FEW journeys can be made by the ecclesiologist in Spain which will be altogether more agreeable or more fruitful of results than one to this time-honoured city; for not only does it contain within its walls more than the usual number of objects of architectural and ecclesiological interest, but the road by which it is usually approached, across the Sierra de Guadarrama, presents so much fine scenery as to be in itself sufficient to repay the traveller for his work. It was from Madrid that I made my way to Segovia, taking the railway as far as the little station at Villalba, near the Escorial, and travelling thence by a fairly-appointed diligence. The very fine and picturesque granite ranges of the Guadarrama are generally bare and desolate on their southern side, though here and there are small tracts of oak-copse, or fern, or pine-trees; but, after a slow ascent of some three or four hours, when the summit of the pass is reached, the character of the scenery changes entirely, and the road winds down through picturesque valleys and dips in the hills, which are here thickly covered everywhere with pine-trees of magnificent growth. It is necessary to travel for a time in the dismal plains of Old Castile, to enjoy to the full the sudden change to the mountain beauties of the Guadarrama; and it is impossible not to sympathize with the kings of Spain, who at La Granja, on the lower slopes of the northern side of the range, have built themselves a palace within easy reach of Madrid, and—owing to its height above the sea—in a climate utterly different from, and much more endurable than, that of the capital. Of the palace they have built I must speak with less respect than I do of their choice of its site, for it is now untidy in its belongings and apparently little cared for. A church forms the centre of it, and the whole group of buildings has slated roofs, diversified by an abundance of tourelles. The walls are all plastered and covered with decaying paintings of architectural decorations—columns, cornices, and the like—which give a thoroughly pauperized look to the whole place. But probably the interior of the palace and its famous gardens would correct the impression which I received from a hurried inspection of the exterior only. It is an uninteresting drive of about an hour from La Granja to Segovia. The tower of the cathedral is seen long before reaching the city; but it is not till one is very near to it that the first complete view is gained, and this, owing to the way in which the Alcazar and cathedral stand up upon a rocky height above the suburbs, and the streams which girt it on either side, is very picturesque. Even finer is it as one drives on through the suburb and first finds oneself in presence of the grand old Roman aqueduct, which, still perfect and still in use, spans with its magnificent ranges of arch upon arch the valley which separates the city rock from the hills beyond. Its base is girt closely round by houses and the diligence road passes under one of its arches, so that the enormous scale upon which it is built is thoroughly appreciated, and it is quite impossible not to admire the extreme simplicity and grandeur of the work. Nothing here was done that was useless or merely ornamental, and the whole still stands with but little repair—and that little well done—after so many centuries of good service, as useful as at the first.

A steep hill leads up from the valley below the aqueduct through a gateway in the walls into the city, and after threading the narrow winding streets we find ourselves in the fine Plaza de la Constitucion, which is surrounded by picturesque balconied houses, save at its north-west angle, where it opens so as to allow a fine view of the east end of the cathedral. The houses have generally extremely picturesque open upper stages of wood arcading, and the windows and balconies are all gay with the heavy curtains which protect them from the sun.

The situation of the city is in every way striking. On either side of it there is a deep valley, and these at their meeting have between them the great rock on which the Alcazar is built—as admirably secure a site for a castle as could have been selected. Going eastward along the narrow ridge the cathedral is soon reached, and this is the centre of the city, which then widens somewhat, before the edge of the hill is reached which leads down to the suburb below the aqueduct. In the two valleys are some of the best of the buildings: San Millan in one, the Templars’ Church and the Convent of El Parral in the other; but most of the old churches are crowded closely together on the summit of the hill.

