Page:A Handbook for Travellers in Spain - Vol 1.djvu/404

302 lupe towers grandly above the Plaza. It was once the richest and most venerated convent in Spain, and lord of all it surveyed. The celebrated Virgin of Guadalupe is said to have been carved by St. Luke, and to have been given by Gregory the Great to San Leandro, the Gothic uprooter of Arianism. It was miraculously preserved during the six centuries of Moorish invasion, and rediscovered in 1330 by one Giles, a cowkeeper of Cacerés. A hermitage was immediately built on the spot, and, ten years afterwards, a chapel: this was converted into a convent in 1389, by Pope Juan I., who made it directly subject to the Holy Father. It was then granted to the Geronimite monks, who became so rich that the proverb ran—

Navagiero, who went there with Charles V., describes the place in his ‘Viaggio’ (p. 12) as rather a city than a monastery, with a tower said to be filled with gold; the cellars for wine were proportionate. The strong castellated walls, like those in the convents in Syria, proved the necessity of a defence against the infidel.

The first view from the plaza is very imposing, yet one regrets that the ancient balustrade should never have been finished; the pointed front of the chapel contrasts with the old towers, turrets, buildings, and library, to which new works were added when the Carlist Palillos held it during the civil war: the grand entrance is by a noble ascent and vestibule, with a Moorish arch to the l.; here is the Sagrario, and to the l. the Gothic tomb of Alonso de Velasco; the walls were hung with the votive chains of captives delivered by the Virgin. Hence Cervantes (Pers. y Sig., iii. 5) calls it “Santísima imágen, Libertad de los cautivos, lima de sus hierros y alivio de sus prisiones.” In an adjoining chapel, obs. a representation of a general council held here in 1415; ascending to the Gothic church, to the 1. lies buried the architect Juan Alonso, Maestro que fizó esta Santa Iglesia. The 3 naves are built in a massive pointed style, but the extension of the coro has destroyed the symmetry. The superb lofty reja, which divided the Monks from the populace, is a masterpiece of Francisco de Salamanca and Juan de Avila. The cupola above the transept is octagonal, with gilt capitals. The classical Retablo, designed by Juan Gomez de Mora, and executed by Giraldo de Merlo, imposing in itself, is out of keeping in a Gothic church, which has been modernised in the worst taste, and was filled in 1618 with paintings relating to the Virgin and Saviour, by Vicente Carducho and Eugenio Cajes.

The walls of the Capilla Mayor were ornamented in marble by Juan Bautista Semeria, a Genoese, and by Bartolomé Abril, a Swiss. Obs. the royal sepulchres, statues, and carvings; and in la Capilla de los cuatro altares, the effigies of Prince Dionisio of Portugal and Doña Juana his wife, erected in 1461, and moved to their present place under Philip II. Notice also the tomb of Doña Maria de Guadalupe Lancaster y Cardenas, Duchess of Aveyro; but this convent once was a tomb-house of illustrious dead. A jasper staircase leads up to the Camarin of the Virgin, or treasury, with some paintings by Luca Giordano, which looks down into the ch. It is still the custom for visitors to the sanctuary to kneel under the Virgin’s mantle. The dresses and wealth in it were once prodigious: there remain still some vestments worked with pearls. The silver lamps, &c., the glorious Custodia made by Juan de Segovia, the silver throne of the image, the silver angels, the 85 silver lamps, the gilt lamp taken at Lepanto, the diamonds, pearls, gold, and jewels, the offerings of kings, were plundered by Victor. He also carried off nine cartloads of silver; he, however, piously left the wooden image behind, although carved by St. Luke himself.

The splendid Sacristia contains 8