DURING the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, pilgrims still flocked in hundreds of thousands to the tomb of St. James in Galicia; and the king and queen, knowing how poor was the accommodation provided for pilgrims at Santiago, commanded that a commodious inn should be constructed close to the cathedral, where pious pilgrims might find shelter and the sick be nursed. It was just after their conquest of Granada that Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492, decreed that an annual sum of money should be devoted as a thankoffering, one-third for commemoration services to be held at Santiago Cathedral, one-third for the building expenses of the cathedral, and one-third for the relief of the poor, who would be cared for in the hospital they had commanded to be built. The sum of money in question was to be raised by levying a tribute of a bushel of grain on every pair of oxen, horses, mules, or asses used in agriculture by the Moors or Christians.[173] The foundation of the hospital may be said to date from that year, so pregnant with consequences, in which Columbus discovered the New World, and in which Spain not only became for the first time in her history a single and united kingdom, but laid the foundations of her widespread empire to which historians have given the name of Greater Spain. It was not, however, till 1499 that Ferdinand and Isabella authorised the Dean of Santiago, Don Diego de Muros, to start the building of the hospital.[174]

The work began in good earnest in the year 1501, and the building was ready to receive the first inmates within ten years from that date. At the time of its completion the Hospital Real was the finest establishment of its kind in the world, and it is still regarded as an important example of the Renaissance style of architecture.

Molina, writing in 1550, said, “I believe that the hospital is so well known in every part of the world, that all I can say about it will be readily credited. In the three large wards there are few days when there are less than two hundred sick people, especially in Jubilee years, and every patient is treated with as much care as if the hospital had only been erected for his particular benefit. This hospital is one of the great things of the earth. Apart from its sumptuousness and the regal grandeur of its architecture, it is a marvellous thing to feel its size, the multitude of its officials, their diligence, the zeal of the attendants, the cleanliness of the linen, the care taken about the cooking, the perfect order of the routine ... the assiduity of the doctors—in short, one may with reason regard it as a crowning glory of Christendom.”

The Hospital Real is, after the cathedral, the most interesting edifice in Santiago. Its front forms the northern side of the chief square of the town, the Plaza de Alfonso XII. The iconographic decoration of its principal entrance at once attracts the eye of every stranger who enters the square. Between the rectangular window and the two rows of statues over the entrance are inscribed the following words: “Magnus Fernandus et grandis Helisabeth: peregrinis: divi Jacobi construi: jussere: anno salutis: M: D: I: opus: inchoaturn: decennio: absolutum.” This entrance is an example of the most perfect style of the Renaissance in Spain. In the triangles formed by the principal arch are the busts, in bas-relief, of Ferdinand and Isabella, and in two straight rows above the arch are the twelve apostles, each distinguishable by his dress and other characteristic traits. On either side of the window above them are nude statues of Adam and Eve, with St. Catherine and St. John the Baptist to the left, and St. Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, and SalomÉ, the mother of St. James the Greater, to the right. In the tympanum of the window are the arms of the hospital—the cross beneath a crown, and with a lion on either side. The other statues represent the Virgin and Child, St. John and St. Paul in the niches to the left, and Christ, St. James in pilgrim garb, and St. Peter to the right. Six winged angels hover above with various musical instruments. Two eagles, resting on the graceful Ionic columns on either side of the window, support the escutcheon with their claws. The four pillars which adorn this entrance and the multitude of little statues all blend together with such exquisite proportion that the effect is extremely beautiful, even at a considerable distance. In the wall on either side are the arms of Castille and the Imperial Eagles, which carry our thoughts back to the days of Greater Spain.

But for this wonderful entrance the long low front of the hospital, with its little windows and slanting tile roof, might be taken any day for soldiers’ barracks, or even a prison. There are, however, sixteen remarkable stone gargoyles on the cornice beneath the roof, and the thirty-eight corbels or projecting stones supporting the balcony are curiously sculptured. The Churrigueresque decoration of the four large windows giving entrance to the balcony is eighteenth-century work.

We enter the building and find ourselves standing in a portico with our faces towards an altar enclosed behind a high iron railing. The altar is placed beneath a walled-up arch which formerly served as an entrance to the chapel. The arch itself is richly moulded, and ornamented in the plateresque style; it is without pilasters, its moulded archivolts descending to the base in a manner that is markedly Gothic.

