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AN
ARCHITECT'S NOTE-BOOK
IN
SPAIN

_PRINCIPALLY ILLUSTRATING THE_
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF THAT COUNTRY.

BY

M. DIGBY WYATT, M.A.

SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, &C.

WITH ONE HUNDRED OF THE AUTHOR'S SKETCHES,
REPRODUCED BY THE AUTOTYPE MECHANICAL PROCESS.

LONDON:
AUTOTYPE FINE ART COMPANY (LIMITED),
_36, RATHBONE PLACE._

TO

OWEN JONES, ESQ.

KNIGHT OF THE ORDERS OF SAINTS MAURICE AND LAZARUS OF ITALY, AND OF
LEOPOLD OF BELGIUM, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF SAINT FERDINAND OF
SPAIN, &C., &C., &C.


       _My dear Owen,

     _The last book I wrote I dedicated to my brother by blood; the
     present I dedicate to you--my brother in Art. Let it be a record of
     the value I set upon all you have taught me, and upon your true
     friendship._

       _Ever yours,_

        M. DIGBY WYATT.

     37, Tavistock Place, W.C.

        October, 1872.




PREFACE.


Before quitting England for a first visit to Spain in the Autumn of
1869, I made up my mind both to see and draw as much of the
Architectural remains of that country as the time and means at my
disposal would permit; and further determined so to draw as to admit of
the publication of my sketches and portions of my notes on the objects
represented, in the precise form in which they might be made. I was
influenced in that determination by the consciousness that almost from
day to day the glorious past was being trampled out in Spain; and that
whatever issue, prosperous or otherwise, the fortunes of that much
distracted country might take in the future, the minor monuments of Art
at least which adorned its soil, would rapidly disappear. Their
disappearance would result naturally from what is called "progress" if
Spain should revive; while their perishing through neglect and wilful
damage, or peculation, would inevitably follow, if the ever smouldering
embers of domestic revolution should burst afresh into flame. Such has
been the invariable action of those fires which in all history have
melted away the most refined evidences of man's intelligence, leaving
behind only scanty, and often all but shapeless, relics of the richest
and ripest genius.

It is difficult to realise the rapidity with which, almost under one's
eyes, the Spain of history and romance "is casting its skin." Travelling
even with so recent and so excellent a handbook as O'Shea's of 1869, I
noted the following wanton acts of Vandalism and destruction, committed
upon monuments of the greatest archaeological and artistic interest since
he wrote. At Seville, the Church of San Miguel, one of the oldest and
finest in the city, was senselessly demolished by the populace as a sort
of auto-da-fe, and by way of commemoration of the revolution of
September, 1867. In exactly the same way the fine Byzantine churches of
San Juan at Lerida, and of San Miguel at Barcelona, have been "improved
off the face of the earth." Church plate, Custodias and Virils of the
D'Arfes, Becerrias, and other Art workmen, have vanished from the
treasuries of all the great ecclesiastical structures; whether sold,
melted down, or only hidden, "quien sabe?" The beautiful Moorish
decorations of the Alcazar at Segovia had been all but entirely
destroyed by fire, attributed to the careless cigar-lighting of the
Cadets to whom the structure had been abandoned. The finest old mansion
in Barcelona, the Casa de Gralla, probably the masterpiece of Damian
Forment, and dating from the commencement of the fourteenth century, has
been pulled down by the Duke of Medina Celi to form a new street. The
beautiful wooden ceiling of the Casa del Infantado at Guadalaxara, the
finest of its kind in Spain, in the absence of its owner, who I was told
lives in Russia, is coming down in large pieces, and once fallen, I
scarcely think it will be in the power of living workmen to make it good
again. The exquisite Moorish Palace of the Generalife at Granada, second
only to the Alhambra and the Alcazar at Seville, is never visited by its
proprietor, and is now one mass of white-wash, a victim of the zeal for
cleanliness of a Sanitary "Administrador." In short to visit a Spanish
city now, by the light shed upon its ancient glories by the industrious
Ponz, is simply to have forced upon one's attention the most striking
evidence of the "vanity of human things," and man's inherent tendency to
destroy.