I shall begin my architectural notes with the cathedral, in deference only to its rank, and not at all to its age or architectural merits. It is nevertheless a building of no little value in the history of Spanish art, as being perhaps the latest Gothic building erected, and one which was yet but little influenced by Renaissance art. In the Appendix I give a translation of the interesting contemporary account of the church, written by one Juan Rodriguez, who appears to have been the canon in charge of the work. According to his account, Juan Gil de HontaÑon, the architect of Salamanca Cathedral, was appointed in A.D. 1522 to superintend the work, and on the 8th of June in the same year the Bishop ordered a procession, and, going himself to the site of the church, laid its foundation-stone at the western end. Cean Bermudez, in his account of this cathedral, speaks of a competition among several architects for the work, and says that the design of Rodrigo Gil de HontaÑon—the son of Juan Gil—was selected.[185] But this seems to be clearly contrary to the distinct statement of the Canon Juan Rodriguez. The work was commenced, as we have seen, in 1522, and Juan Gil seems to have died circa 1531. His son Rodrigo was not made Maestro mayor until 1560, and on the 5th of August, 1563, laid the first stone of the Capilla mayor. The inscription on his tombstone in the cloister[186] says that he laid the first stone of the church; but if he did so it was on behalf of his father, who was then undoubtedly the Maestro mayor, and we may assume, I believe, that the greater part of the church, as we now see it, was finished before the year 1577, in which he died, though, indeed, Madoz says that the Sacrament was moved to the new cathedral as early as 1558, though the chapels of the apse were not completed until 1593. The north door, by Juanes de Mugaguren, was added in A.D. 1626, and is thoroughly Pagan.

The plan[187] of this church must be compared with that of the new cathedral at Salamanca, built by the same man. The details of the two churches are very similar; but the scale of Segovia is slightly greater than that of Salamanca, and it has the enormous advantage of having a grand chevet in place of a square east end. It will be seen, on reference to my account of Salamanca, that the architects who drew up the scheme for the cathedral there, intended that its end should be circular, but that nevertheless it has not been so built. It seems probable, therefore, that HontaÑon felt that this alteration was a mistake, or else that we owe the amended plan of Segovia to the better taste of his son Rodrigo, who was master of the works of the eastern portion of the church. But in any case, whether it is to the father or the son that we owe it, the internal effect is undoubtedly very noble, in spite of all the shortcomings which must be looked for in a work of such a date. The main columns are of grand dimensions, moulded, and rising from lofty bases planned with that ingenious complication of lines which was always so much affected by the later German and Spanish architects. The arches are very lofty, and there is no triforium, but only a traceried balustrade in front of the clerestory, which consists of uncusped triplets filling the wall above the springing of the groining, and very low in proportion to the great height of the church, though at the same time amply sufficient for the admission of all the light necessary in such a climate. The aisle has a somewhat similar clerestory, but without the traceried balustrade which we see in the nave clerestory, and the aisles and chapels are all lighted with windows, each of one broad light. Most of the smaller arches here are semi-circular; but though this is the case, and though so many of the windows are of one light, there is no appearance anywhere of any attempt to revive the form or detail of earlier work.

On the exterior the general character is just the same as that of HontaÑon’s work at Salamanca. There are the same pinnacles and buttresses, the same parapets, and the same concealment of the roofs and roof-lines everywhere—even in the transepts, which have no gables—and there is also a domed lantern over the Crossing and a lofty tower at the west end, finished with an octagonal stage covered with a dome, and rising from between four great pinnacles. So great, in short, are all the points of similarity, that I can well believe that portions of the two works may have been executed from the same plans, and this close copying of the earlier work at Salamanca may perhaps have been the true reason of the respectably Gothic detail of the chevet, built as it was so near the end of the sixteenth century. The groining is all of the kind so common in Spain, having ogee lierne ribs in addition to the diagonal, and in place of ridge ribs.

Not a little of the grand effect of the interior is owing to the rich stained glass with which all, or nearly all, the windows are filled. It is all, of course, of the very latest kind, and poor in much of its design; yet nevertheless it is often magnificent in colour, and in this respect quite beyond anything that most of our artists in glass seem to me to accomplish nowadays. The Coro is here—and probably was from the first—in the nave; but there is nothing either in its fittings or in those of the Capilla mayor which struck me as worthy of note. The detail of the central dome is quite Pagan, and here and there throughout the work little indications of the same spirit peep out, and show how narrow was the escape which the whole church had of being from first to last executed in the Renaissance style.

