Roman Catholic cathedral

“ Nothing of its ample, simple, sturdy architecture has crumbled in the last two centuries. Its plateresco—the "frolic fancy" which sixteenth-century art put upon the front of churches, and of which the façade of the cathedral presents an immense example, entangling cherubs and bewildering saints in the ingenuity of its small sculptures—still remains intact. The apostles are in their niches, and "Nuestro Señor" is invoked in a text cut on the outside walls. ”

“ Whatever may be the carved and nicely-wrought exterior of a cathedral, we always find beneath it, if only in a rudimentary and dormant state, the Roman basilica. It rises forever from the ground in harmony with the same law.
There are invariably two naves intersecting each other in the form of a cross, the upper end being rounded into a chancel or choir; there are always side aisles, for the processions and for chapels, a sort of lateral galleries or walks, into which the principal nave opens by means of the spaces between the columns. ”

“ The organs are among the wonders of this cathedral, with their thousands of pipes, placed horizontally, in a fan-like shape. The "retablo" at the back of the high altar is a marvel of wood-carving; and the hundreds of lamps which burn before the different shrines are all of pure and massive silver. One is tempted to ask: "Was it by men and women like ourselves that cathedrals such as this were planned and built and furnished?" ”

“ The south sacristy door is a fine specimen of Gothic work. Unlike the exterior effect, nothing obtrudes inside this great cathedral. The eye on entering looks straight up to the east, conscious as it travels there, of great pillars rising into the gloom of the vault above, of fine glass and restful solemnity, in which even the chapels in the aisles are lost, to be discovered later on only when searched for. ”

“ It is impossible to place our cathedral in that other family of lofty, aerial churches, rich in stained glass and sculpture; of pointed forms and daring attitudes; belonging to the commoners and plain, citizens, as political symbols; free, capricious, lawless, as works of art; the second transformation of architecture, no longer hieroglyphic, unchangeable, sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive, and popular, beginning with the close of the Crusades and ending with Louis XI. Notre Dame at Paris is not of purely Roman race like the former, nor of purely Arab breed like the latter. ”

“ A circular building, covered by a wooden roof, like that of the church of San Stefano rotondo at Rome, and not by a dome, is said to have been an ancient temple, and is doubtless a Roman building, but of late times. The columns have been taken from buildings still more ancient; they are sixteen in 105number, of granite, cipollino, bigio antico, and marmo greco; differing in their sizes, and in their capitals. The cathedral is Gothic; the vault of the side aisles springing at the same height as that of the nave. The piers are round, and very slender, and all the arches are tied with iron ”

“ If our courage and knees did not fail us, we would ascend to that ball by staircases between the internal and external walls of the dome, and find it large enough to hold a score of persons.
So vast is the cathedral's interior that it has an atmosphere of its own—in winter slowly losing the heat of the preceding summer, and in summer slowly warming up for another winter. In cold weather the poor of Rome go there for comfort, as a Roman winter sometimes brings frosty days and ice. ”

“ The streets are not of the best. They are very narrow, and often arcaded with pointed arches supported on circular columns, but contain few houses of any interest, whilst the churches have been a good deal altered and damaged in modern times.
The cathedral is a recent building of no beauty. Two lions which once supported the columns of a Lombard doorway now carry the holy-water stoups; and in a passage near the sacristy is a carved, painted, and gilded rood of the twelfth century—a piece of furniture which is rarely found remaining in Italian churches. ”

“ Restoration following restoration, chapels of the XVIII century, new vaultings, debased and conglomerate Gothic, and spectacular decorations of gilded wood have destroyed the architectural value and real beauty of the Cathedral's interior. Yet in the dim light, which is the light of its every-day life, the great height of the church and its sombre massiveness are not without impressiveness.
The exterior dominates the city, but it is so hopelessly confused and commonplace that its natural dignity is lost. ”

“ Shrines and chapels, set in grand, heavy frames of pillared architecture, stand all along the aisles and transepts, and these seem in many instances to have been built and enriched by noble families, whose arms are sculptured on the pedestals of the pillars, sometimes with a cardinal's hat above to denote the rank of one of its members. How much pride, love, and reverence in the lapse of ages must have clung to the sharp points of all this sculpture and architecture! The cathedral is a religion in itself, —something worth dying for to those who have an hereditary interest in it. ”

“ Some four or five cathedrals have stood, in turn, on the same site which was close by the Gallo-Roman city walls. For the early Christians were despised as pariahs, and allowed to build only on the outskirts of cities, until the edict of Constantine permitted them to exercise their religion with honor. All over France churches are to be found abutting on the ancient ramparts of towns. Of the early cathedrals of Bourges only the core of the present crypt remains. From the Romanesque edifice immediately preceding the present cathedral come its XII-century side portals. ”

“ Parts of the old cathedral are, however, still standing. Between the tower of the new{288} temple and the episcopal palace, but unluckily weighted down by modern superstructures, stands the old façade, almost intact. The grossness of the structural work, the timid use of the ogival arch, the primitive rose window, and the general heaviness of the structure, show it to belong to the decadent period of the Romanesque style, when the artists were attempting something new and forgetting the lessons of the past. ”

“ Seldom in France do we find the cathedral so regally free of surrounding buildings. No shabby structures lean unworthy heads against its old grey walls, and where, on the north side, the canons' library, with its crumbling timbers of the fifteenth century, nestles under the wing of the church, the effect is entirely pleasing. ”

“ The cathedral itself is the heart of the charming old place—so rich in tone, so impressive in outline, so profusely yet delicately adorned, it rose at the end of the long market-square, shedding on it, even through the grey sheets of rain, the warmth of its high tawny masses. The design of the western front is so full and harmonious that it effaces from memory the less salient impression of the interior. ”