One of the most painful sensations the lover of the Art of the Past
cannot but experience in Spain, is the feeling of its dissonance from,
and irreconcileability with, the wants and economical necessities of
to-day. The truth is that at the present moment, amongst the many
difficult problems which surround and beset the ruling powers, one of
the most puzzling is to find fitting uses for the many vast structures
which have fallen into the hands of the Government. Churches in number
and size out of all proportion to the wants of the population,
monasteries entirely without monks, convents with scarcely any nuns,
Jesuit seminaries without Jesuits, exchanges without merchants, colleges
without students, tribunals of the Holy Inquisition with, thank God! no
Inquisitors, and palaces without princes, are really "drugs in the
market;" too beautiful to destroy, too costly to properly maintain, and
for the original purposes for which they were planned and constructed at
incredible outlay they stand now almost useless. For the most part, the
grand architectural monuments of the country are now like Dickens'
"used-up giants" kept only "to wait upon the dwarfs." Among a few
instances of such, may be noticed the magnificent foundation of the
noblest Spanish ecclesiastic, Ximenez. His College at Alcala de Henares
(see etext transcriber note) is turned into a young ladies'
boarding-school; the splendid Convent of the Knights of Santiago at
Leon, the masterpiece of Juan de Badajoz, dedicated to Saint Mark, and
one of the finest buildings in Spain, is now in charge of a solitary
policeman and his wife, awaiting its possible conversion into an
agricultural college; the grand Palace of the Dukes of Alva at Seville
is let out in numerous small tenements and enriched with unlimited
whitewash; the Colegiata of San Gregorio at Valladolid, another of the
magnificent foundations of Cardinal Ximenez, and the old cathedral at
Lerida, the richest Byzantine monument in Spain, are now both
barracks;--the vast exchanges of Seville and Saragossa are tenantless
and generally shut up; the beautiful "Casa de los Abades" at Seville is
converted into a boy's school and lodging-house for numerous poor
tenants, the Casa del Infante at Saragossa, containing the most richly
sculptured Renaissance Patio in Spain, is chiefly occupied as a livery
stable-keeper's establishment; Cardinal Mendoza's famous Hospital of the
Holy Cross at Toledo is now an Infantry College; the great monastery of
the Cartuja near Seville, with one of the finest Mudejar wooden ceilings
in the country, is turned into Pickman's china factory; the "Taller del
Moro" a model Moorish house with its beautiful decorations, at Toledo,
is now only a carpenter's workshop and storehouse; the celebrated
establishment of El Cristo de la Victoria at Malaga, with all its
glorious associations with the "Reyes Cattolicos," is occupied as a
military hospital; and so on '_ad infinitum_.'

Every record the pen and pencil of any accurate observer can preserve at
this juncture of the fading glories of the past in Spain is, as it were,
snatching a brand from the inevitable fire which has already consumed
inestimable treasures upon its soil. It was to give a stamp of truth and
authenticity to the few such records I might be enabled to make, that I
determined to complete them in the actual presence as it were of the
object illustrated, and to admit of no intervention between my own hand,
and the eye of any student willing to honour my work with his
attention. My sketches might no doubt have gained in beauty by being
transcribed on stone or wood by some artist more skilful than I am, but
as any such alteration would detract from their simple veracity, I
preferred to make them at once upon the spot with anastatic ink, in
order that they might be printed just as they were executed. Working
with such ink in the open air is difficult, and the result capricious, I
have therefore to ask for some indulgence, and to express a hope that
any shortcomings in the drawings may be overlooked in the obvious
interest of the subjects pourtrayed. Could I but have known, on leaving
England, that my sketches could have been so successfully transferred to
collodion, and printed therefrom by the beautiful Autotype mechanical
process, as they have been since my return, I might have spared myself
much extra trouble and anxiety, and have probably attained a much better
result with less effort. In order to retain as much "local colour" as
possible, I have preferred, even in the binding of this volume, to take
its ornament in fac-simile from a beautiful little Mudejar casket of
which I am the fortunate possessor, rather than to trust to my own
powers to design something specially characteristic.

I have further to ask corresponding indulgence for any literary
insufficiencies my text may present. Although for some years a not
inattentive student of Spanish art and literature, I could not, and
cannot but feel that my acquaintance with the country was, and is
insufficient for writing worthy notes even upon its architectural
monuments, after the excellent works which have been already written by
such of my countrymen as Ford, Street, Stirling, and O'Shea. At the same
time, considering that to publish my sketches altogether without
explanatory letter-press would greatly detract from their interest and
consequent usefulness, I have brought into their present shape the
scanty notes made upon the spot, more or less directly illustrative of
the subjects upon which my pencil found occupation.

