Each of the
chapels - and there are twenty-one of them - is a separate masterpiece in
its way. The finest are those of Santiago and St. Ildefonso, - the former
built by the famous Constable Alvaro de Luna as a burial-place for
himself and family, and where he and his wife lie in storied marble; and
the other commemorating that celebrated visit of the Virgin to the
bishop, which is the favorite theme of the artists and ecclesiastical
gossips of Spain.
There was probably never a morning call which gave rise to so much talk.
It was not the first time the Virgin had come to Toledo. This was always
a favorite excursion of hers. She had come from time to time, escorted
by St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. James. But on the morning in question,
which was not long after Bishop Ildefonso had written his clever
treatise, "De Virginitate Stae Mariae," the Queen of Heaven came down to
matin prayers, and, taking the bishop's seat, listened to the sermon
with great edification. After service she presented him with a nice new
chasuble, as his own was getting rather shabby, made of "cloth of
heaven," in token of her appreciation of his spirited pamphlet in her
defence. This chasuble still exists in a chest in Asturias. If you open
the chest, you will not see it; but this only proves the truth of the
miracle, for the chroniclers say the sacred vestment is invisible to
mortal eyes.
But we have another and more palpable proof of the truth of the history.
The slab of marble on which the feet of the celestial visitor alighted
is still preserved in the Cathedral in a tidy chapel built on the very
spot where the avatar took place. The slab is enclosed in red jasper and
guarded by an iron grating, and above it these words of the Psalmist are
engraved in the stone, Adorabimus in loco ubi steterunt pedes ejus.
This story is cut in marble and carved in wood and drawn upon brass and
painted upon canvas, in a thousand shapes and forms all over Spain. You
see in the Museum at Madrid a picture by Murillo devoted to this idle
fancy of a cunning or dreaming priest. The subject was unworthy of the
painter, and the result is what might have been expected, - a picture of
trivial and mundane beauty, without the least suggestion of
spirituality.
But there can be no doubt of the serious, solemn earnestness with which
the worthy Castilians from that day to this believe the romance. They
came up in groups and families, touching their fingers to the sacred
slab and kissing them reverentially with muttered prayers. A father
would take the first kiss himself, and pass his consecrated finger
around among his awe-struck babes, who were too brief to reach to the
grating.