With all its faults this church has grand points: this every one will allow who has seen it rising in a noble pyramidal mass above the houses of the town from the open space in front of the Alcazar, from whence all its parts are seen to great advantage. Of the other subordinate buildings I need not say much. The canon, whose account I give in the Appendix, is much more enthusiastic about them than I was, for in truth they are cold and tame in design and meagre in detail; and wanting the effect of height and colour of the interior of the cathedral, want all that makes it so striking. I saw no great, if any, difference of style between the cloisters and the church; but they were the cloisters of the old church, and were removed here by a contract entered into by one Juan de Campero in 1524. Campero was one of the architects consulted as to the rebuilding of Salamanca Cathedral, and was evidently a mason or builder as well as an architect. I was not aware of the history of the cloister when I was at Segovia, and I did not notice any evidence of the work having been rebuilt and added to in the way described.

The cathedral is the largest and most important, but at the same time the most modern mediÆval building in Segovia; whilst, on the contrary, one of the smallest, the church of the Templars, is also one of the most ancient and curious; it is situated by the roadside just out of the city, on its north-west side, and below the great rock which is crowned by the Alcazar. The date of its consecration in A.D. 1208 is given by an inscription which still remains in the interior, and which has been incorrectly given by Cean Bermudez. It is as follows:—

No. 24. SEGOVIA p. 184. INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLARS CHURCH LOOKING N E.
No. 24.
SEGOVIA p. 184.
INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLARS CHURCH LOOKING N E.

The plan is very peculiar.[188] The nave is dodecagonal, and has a small central chamber enclosed with solid walls, round which the vaulted nave forms a kind of aisle. This central chamber is of two storeys in height, the lower entered by archways in the cardinal sides, and the upper by a double flight of steps leading to a door in its western side. The upper room is vaulted with a domical roof which has below it four ribs, two parallel north and south, and two parallel east and west, and it retains the original stone altar, arcaded on its sides with a delicately wrought chevron enrichment and chevroned shafts. The upper chapel is lighted by seven little windows opening into the aisle around it. The room below the chapel has also a dome, with ribs on its under side. On the east side of the building are the chancel and two chapels, forming parallel apses, to the south of which is a low steeple, the bottom stage of which is also converted into a chapel. The chapel in the centre of the nave is carried up and finished externally with a pointed roof, whilst the aisle is roofed with a lean-to abutting against its walls. There are pilasters at the angles outside, small windows high up in the walls, and a fine round-arched doorway on the western side. The character of the whole of this interesting church is late Romanesque, and its value is considerable, as being an accurately dated example. It is not now used, the Templars having been suppressed in A.D. 1312.

Within a few minutes’ walk of this church of La Vera Cruz (for this is its dedication) is the convent of El Parral, founded in the fifteenth century,[189] by a Marquis de Villena, on a spot once so beautiful as to give rise to the saying, “Los huertos del Parral, Paraiso terrenal,” but now so dreary, desolate, decaying, and desecrated, that the eye refuses to rest on it, and seeks relief by looking rather at the grand view of the town on the rocky heights on the other side of the little valley.

Juan Gallego, a native of Segovia, was the master of the works here in 1459, and it is recorded that before beginning to construct the convent he collected all the waters from the hill above its site, and distributed them by aqueducts for the service of the convent. The Capilla mayor was not commenced until A.D. 1472, in which year a contract was drawn up with Bonifacio and Juan de Guas, of Segovia, and Pedro Polido, of Toledo, binding them to complete the work within three years, for the sum of 400,000 maravedis. Then the tribune of the Coro was found to be too low for the taste of the monks, and it was taken down and rebuilt by Juan de Ruesga, of Segovia, for 125,000 maravedis; and by a contract signed in July, 1494, he bound himself to complete the work before the end of the same year. After this, in 1529, Juan Campero, whose name has already been mentioned in connexion with the rebuilding of the cloister of the cathedral, undertook to raise the tower twenty-nine feet.[190]

