was audacious and presumptuous in detail, gave space not repose to the Pilar—size without grandeur. The eye measures vainly this square of 1500 feet, and observes the nave and aisles equal in dimensions; it rests on the twelve square piers—enormous masses which might serve for the bases of towers, recoils from the bare vault, from the thick cornice, from the ridiculous foliage of the capitals, the arches, etc. This disagreeable impression is intensified by the strange and confused disposition of the temple, which, divided into two by the Shrine and the High Altar, presents two centres of attraction, and obstructs the nave with objects masking each other.’
The only objects of particular interest in this vast edifice are those just named, which stand back to back. The Shrine or Capilla Santa constitutes a chapel within a chapel, the exterior being rectangular, the interior elliptical. Overhead is an oval dome borne on four Corinthian columns, with capitals richly gilded, and over this again another cupola or lantern painted by a namesake (not a relative) of Velazquez. There are four smaller domes painted by Goya and Bayeu. The profusion of rich marbles, the elaboration of the architecture, the brilliancy of the frescoes, and the multitude of statues give this chapel a sumptuous and not inartistic appearance. Around are hung banners taken from the infidels. The Sacred Pillar is almost entirely concealed, but there is a hole in the casing through which the devout may kiss it. On each side of the chapel imposing staircases lead to the crypt, in which lie several archbishops and canons, and the heart of Don Juan José of Austria, brother of Carlos II.
The High Altar of the cathedral is of alabaster and in the Gothic style, the work of one Damian Forment, an early sixteenth-century artist. The lower reliefs, separated by slender pilasters, represent the Espousals of the Virgin, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. Above, in canopied niches, are the Assumption, the Nativity, and the Presentation. The canopies are richly adorned with the figures of saints. At the sides are two large statues of St. James and St. Braulio—objects of special devotion—and at the apex of the altar-screen are two angels supporting Our Lady of the Pillar. The whole is undoubtedly the finest work of art in the cathedral.
The choir stalls merit attention. They were designed by the Navarrese Estebán de Obray, and carved by the Florentine Giovanni Moreto and Nicolás de Jobato between 1542 and 1548. The infinite number and variety of the designs, the delicacy and intricacy of the work, suggest that it was accomplished in two or more generations rather than in six years. Equally admirable is the bronze reja by Juan Tomás Celina (1574) on a marble base, sculptured by the Majorcan artist, Guillermo Salvá.
The sacristy contains an immense variety of offerings to the shrine by pilgrims from all parts of the world. These had been accumulating for centuries, and the Chapter were able some years ago to raise a sum of £20,000 by disposing of only a portion of them. Without profanity we might perhaps say that the Virgen del Pilar is to Zaragoza what Diana was to the Ephesians. Hundreds make a living by selling pictures and models of the shrine, and a surprising number of silversmiths do a roaring trade in images and medals. Yet it is not quite wise or safe for the traveller to scoff at a devotion which largely inspired the heroic defence of 1808, and supplied the place of arms, strategy, and able leadership.
Close by, the yellow Ebro is spanned by the seven arches of the Puente de Piedra. Its origin is of unknown antiquity. It was here in 1435, when one of the arches collapsed—presaging the destruction by the Genoese of the Aragonese fleet which sailed that day; and the inscription mentioning Alfonso V., and the date 1437, can only refer to its reconstruction. And across this bridge we pass into the stern, desert country of Aragon, and so on to the distant, gleaming Pyrenees.
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