It will be obvious, it is hoped, that in the selection of subjects for
illustration, an endeavour has been made to avoid in any wise trenching
upon or clashing with those already fully treated in the admirable work
on Spanish Ecclesiastical Architecture by Mr. G. E. Street. Whilst he
has turned from, I have turned towards, the Plateresque and later styles
of Spain, and whilst he has sought specially for what might be useful to
church-builders, my aim has been rather to collect hints for
house-builders. Thanks to him, and others like him, we have now been
left with more to learn in the latter direction than in the former.

The following was my line of tour, and as it comprises most of what is,
I believe, best worth seeing in Spain in the way of Art, with the
notable exceptions of Santiago, Oviedo, Murcia, Cuenca, Placencia,
Alicante and Valencia, which want of time did not permit me to include,
I do not hesitate to commend it to those, desirous, as I was, of seeing
as much as possible of what was excellent or curious within a short
space of time. It was as follows, from London via Paris, Bordeaux, and
Bayonne to Spain, beginning with Burgos, then successively visiting
Valladolid (rail), Venta de Banos (rail), Leon (rail), Zamora and
Salamanca, (by "diligence" from Leon) Avila (by "diligence" from
Salamanca) Escorial (rail), Madrid (rail), Segovia (by "diligence" from
Madrid and back), Alcala de Henares (by rail from Madrid and back),
Toledo (by rail from Madrid and back), Cordoba (rail), Sevilla (rail),
Cadiz (by the Guadalquivir steamer), Gibraltar (by steamer), Malaga (by
steamer), Granada (rail and "diligence,") Andujar ("diligence,") Madrid
(rail), a second time, Guadalajara (rail), Saragossa (rail), Lerida
(rail), Barcelona (rail), and Gerona (rail), thence to the frontier by
"diligence," and home by rail, via Perpignan, Carcassonne, Toulouse and
Paris.

To preserve some sort of order, I have arranged my sketches as they were
executed in point of time, and thrown my notes into a corresponding
sequence.

To assert that Spain can teach the lessons to the architect which may be
gained from Italy, or even from France would, I think, be to claim too
much for her, but on the other hand, it should be remembered, that it is
a mine which has been very much less exhausted. To the interest and
grandeur of its Northern Gothic buildings, Mr. Street has done a justice
long denied to them; while Girault de Prangey, and above all Owen Jones,
have helped us to a right appreciation of the works of those masterly
artificers, the Moors, who seem to have possessed an intuitive love for
the beautiful in structure.

It is with no small pleasure that I have laboured to direct attention to
other monuments, than those they have so satisfactorily illustrated, of
a land from travelling in which I have derived great delight, and much
instruction.

If asked what predominant sensation Spanish Architecture had produced in
my mind, I think I should be inclined to say, that of the manifestation
of an entire indifference to expense. No one appears to have counted the
cost of the work upon which he engaged. Whether it was a mediaeval
architect entering upon the vast construction of Cathedrals, such as
Seville, Toledo or Leon, a Renaissance architect dashing upon the
immense laying out of buildings such as the Cathedrals of Salamanca or
Granada, or an Herrera plunging into such stone quarries as the Escorial
or the Cathedral at Valladolid, not a shadow of doubt ever seems to
have crossed the mind of the beginners, that some one would complete
what they began.

Such peculiarities of national character are apt to beget proverbs, and
we accordingly find the grave ponderosity, and at the same time power,
of the Spaniard in the undertakings of his palmy days, thus
characterised in comparison with those of the other peoples of Europe.

"In their undertakings," says "Der curieuse Antiquarius durch
Europam,"[1] the natives of different European countries are assumed by
old legends to proceed thus:--

    "Der Frantzose wie ein Adler,
     Der Deutsche wie ein Baer,
     Der Italianer wie ein Fuchs,
     Der Spanier wie ein Elephant,
     Der Engellaender wie ein Loew."[2]

To some, and but few, Spanish architects was it given to see ended what
they commenced, and even such favourites of fortune generally suffered
from a curtailment of their too ambitious designs.

I could not but feel, in looking at the works of Herrera, and indeed at
those of several other men, such as Diego de Siloe, Gil de Ontanon,
Henrique de Egas, Alonso Covarrubbias, and Juan de Badajoz, that there
exists for architecture a just mean between their frequent extravagance,
and the sordid and shabby spirit in which we from time to time approach
the question of expenditure upon "public works." The economy which
consists in sobriety and simplicity of parts, especially in structures
destined to subserve ordinary uses, is as much to be admired, as the
economy which aims at the combination of magnificence with
"cheese-paring" is to be deprecated and despised.




CONTENTS


PLATE I. BURGOS.

The Arco de Santa Maria

PLATE II. BURGOS.

Casa de Miranda

PLATE III. VALLADOLID