We must see Santa Maria la
Blanca, - it was a beautiful thing; so was the Transito.
Did we see those
men and women grubbing in the hillside? They were digging bones to sell
at the station. Where did the bones come from? Quien sabe? Those
dust-heaps have been there since King Wamba. Come, we must go and see
the Churches of Mary before it grew dark. And the zealous old creature
marched away with us to the synagogue built by Samuel Ben Levi,
treasurer to that crowned panther, Peter the Cruel. This able financier
built this fine temple to the God of his fathers out of his own purse.
He was murdered for his money by his ungrateful lord, and his synagogue
stolen by the Church. It now belongs to the order of Cala-trava.
But the other and older synagogue, now called Santa Maria la Blanca, is
much more interesting. It stands in the same quarter, the suburb
formerly occupied by the industrious and thriving Hebrews of the Middle
Ages until the stupid zeal of the Catholic kings drove them out of
Spain. The synagogue was built in the ninth century under the
enlightened domination of the Moors. At the slaughter of the Jews in
1405 it became a church. It has passed through varying fortunes since
then, having been hospital, hermitage, stable, and warehouse; but it is
now under the care of the provincial committee of art, and is somewhat
decently restored. Its architecture is altogether Moorish. It has three
aisles with thick octagonal columns supporting heavy horseshoe arches.
The spandrels are curiously adorned with rich circular stucco figures.
The soil you tread is sacred, for it was brought from Zion long before
the Crusades; the cedar rafters above you preserve the memory and the
odors of Lebanon.
A little farther west, on a fine hill overlooking the river, in the
midst of the ruined palaces of the early kings, stands the beautiful
votive church of San Juan de los Reyes. It was built by Ferdinand and
Isabella, before the Columbus days, to commemorate a victory over their
neighbors the Portuguese. During a prolonged absence of the king, the
pious queen, wishing to prepare him a pleasant surprise, instead of
embroidering a pair of impracticable slippers as a faithful young wife
would do nowadays, finished this exquisite church by setting at work
upon it some regiments of stone-cutters and builders. It is not
difficult to imagine the beauty of the structure that greeted the king
on his welcome home. For even now, after the storms of four centuries
have beaten upon it, and the malignant hands of invading armies have
used their utmost malice against it, it is still a won-drously perfect
work of the Gothic inspiration.
We sat on the terrace benches to enjoy the light and graceful lines of
the building, the delicately ornate door, the unique drapery of iron
chains which the freed Christians hung here when delivered from the
hands of the Moors. A lovely child, with pensive blue eyes fringed with
long lashes, and the slow sweet smile of a Madonna, sat near us and sang
to a soft, monotonous air a war-song of the Carlists. Her beauty soon
attracted the artistic eyes of La Senora, and we learned she was named
Francisca, and her baby brother, whose flaxen head lay heavily on her
shoulder, was called Jesus Mary. She asked, Would we like to go into the
church? She knew the sacristan and would go for him. She ran away like a
fawn, the tow head of little Jesus tumbling dangerously about. She
reappeared in a moment; she had disposed of mi nino, as she called it,
and had found the sacristan. This personage was rather disappointing. A
sacristan should be aged and mouldy, clothed in black of a decent
shabbiness. This was a Toledan swell in a velvet shooting-jacket, and
yellow peg-top trousers. However, he had the wit to confine himself to
turning keys, and so we gradually recovered from the shock of the
shooting-jacket.
The church forms one great nave, divided into four vaults enriched with
wonderful stone lace-work. A superb frieze surrounds the entire nave,
bearing in great Gothic letters an inscription narrating the foundation
of the church. Everywhere the arms of Castile and Arragon, and the
wedded ciphers of the Catholic kings. Statues of heralds start
unexpectedly out from the face of the pillars. Fine as the church is, we
cannot linger here long. The glory of San Juan is its cloisters. It may
challenge the world to show anything so fine in the latest bloom and
last development of Gothic art. One of the galleries is in ruins, - a sad
witness of the brutality of armies. But the three others are enough to
show how much of beauty was possible in that final age of pure Gothic
building. The arches bear a double garland of leaves, of flowers, and of
fruits, and among them are ramping and writhing and playing every figure
of bird or beast or monster that man has seen or poet imagined. There
are no two arches alike, and yet a most beautiful harmony pervades them
all. In some the leaves are in profile, in others delicately spread upon
the graceful columns and every vein displayed. I saw one window where a
stone monkey sat reading his prayers, gowned and cowled, - an odd caprice
of the tired sculptor. There is in this infinite variety of detail a
delight that ends in something like fatigue. You cannot help feeling
that this was naturally and logically the end of Gothic art. It had run
its course. There was nothing left but this feverish quest of variety.
It was in danger, after having gained such divine heights of invention,
of degenerating into prettinesses and affectation.
But how marvellously fine it was at last! One must see it, as in these
unequalled cloisters, half ruined, silent, and deserted, bearing with
something of conscious dignity the blows of time and the ruder wrongs of
men, to appreciate fully its proud superiority to all the accidents of
changing taste and modified culture.
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