The ground-plan and general design of this church are very peculiar. The accompanying sketch-plan[191] will explain them better than any words; and, strange as the planning of the transepts looks, it is, nevertheless, very fine in effect. This is mainly the result of the very remarkable distribution of light. The western part of the church is almost without windows, and the great western gallery coming forward just half the length of the nave, adds much to the impression of gloom at this end of the building. The eastern end seems to be by contrast all window, being lighted by twelve large three-light windows, with statues of the Apostles in their jambs. The effect of the brilliant light at the east end, and the deep gloom of the west, is most impressive, and shows how much architects may do by the careful distribution of light. Few old buildings are altogether without some sign of attention to this important element of beauty in building, whilst few modern buildings seem to me ever to have been devised with even any thought of the existence of such a phenomenon as a shadow! The front of the gallery is elaborately panelled, and returned eastward on the north side, to form a gallery in front of the organ; and on the south, to make a passageway to the staircase by which the monks reached the Coro. The arch under the gallery is struck from three centres and richly cusped, and the whole is carried on a stone vault. A very richly carved and cusped doorway leads from the south transept to the cloisters, and to an elaborately painted chapel, which has been added on the south-east of the choir. The exterior of the church and convent is poor and uninteresting, though there is a rather fine double west door, with a statue of the Blessed Virgin in the centre, and saints on either side in the jambs.

The conventual buildings deserve but little notice. In the modern cloister—fast falling to ruin—are retained the traceried balustrades which probably adorned the cloister built at the time of the foundation of the convent.

No. 25. SAN ESTEBAN, SEGOVIA. p. 187. SOUTH-EAST VIEW OF CHURCH AND STEEPLE
No. 25.
SAN ESTEBAN, SEGOVIA. p. 187.
SOUTH-EAST VIEW OF CHURCH AND STEEPLE

A very picturesque path loads up from El Parral into the city. The effect of the Alcazar from hence is very imposing, the enormous keep-tower which rises out of its western face being very prominent, with its outline marked by round corner turrets projecting from the angles so often seen in the old castles of Castile. Its walls, as well as many others in the Alcazar, are covered with diapers in plaster, with the pattern left slightly in relief, a mode of decoration which seems to have been extremely popular in Segovia in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Until very lately this Alcazar was covered with picturesque tall slated roofs, but, unfortunately, a fire has completely gutted the whole building, and left nothing but the outside walls, which still, however, are most imposing in their effect. The old town walls diverge slightly from the Alcazar, and enclose the whole city; their outline is broken picturesquely with towers, sometimes round and sometimes square, and they wind about to suit the uneven and rugged surface of the rock on which they are built. The gateways are not very remarkable, though always effective. One of them is passed in coming from El Parral, and, as soon as the town is reached, the noble steeple of San Esteban—one of its finest architectural features—is seen in front.

I have seldom seen a better work than this. It is evidently one of a large class, most of the other steeples here reproducing the unusual arrangement of the angles. They are boldly splayed off, and in the middle of the splay is set a shaft, which finishes with a sculptured capital. The effect of this design is to give great softness of contour to the whole steeple, and yet to mark boldly and broadly the importance of the angles. The arcading of the various stages is richly and admirably managed, and the details throughout are very pure and good. I have found no evidence of its exact date, though it is evidently a work of the first half of the thirteenth century.

The church to which this steeple belongs is remarkable for the remains of an external cloister against the walls of the nave. There are several churches here which have the same feature, and in other parts of this book I have mentioned similar cases at Las Huelgas, Burgos, and at La Antigua, Valladolid. It looks like an arrangement for keeping the building cool, and is as good in its effect, as in so hot a climate it must be convenient.

