Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/293

Rh Bk. VII. Ch. II. MORESCO STYLE. 277 but none such exist. Nor did they belong to any of the great building races, for during the whole of their sojourn in Spain they showed no constructive ability, no skill in arrangement of plans, and no desire for architectural magnificence. But they were a rich, luxurious, and re- fined people, possessing an innate knowledge of color and an exquisite perception of the beauty of form and detail. They were, in fact, among the most perfect ornamentists we are acquainted with, but they were not architects. Had the inhabitants of Toledo from the 11th century been French, or any Celtic race, the combination of their constructive skill with the taste in detail of the Moors could hardly have failed to produce the happiest results. As it was, after a few feeble efforts the style died out, but not without leaving some very remarkable speci- mens of architectural art, though on a small scale. They were also only in perishable plaster, which, though well suited to the style of the Moors, is a material which no architectural people ever would have employed. As might be expected, the principal examples of this style are to be found in or about Toledo, but specimens exist in almost every province of Spain up to the very roots of the Pyrenees, and its influence is often felt in the extreme richness of ornamentation into which the architects of Spain were often betrayed, even when expressing themselves in Gothic or Renaissance details. Among the examples at Toledo the two best interiors seem to be the church of Sta. Maria la Blanca and that of Nuestra Senora del Transito, both originally built as syna- gogues, though afterwards ajipropriated to Cliristian purposes. The first is said to have been erected in the 12th century, and was appropriated by the Christians in 1405. As will be seen by the plan, it is an irregular quadrangle, about 87 ft. by (55 ft. in width across the centre, and divided into five aisles by octagonal piers supporting horseshoe arches. Above these now runs what may be called a blind clerestory, though it appears as if light were originally admitted through it, by counter-sinkings in the roof, as ..',71- ^t?- ^i»?;'V?'?n'l'^,™^^ ' •' » ' 'Mon. Arch.") Scale 50 ft. to 1 in. suggested by the hypoethron of Greek temples (Woodcuts Nos. 150, 153). The objects are so dissimilar that it is difticult to institute a very distinct comparison between the syna- gogue and a contemporary Gothic church of the same dimensions; but it may safely be said that if the Northern style is grander in conception, this is far more elegant in detail : the essential difference lying in the fact that the Gothic style always had, or aimed at