A mural painting of “The Last Judgment” covers part of the wall, and two youthful portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella are placed on either side of the altar. The whole interior of this portico was once covered with frescoes, but a thick covering of whitewash has destroyed the greater part of them. The graceful railing of wrought iron which encloses the altar is the work of Master Guillen, the clever artist of whom we have already spoken; its design is Gothic. The bas-reliefs of the altar, divided into seven niches, are interesting, but the painting above is of no value. The framed placard suspended from the railing, which is seen in my photograph, is an announcement that certain indulgences will be granted to those of the faithful who visit the hospital chapel, and thither we will now repair.

On our way we will take a look at the four patios, or, rather, cloisters which the four quadrangles of the hospital enclose. These cloisters, as well as the chapel, were designed by Enrique Egas, the famous architect of the beautiful Colegio de Santa Cruz in Toledo which was completed in 1514. Villa-Amil, quoting Cean BermÚdez, calls Egas “one of the best architects of Spain.”[175] The first one, to our left, is the south-western cloister, a precious jewel of the Renaissance style. We note its slender columns, each cut from a single block, its elegant pointed Gothic arches supporting the stone galleries, its coats of arms, its curiously sculptured corbels, and the wonderful and weird gargoyles springing forth as if alive from its cornices, each representing the head, shoulders, and two front feet of a different animal—a bear here, a fox there, and so on. And, last but not least, we admire the doorways, with their very original plateresque (conopiada) tracery, the most striking of these being the doorway at the foot of the steps leading to the Sala de San Louis, of which I was fortunate in securing a photograph. In the centre of this cloister is a fountain whose water flows through extraordinary gargoyles, representing fantastic animals, into the large basin below; some of these gargoyles have human faces. The capitals in this cloister are really plateresque in style, though their resemblance to those in the cathedral suggest that their sculptor must have had Mateo’s work in his mind’s eye. This is by far the most beautiful of the four cloisters.

The north-west cloister and the north-east cloister are both adorned with Doric columns, but in the case of the upper storey it is of later date and does not correspond with the lower. Both these cloisters have fountains enclosed in elegant Gothic miniature temples, templetes with arches, columns, and pinnacles. We passed on to the south-east cloister through a small passage with elegantly decorated doors: this one is separated from the last by the eastern transept of the chapel; it is more like the first cloister than the other two, with its fountain, its bronze statue, and its handsome granite basin, all of which attracted our attention. We noticed its pretty doorways leading to the kitchen and the dispensary, and the smaller doorway leading to the vestry, all of these were ornamented with plateresque tracery.

The chapel occupies the centre of the building, and is in the form of a Latin cross, with a shortened head, so often found in churches of the last decade of the fifteenth and in the early years of the sixteenth century; the shortened head is the sacristy. The most interesting portion of this chapel is its transept, which is separated from the nave by a strikingly artistic railing of beaten iron which, like the one in the portico of the hospital, is the work of Master Guillen: on it we distinguish the Arms of Spain, the Imperial Eagle, and the scallop shell of St. James. Sanchez says of the transept: “It is in the Gothic style peculiar to the architecture of Galicia”; and then he complains bitterly of the barbaric coating of whitewash which covers the beautiful granite vaulting, the balustrades, and the finely sculptured columns. Spanish architects divide the Gothic style into three periods, and it is to the third or last of these that the architecture of this chapel belongs, while its ornamentation is plateresque. In all its lines and in all its component parts there exists the most perfect harmony and the most correct composition imaginable; it is consequently a very beautiful example of the transition epoch, in which the florid elements of the Gothic style mingled with those of the plateresque to form, as it were, a new style of architecture. In describing it thus I am not venturing to give a new and unauthorised opinion, I am simply repeating a truth that has been endorsed by every connoisseur who has had the privilege of visiting this beautiful little chapel.

Entering the chapel by the door from the first cloister we note a graceful font for consecrated water, very shallow, and supported by a slender pedestal—it is enriched with Gothic moulding. Ancient fonts were always large enough to allow for the immersion of infants; this one probably dates from the end of the fifteenth century, and its sculpture is of the same class as that of other parts of the chapel. The beaten iron candelabra is also good work, though gilded and silvered in a tasteless manner.