Of the early churches here none is altogether so fine as that of San Millan. It stands in the southern valley, not far from the aqueduct, and exactly on the opposite side of the town to the Templars’ Church. Like that, too, it is outside the walls, and in a scantily-peopled suburb. It consists of a nave and aisles,[192] all finished at the east end with apses, and protected on both sides by cloisters similar to those of San Esteban, save that they are confined to the sides, and do not return across the west front. There is a low square lantern at the Crossing, and transepts which do not project beyond the aisles, and hardly show themselves, therefore, on the ground-plan. The central lantern is finished with a corbel-table, roofed with a low tiled roof, and lighted by a small window in each face. The apses are similar in style and detail to most of the early Spanish apses, having engaged shafts at intervals, richly wrought corbel-tables, and round-arched shafted windows. Both the transepts probably had flat gables, with single windows, like those in the apse, but the north transept has been destroyed for the erection of a steeple, which seems to have formed no part of the original plan. The most striking view of the church is from the north-west. The west front is quite unaltered, save by the addition of three little windows over the west door, and is a capital example of simple Romanesque. The gables are all of the same pitch, and the aisle walls are arcaded and pierced with windows above the cloister roofs. The cloister is a very rich composition, the shafts being coupled, with finely sculptured capitals, and the arches enriched with billet mouldings. The corbel-tables and cornices to these cloisters have evidently been carved at a date long after the original foundation of the church, the edge of the eaves-cornice being cut in a rich interlacing pattern of ivy-leaves, which cannot, I think, be earlier than from A.D. 1250 to 1270, and the heads, figures, and foliage on the corbels under it are all of the same character. There are fine north and south doors here, and there is a local peculiarity in their design which deserves notice. Their jambs consist of shafts set within very bold square recesses; and the number of orders in the arch is double that of those in the jamb, they being alternately carried on the capitals of the shafts, and upon the square order of the jambs. The effect is good, the bold spacing of the shafts, and the massiveness of the intermediate square jambs, tending to give that effect of solidity which these early Spanish architects never tired in their attempts to attain.

No. 26. SAN MILLAN, SEGOVIA. p. 188. NORTH-WEST VIEW.
No. 26.
SAN MILLAN, SEGOVIA. p. 188.
NORTH-WEST VIEW.

The interior of the church has been much modernized, but still enough remains to render the whole scheme intelligible. The arcades between the nave and aisles are all perfect; they are very plain, but spring from carved capitals of large size. The capitals of the nave arcades have their abaci planned with re-entering angles, so as exactly to fit the plan of the two square orders of the archivolt. Some of the caps are of foliage only, others are historiÉs; one I remember having all round it the Adoration of the Magi, who are represented as large figures on horseback, and produce a most strange effect in such a place. The cross arches under the lantern are old, as also are those across the aisles, but the roof of the nave is now all under-drawn with plaster, and there are no means of telling precisely how it was originally covered; but, on the whole, I incline to the belief that it must have had a cylindrical vault, with quadrant vaults in the aisles, though it is possible, of course, that it had a flat wooden ceiling. The square piers in the nave favour this alternative, inasmuch as they seem to rise higher than they would have done had the roof been a stone vault. The pilasters against the aisle walls also run up to the level of the plate inside, and this (though it is modern) is higher than the springing of the nave arcades, and seems to prove that there have never been cross arches in the aisles. The external walls of the aisles above the cloister roofs are arcaded with plain arches between the pilasters, by which it is divided into bays, and the aisle windows are set within these arches. The lantern is modernized, but there still remain coupled cross ribs on its under side, and these, though they are plastered, being similar to those under the central vault of the Templars’ Church, are probably original.

I wish much that I could put my hands on some documentary evidence which would fix the exact date of this very fine and interesting church, for, from its importance, it may be considered to be a leading example; and there is no doubt that it very largely influenced the other churches of this important city. It is possible, however, from the character of some of the detail, that part of it is older than the Templars’ Church, consecrated, as we have seen, in A.D. 1208; though other parts of the detail—as, for instance, that of the external cornices—cannot be earlier than A.D. 1250-1270. Before the last of these dates, therefore, I have no doubt the church was erected, though, as the arches are all, or nearly all, semi-circular, the greater part of the work was probably finished early in the century, if not in the twelfth century, and the decorations may have been completed afterwards.[193]

The non-introduction of pointed arches is certainly in favour of the earlier date, seeing that in the Templars’ Church most of the main arches, rude as they are, are pointed; and were it not for the late character of some parts of San Millan, and looking only to the character of the plan and general design, I might have assumed its date to be about A.D. 1150. It is possible that the cloisters were added after the erection of the church.

The object of these external cloisters has been, I believe, matter of considerable discussion, yet I confess that they always seemed to me to be adopted mainly, if not solely, on account of the excessive heat in Spain in summer, and to be well worth our imitation when we have to erect churches in tropical climates. That they were confined very much to certain localities is perfectly true, but this is constantly the case, with local developments, in all parts of Europe; and here, no doubt, the idea once suggested by some early architect was frequently repeated by him, without taking the fancy of his brethren generally enough to make them repeat it elsewhere.

