Bishop's palace

“ You approach Hatfield House by the gateway near the Church, and enter an oblong court bounded by the west wing of the Bishop's Palace, now a stately wreck, with horses stabled in the Hall where one time Bishops and Princes sat at meat. You feel inclined to linger here, and moralise upon the theme. But you perceive your noble host awaiting you on the broad steps of the magnificent Jacobean mansion, a picture worthy to be set in such a framework. ”

“ The beautiful Bishop's Palace was mainly built by Jocelin, who died in 1242. It consists of three sides of a quadrangle, the bishop's house being on the east, the chapel on the south, the kitchen and offices running alongside the moat on the north: on the west side there was formerly a gate-tower and a wall having a cloister within which led to chapel and hall. In addition to these buildings the great hall, now in ruins—forming, with the walls and outhouses, an outer court—was built to the south-west of the chapel. ”

“ The episcopal palace was a huge and beautiful house, built of stone at the beginning of the last century by M. Henri Puget, Doctor of Theology of the Faculty of Paris, Abbe of Simore, who had been Bishop of Digne in 1712. This palace was a genuine seignorial residence. Everything about it had a grand air,--the apartments of the Bishop, the drawing-rooms, the chambers, the principal courtyard, which was very large, with walks encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens planted with magnificent trees. ”

“ The bishop's palace and the deanery are imposing structures, old and interesting, and approached, as the cathedral itself is, through what is called the Eppingham Gate, a remarkable structure consisting of a lofty pointed arch, flanked with semi-octagonal buttresses, and enriched with columns, mouldings, and 38 male and female statues in canopied niches. The market-place is large, and ranks as one of the finest in the world. ”

“ Between the cloisters and the Archbishop's Palace at the end of the broad terraces, rises the masonry facing the southern transept arm. It belongs, together with that of the northern, to the oldest portions of the early fabric erected while Maurice was bishop and a certain "Enrique" architect, and shows admirable thirteenth-century work. The Sarmentos family, great in the annals of this century, owned the ground immediately surrounding this transept arm. ”

“ The large drawing-room affords a distant and picturesque view of the great square tower of the cathedral. The Palace is really on a level with it, so great is the rise in the ground. This apartment, like all the rooms indeed, is richly perfumed by flowers; exquisite china and silver nick-nacks are everywhere, and the Bishop evidently does not believe in the untold troubles associated with the presence of peacocks' feathers. ”

“ The buildings employed for public purposes are ample and commodious, though mostly reared for different objects. The bishop’s palace formed an extremely elegant residence, with a chapel and many conveniences ”

“ As the present prelate was an up-to-date bishop, abreast of his time and fond of his creature comforts, the interior of the palace was modernised completely in accordance with the luxurious demands of nineteenth century civilisation. The stately reception-rooms—thrown open on this night to what the Beorminster Weekly Chronicle, strong in foreign tongues, tautologically called 'the élite and crême de la crême of the diocese'—were brilliantly illuminated by electric lamps and furnished magnificently throughout, in keeping with their palatial appearance. ”

“ On the north-west side of this churchyard is the bishop’s palace, a large thing for receipt, wherein divers kings have been lodged, and great household hath been kept, as appeareth by the great hall, which of late years, since the rebatement of bishops’ livings, hath not been furnished with household menie and guests, as was meant by the builders thereof, and was of old time used. ”

“ Its design is peculiar and striking, and it is said to be very ancient. Adjoining the cathedral on the north are some ruinous remnants of the bishop’s palace, now converted into other uses (Fig. 239) . In the “place” at the east end of the cathedral (see Fig. 237) stands a granite column raised on a pedestal, and said to have been the gift of the city of Massilia to her sister of Vence. In the same place some picturesque fragments of old houses are still preserved (Fig. 240) , the late Gothic doorway on the right being given on a larger scale in Fig. ”

“ Hard by the cathedral stood formerly a magnificent EPISCOPAL PALACE. Upon this palace the old writers dearly loved to expatiate. There is now however nothing but a good large comfortable family mansion; sufficient for the purposes of such hospitality and entertainment as the episcopal revenues will afford. I have not only seen, but visited, this episcopal residence. In other words, my friend Pierre-Aimé Lair having promised to take his last adieu of me at Bayeux, as he had business with the Bishop, I met him agreeably to appointment at the palace ”

“ The Ceiling, which exceeds all the rest for its Beauty, has Compartments, the Squares and Pannels whereof are inrich’d with Sculptures, very finely gilt, and full of beautiful Pictures and other Ornaments. The Cathedral is large and spacious, with a most remarkable great Gate, all of Brass, over which there are several Scripture Passages, represented in Basso-Relievo of very nice Workmanship. The Episcopal Palace has nothing extraordinary. The present Bishop is of the Family of Newbourg, and Brother to the Elector of Triers, and the Elector Palatine. ”

“ Their most marked feature is a dignified comfort, looking as if no disturbance or vulgar intrusiveness could ever cross their thresholds, encroach upon their ornamented lawns, or straggle into the beautiful gardens that surround them with flower-beds and rich clumps of shrubbery. The episcopal palace is a stately mansion of stone, built somewhat in the Italian style, and bearing on its front the figures of 1687, as the date of its erection. A large edifice of brick, which, if I remember, stood next to the palace, I took to be the residence of the second dignitary of the cathedral ”

“ The perspective of the western front, which should be imposing, is destroyed by a hill which slopes sharply up before the very portal. The façade is attached to the immense, unbroken wall of the old episcopal Palace, and the majesty, which is a Cathedral's by very virtue of its height alone, is entirely destroyed by a seemingly interminable breadth of wall. Reversing the natural order of things, the finest view is that of the apse. ”