“ Yet owing to the loftiness of the roof of the nave, this great [Pg 455] height does not strike the beholder. The interior is one of the most magnificent of spectacles, owing to this great height of the roof, which is about double the usual height of English cathedrals. The area of the cathedral is also larger than that of any other cathedral in France, and is only surpassed by that of St. Peter’s at Rome, and by Cologne. At the crossing of the transept, three magnificent rose windows of elaborate tracery and rich stained glass, and about 100 feet in circumference, make this cathedral unique. ”

“ The interior of the cathedral impresses by its vastness and height. A wider nave is not to be found among the cathedrals of France, and the aisles are proportionate in width. The eye ranges upwards to the wonderful roof, with its opulent decoration, to the beautiful triforium, and the tall, narrow windows of the clerestory. ”

“ In the nave is a beautiful pulpit, built in 1486, and covered with little statues, delicately carved, and not far from it the organ, up midway between the floor and arched ceiling. The perspective view in these old cathedrals is grand, and figures hardly give one an idea of their vastness. This cathedral is five hundred and twenty-five feet long, one hundred and ninety-five feet in width, and is one of the finest of those wonderful monuments of religious art that rose during the middle ages. ”

“ The town is traversed by one straight wide street with large houses, but for the most part it consists of narrow lanes. The cathedral has a Romanesque Gothic portal of 1332 by a Roman marble worker named Deodatus, and the interior is decorated in the Baroque style, but still retains the pointed vaulting of 1154, introduced into Italy by French Benedictines ”

“ These granite saints and bishops, with their mutilated fingers and broken noses, seem to be bearing a silent, melancholy witness against that disposition in human nature, which, instead of making clean the cup and platter, breaks them altogether.
The roof of the cathedral is a splendid specimen of carving in black oak, wrought in panels, with leaves and inscriptions in ancient text. The church could once boast in other parts (so says an architectural work) a profusion of carved woodwork of the same character, which must have greatly relieved the massive plainness of the interior. ”

“ Innumerable other works and wonders there are, and the sacristies contain great value of goldsmiths' products; but, unless it be made a subject of long artistic study, the fundamental charm of the cathedral consists in its general aspects, its mysterious perspectives, its proportions so simple and grandiose; the isolated pictures formed at almost any point by jewelled and candle-lit chapels sparkling dimly through a permanent dusk, rainbowed here and there by the light from old stained windows. ”

“ Magnificence rather than beauty is the characteristic note of the new cathedral. The primitive part—pure ogival with but little mixture—contrasts with the eastern end, which is covered over with the most glaring grotesque decoration; most of the chapels are spoiled by the same shocking profusion of super-ornamentation; the otherwise majestic cupola, the high altar, and the choir—all suffer from the same defect. ”

“ The beauty of its site is best appreciated from the lower ground beyond its western suburb. And beautiful it is—the graceful cathedral, with its airy spire and twin towers, pencilled in soft, silvery gray against the dimpled green hills, every feature of the landscape in harmony with it, as if, indeed, made to be in harmony with it. Turning from the cathedral in an opposite direction, in order to make the circuit of the city, we realize how grand was the predecessor of modern Autun the Augustodonum of Gallic Rome. ”

“ The present cathedral was mainly built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Its chief features are a nave with the most magnificent side-aisles in the kingdom, two transepts, a choir, a lady chapel, a large central tower, two bell towers, and a wonderfully fine chapter-house. During the last century it was twice nearly destroyed by fire, first by the act of a lunatic, and then by the carelessness of a workman.
The present structure takes rank with the finest specimens of Gothic architecture in the world.
Apart from the minster, the whole city teems with archaeological interest. ”

“ Many a sharp word does M. Viollet-le-Duc give as critic to those who enjoy in a cathedral the superficial beauties of decoration, but are blind to the efficient structure, to the scientific upholding skeleton. Surely it is a still more radical ignorance which perceives in a Gothic church its mechanical perfection, but denies the aspiration to immortality which was its inceptive spirit. To ascribe the origin of cathedrals to the need by the nascent commune of a town hall is to make of those soaring monuments veritable follies of human pride. ”

“ From the height, whence you survey it, the streets are scarcely discernible, and it appears a mass of red tiled roofs. Rich plains stretch on every side down to the sea, and to the not very distant range of mountains, enlivened by white houses, sparkling among mulberry and orange groves. The cathedral itself is not very attractive. Like all other Spanish churches it has no chairs, and it was amusing to watch the different worshippers when the time came to kneel down: plump on the hard pavement knelt the devout peasant ”

“ The cathedral is Gothic, and one of the finest in Europe. The interior is impressive, with its wide nave and aisles. The choir stalls are beautifully carved, and should be carefully examined as examples of Gothic art. The pulpit is also carved, but the work is indifferent. The steeple, one of the highest in Christendom, is very exquisite, like lace work rather than stone and metal. ”

“ To the right, at the end of a narrow alley, is the baptistery, formerly probably the emperor's private temple or chapel, as one may say, which now contains a very interesting font made up of fragments of ninth-century carving, and the beautiful doors of the cathedral, stored there temporarily. The base blocks of the cathedral are nearly 20 ft. high, and there are twenty-two steps in the flight of approach. The portico which surrounds it has columns of marble and granite 21 ft. high. ”

“ We walked to the cathedral—a dark red heavy building, built almost entirely of brick, with one high tower; an open gallery surmounting its façade, which exhibits, one above the other, three ranges of porticoes, the pillars of the lowest and central one springing from the loins of guardian lions. Within, above the principal entrance, is some curious carving. The church is large without being handsome; 224 two thirds of the roof, glaring with fresh whitewash, contrast with the dark grey columns. The choir has its frescoes still ”