Another example of the same class, which in its original state must have been finer than San Millan, is to be seen in the church of San Martin. Here the cloister was carried not only along the sides, but across the west front also, with a bold projecting west porch, breaking its lines, and giving great character and dignity to the whole scheme. The west doorway of the porch has statues in its jambs, and the detail seems to me to be all genuine thirteenth century work. The illustration of one of the cloister capitals will, I think, prove this; for though the old favourite device of couples of birds is repeated here, the lines are all extremely fine and graceful, and the carving of the abacus of an advanced kind. This church is, unfortunately, very much modernized throughout. It seems to have had three parallel apses at the east end, and transepts, against which the side cloisters of the nave were stopped. There is a modern lantern over the old crossing, and a tower to the west of it rising from out of the centre of the nave, which seems to be in part old. There were northern and southern as well as western doors, and openings in the cloister opposite each of them.

San Roman, a desecrated church near the palace of the civil governor, has a short nave, chancel, and apse, with a tower on the south side of the chancel. The walls are very lofty, and are all finished with corbel-tables at the eaves. The apse has three round-headed windows, and there is a noble north door, similar in design to those of San Millan, and with the abaci and labels richly carved. The west end has a small doorway, and a circular window over it, the former certainly, and the latter probably, not original. The lower stage only of the tower remains. This church must be of about the same age as San Millan.

San Facundo is similar in plan to San Roman, and of the same date. The detail of the apse is precisely the same as that of San Millan. There is a large west door, modernized, and an open cloister seems to have been added at a later date to the side of the church, and is now walled up. This church is desecrated, and converted into a Museum of Paintings.

Santa Trinidad has a fine apse, and this is again of the San Millan pattern. It has carved stringcourses at the springing of the windows, and again just over their arches, and there are three-quarter engaged wall-shafts between the windows, and a richly sculptured eaves-cornice and corbel-table.

San Nicolas, close to Santa Trinidad, has two apses, each lighted with a single window, engaged wall-shafts, and the usual carved labels, abaci, and corbel-tables. The tower is on the north side, rises one stage above the roof, and is lighted with two round-arched belfry windows. A small apse was added rather later than the original fabric to the east of this tower, and before its erection the plan must have been almost the same as that of San Roman, but reversed. About a hundred yards from San Nicolas is another church which is almost an exact repetition of San Roman.

San Luine (?), in the Plazuela de Capuchinos, is of just the same class as the rest, with nave, chancel, and apse, and a second apse east of the tower on the south side. There are no side windows here, and only a single light at the east end.

Another church, in the Plaza de Isabel II., is of the same plan as the last, with a modernized tower. The carving on the string-courses here is of the same kind of natural foliage that I have described at San Millan.

Near the aqueduct are two churches. One of them, S. Antholin (I think), has a tower at the north-east of the nave; its two upper stages have on each face two round-arched shafted windows, and the angles are treated in a precisely similar way to those of San Esteban, having bold splays with engaged shafts in their centres. Another church close to this is modernized, but retains its old tower, with the angles treated in the same way.

The church of San Juan has remains of an external cloister on one side.

The last church of this long, and I fear very dry, catalogue, is that of San Miguel, which stands in the Plaza near the cathedral. It has four bays of nave, shallow transepts, and a very short choir, which is, I think, apsidal, but almost concealed by a pagan Retablo. The whole is of late fifteenth-century date, and must, I think, be the work of the same hand as the cathedral. Some figures at the west end, representing St. Michael and the Annunciation, have evidently been taken from some older building, and built into the walls here. There is a very beautiful triptych in the north transept, with a Descent from the Cross in the centre, which ought to be looked at. It is a fine work of, I suppose, the latter part of the sixteenth century.[194]

I have already mentioned the great Alcazar, and the old town walls and gateways. They are magnificent in their scale, and very picturesque. The Alcazar was burnt some two or three years ago, and is now roofless, and I was told that its interior had been completely destroyed. I foolishly omitted to verify this statement by personal inspection, and contented myself with the sight of the exterior. The walls of the front towards the city are all diapered in plaster, and here and there about the town several other examples of the same kind of work are to be seen. The patterns are generally tracery patterns of the latest Gothic, repeated over and over again, so as to produce a regular diaper throughout. I presume that it was executed with a frame cut out to the required pattern, so as to allow of the ground being cut back slightly, leaving the pattern lines formed in the original face of the plaster. This kind of decoration seems to be perfectly legitimate, and here, owing to the care with which the plaster has been made and used, it has stood remarkably well, though most of the patterns that I saw had evidently been executed in the fifteenth century.