“ Squatty arcades border the principal streets; there is need of shade under such a sun.
A pretty episcopal palace, in its modern elegance, makes the ugly cathedral still uglier. The poor, abortive monument piteously lifts its belfry, that for three centuries has remained but a stump. Booths are stuck in its hollows, after the manner of warts; here and there they have laid on a rude plaster of stone. The old invalid is a sad spectacle alongside of the new houses and busy shops which crowd around its grimy flanks. ”

“ Of the massive walls little has been destroyed either by time or by the many vicissitudes through which the great building has passed. Of all the architecture that one sees in this country the Popes' Palace is the most like those huge, enduring, almost brutally strong, buildings that the Romans left behind them. ”

“ We have seen that Pope John XXII., having allotted a piece of land to his nephew, Arnaud de Via, for the erection of a new episcopal palace, was content to modify and enlarge the old one for pontifical uses, and that Benedict XII., with characteristic straightforwardness, purchased the new fabric from Arnaud's heirs and, having handed it over to the diocesan authorities, proceeded to transform the old building into a stately and spacious apostolic palace for the head of Christendom. ”

“ Many of the houses have a palace-like appearance, and the interior of the old gothic cathedral, though not remarkably spacious, has an air of magnificence; the stalls of the choir are elaborately carved, and on each side the high altar, curtains of the richest crimson damask fall from the roof in ample folds, and cast a ruddy glow on the pavement. ”

“ The front, incrusted with alabaster, is worked into a million of fretted arches and puzzling ornaments. There are statues without number and relievos without end.
The church within is all of black and white marble alternately; the roof blue and gold, with a profusion of silken banners hanging from it; and a cornice running above the principal arcade, composed entirely of bustos representing the whole series of sovereign pontiffs, from the first Bishop of Rome to Adrian the Fourth. ”

“ All the surroundings are harmonious—solemn old houses, with black and white marble seats running along their basement, on which one may sit and gaze: a tower surmounted by a gigantic bronze warrior, who strikes the hours with the clash of his sword upon a great bell: an ancient oblong palace with gothic arches and flat windows, where thirty-four popes have sought a refuge or held a court at different times—all serving as a dark setting to make more resplendent the glittering radiancy of the golden front of the temple in their midst. ”

“ Its mosaics have faded not a whit in the long centuries; design and color hold soft and true to the walls, and this kingly chamber in its dignity and splendor shames the tawdry display of the monarchs who came after. Time spent in such rooms is wasted.
The Cappella Palatina, or royal chapel, is a tiny temple richly embellished with marvelous mosaics, but so smothered by the encroachments of the formless Palace that half its beauty is lost for lack of light. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The conventional guides speak of it as "highly interesting," and so it is, with its Romanesque remains, its ungainly façade, its three fine but weather-worn doorways, and its charming river view.
Beside the cathedral stands the old-time Episcopal Palace with its fine arcaded Romanesque gallery overlooking the river, where the prelates took their "constitutionals," safely guarded from wind and weather. To-day this grand building represents the officialdom of the local Préfecture. ”

“ The rest of the ground is occupied with a collection of churches of all shapes and sizes and colours, and towers, and convents, and palaces. One palace, however, surpasses them all in beauty and size, though its shining white walls and richly-carved façade and general bran-new appearance look sadly out of place among all the venerable, grotesque, many-coloured, odd-shaped, Byzantine edifices which are dotted about in its neighbourhood. It looks like some huge intruder into the place, which all the old inhabitants are collecting to put forth again ”

“ The interior of the minster is magnificent. The Norman nave is of eight bays with semicircular arches, surmounted by a triforium of rows of arches almost equal to those below, and rising from piers with clustered side-columns. It is nearly three-fourths the height of the lower stage, and this produces a grand effect. The flat roof is modern, it and the bells having been replaced after the church was burned in the last century. The ruins of the archiepiscopal palace, erected six hundred years ago, have been availed of in one portion for a dwelling-house. ”

“ As soon as the pope has breathed his last amidst the consolations of religion, and after making his profession of faith in presence of the cardinal grand-penitentiary—who usually administers the last sacraments—and of the more intimate members of his court, the cardinal-chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, accompanied and assisted by the right reverend clerks of the apostolic chamber, takes possession of the palace and causes a careful inventory to be made of everything that is found in the papal apartments. ”

“ The people are civil and apparently industrious, but the energy of the children goes out in begging. The decay and dirt which conquer all, furnish to an English eye a plain instance of material progress—matter gaining upon mind. The palace is neither kept up nor abandoned as a ruin, but, as if to set the town an example of thriftless filth, it is used partly for an aesthetic exhibition, containing as it does one wonderful mosaic, with frescoes and portraits of the Pope and Cardinals of the family, and is partly given up to—matter. ”

“ While it has great discrepancies as a structure, there was a poetical imagery about it, that insensibly led me to see a resemblance between it and the history and institutions [34] of the country; for, like them, it was the pretension of a palace reared on a foundation of feudal usages, aristocratical rather than royal in details, and among which the church has managed to thrust itself with great advantage, for the chapel, in magnificence and extent, is, out of all proportion, the finest and most important part of the edifices. ”

“ We make the circuit of the square without meeting anyone, and the barrier which isolates the fragile and still admirable phantom is everywhere solidly closed. As for the old palace adjoining the basilica, the episcopal palace where the kings of France came to rest on the day of their consecration, it is no longer anything more than a ruin, without windows or roof, everywhere licked and blackened by the flame. ”