The beautifully sculptured and decorated altars at the four angles of the central square of the transept are considered to be the greatest glory of the hospital; their sculpture is in the Flemish Gothic style, and rivals even that of Toledo in its perfect grace and finish. So finely chiselled are the lace-like canopies of white stone which adorn the niches in which the statues are placed, that at first sight the traveller may be pardoned for mistaking them for stucco, though in reality they are carved from the same white Portuguese stone as that of which the new cathedral in Madrid is being constructed. To appreciate the work here we must have ample leisure at our disposal; we must look closely and spy out for ourselves the innumerable beauties, the sculptured idyls, the pictorial poems, the doves, fruits, and foliage that are interwoven with the pedestals on which the little statues

stand, and introduced into the stone filigree which covers the spaces like a spider’s web. Here we see stone moulded as if it were soft wax or potter’s clay. Every statue here is in itself a perfect work of art, the drapery, the serene and often majestic expression on the beautiful faces, the restful pose of the limbs, all combine to fascinate the most satiated eye. The statues on the two northern altars which face to the south are, on the right, St. Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine Order, St. Maurus, of early French fame, and St. Francisco; on the left, St. Vincent and St. Lawrence. The statues on the other two altars facing east and west respectively are, on the right, St. Peter, St. John, St. James, and two anchorites, supposed to represent St. Anthony (the first anchorite) and St. Paul; and on the left, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Maria SalomÉ, mother of St. James, with St. Catherine and Santa Lucia.

Above the graceful Gothic arches over the transept there runs round it the elegant cornice decorated also in the Flemish Gothic style; the wooden galleries are modern, but the groined vaulting, not unlike that of our Tudor roofs, above the windows of coloured glass is very fine, and in keeping with the rest of the transept.

The modern altar in the centre of the transept is dedicated to the Virgin Mary; it has her statue and those of the four evangelists. Here also are kept the relics of St. Heliodorus, which were the gifts of Pope Pius viii. in 1839. There is another altar placed on a level with the dormitories (in 1828) in order that the sick might be able to hear the voice of the priest. Another altar in the Churrigueresque style, erected in the eastern arm of the transept at the beginning of the eighteenth century, has behind it some bad examples of the painting of that period. On the northern wall are some better paintings, representing St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Jerome, whose translation of the Bible is still the only one authorised by the Catholic Church, and St. Augustine of Hippo. Above the door of the sacristy is a painting that represents the Father Eternal.

The sacristy, though its walls and vaulting are still disfigured by whitewash, is worthy of a visit, for it, too, is a good example of the later Gothic style. Happily, during the year 1507 some of the whitewash which covered its stone work was removed at the earnest request of a local archÆologist. It is left in an undeservedly neglected condition, and contains much rubbish, out of which a very old stone statue of St. James has recently been extracted; the rescued figure now stands in a niche in the wall. This sacristy also has a curious painted glass window on which St. James is represented with very good colouring; he wears a green tunic, a pink robe, and there is a rich blue background; his hair and beard are white, and in his hand he carries his pilgrim’s staff; the face is very good work. The sacristan brought forth some interesting and historical chasubles, and unfolded them that we might examine their designs. They were of rich velvet embroidered with silver and gold thread, and dated, some from the beginning of the sixteenth, and some from the seventeenth century. On one of them was St. James with pilgrim garb, hat, shells, and staff. The soft green and delicate turquoise blues of the velvets were very beautiful. The various kinds of architecture introduced into the embroidery gave us a clue to the period of each. The walnut chests in which these priestly garments and other valuables are kept are both old; one bears the date 1606, the other 1680.

Above the roof of the transept rises the low belfry decorated with four chaste Gothic pinnacles and a handsome cornice. The bells hang beneath them, and are reached by a spiral stone stairway.

It appears that, annexed to the hospital, there was, in 1521, an accessory building, intended for the accommodation of royalty, and called palacio de fuera, or the outside palace. Juan NuÑo, a scribe, wrote of it (in 1554) that Pedro de Leon, looking at it with his own eyes and measuring it with his own feet, found it to have a patio forty-seven feet square surrounded by corridors, large reception-rooms with fireplaces, and twenty-six rooms in all.

The decadence of this magnificent hospital dates from Napoleon’s invasion of Spain at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The hospital lost its rich revenues when the Peninsula was overrun by its enemies, and from being a national, it sank to the position of a provincial hospital. It was as recently as 29th July 1880 that the nuns of the Convent of St. Vincent de Paul took up their residence within its walls and became its nursing staff. The governor of the province, the archbishop, and many of the neighbouring prelates took part in the ceremony of their installation, and the event was a memorable one for the people of Galicia. Ever since then those gentle, self-forgetting, and self-sacrificing Sisters have shown themselves the guardian angels of the sick and the needy, as well as of the helpless foundlings who are reared within those charitable walls.

A hospital, with practically no revenues and built at the

ROYAL HOSPITAL, SANTIAGO