In the front of the Alcazar these plaster patterns are carried not only all over the plain face of the walls, but also round the towers and turrets at the angles, so that the very smallest possible amount of wrought stone is introduced. The great tower or keep standing back a few feet only from the front is similarly ornamented, but has stone quoins bonded irregularly into the walls; in its upper stage it has windows surmounted by quaint stone canopies, and then a series of great circular turrets, corbelled boldly out from the face of the wall, and carried up a considerable height, give its extremely marked and Spanish air to this grand tower. These turrets are of stone, and between them is a parapet boldly corbelled out on machicoulis from the walls. With that contempt for uniformity which marks mediÆval artists, the keep is more than twice as broad on one side as on the other, and the great mass of wall and turret, roofs and spirelets, which crowned the whole building before the fire, well sustained its picturesque irregularity of shape.

The front of a private house near the walls, not far from San Esteban, is another capital example of the same kind of plaster-work. Here the faÇade is a perfectly smooth and unbroken surface, pierced for doors and windows, which are set in square panels of stone, and with a regular and straight line of stone quoining at the angles. At one end a low tower is carried up a few feet above the general line of the building. The windows are generally mere plain square openings; but two set side by side in the principal stage have delicate ajimez windows of two lights, with elaborately traceried heads. The patterns in the plaster are three in number: the first carried from the stone plinth up to the sills of the principal windows, where it is cut by a narrow band of ornament, acting as a stringcourse to divide it from the second pattern, which is carried up to the eaves, the tower being covered with a third diaper, rather less intricate than the others.

Near this house is a tower in the walls even more worthy of notice. It is of very considerable height, quite plain in outline, and pierced with only one or two square-headed windows, but surmounted by a fine parapet supported on machicoulis. The whole tower is built with bold stone quoins and horizontal bands of brickwork, each band two courses in height, at intervals of about three feet. Between these bands the walls are plastered and diapered. Here, as in the other house, only two or three patterns are used, but I think great judgment is shown in the repetition for the greater part of the height of the same pattern, which is changed at last near the top, where it was desirable to emphasize the work. Most men having three patterns to use would have divided them equally, but the real artist gives all their value to his simple materials by not doing so. The construction of this tower led naturally to its decoration. The wrought stone at the angles, the rough stonework of the walls, and the occasional bonding-courses of brick, were all used simply as the best materials for their respective parts; and the rough stonework being plastered and diapered, gave a richness and polish to the whole work which it would otherwise have wanted, whilst it in no degree destroyed the air of stability of the wall, which is secured by the obviously constructional arrangement of the stone and brick.

The Moors were always distinguished by the beautiful use they made of plaster; and whether or no these Segovian buildings were executed by Moorish architects, it is quite certain that at any rate we owe them to their influence and example. The patterns used are generally such as in stone-work would be unhesitatingly attributed to the end of the fifteenth or first half of the sixteenth century, and to this period no doubt the works I have been describing belong. They deserve a detailed notice because they prove, as do most Moorish works, that plaster may be used truthfully and artistically, and that without any approach to the contemptible effect which the imbecility and dishonesty of the nineteenth-century designers of plaster-work have contrived to impress on almost all their productions.

My last work in Segovia was to go to the Alcazar to get a sketch of the town, with the cathedral rising in a noble mass in its very centre, backed by the line of the Guadarrama mountains, looking black and angry with the storm-clouds which swept over the sky and around their summits at sunset; and then strolling quietly back into the town, I went into the cathedral, to be impressed, as one always must be in such a place, by the aweful solemnity which even the latest Gothic architects in Spain knew how to impart to their buildings.

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SEGOVIA:—Ground Plan of the Cathedral: Plate XII. W. West, Lithr. Published by John Murray, Albemarle St. 1865.