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PAGE THE PRINCIPALITY OF CATALONIA 1

BARCELONA 8

GERONA 23

THE VALLEY OF THE TER 36

LERIDA 40

TARRAGONA 52

POBLET 63

SANTA CREUS 69

VALLBONA 72

MONTSERRAT 73

CARDONA 83

TORTOSA 84

THE BALEARIC ISLANDS 86

TITLE PLATE

CATALONIA

THE PRINCIPALITY OF CATALONIA

Every stranger who crosses the Pyrenees knows that Catalonia differs in many important respects from every other province in the kingdom. He has heard that the natives speak of going into Spain as if they lived outside of it; he knows that they speak a tongue different from the Castilian; that their enterprise and activity distinguish them favourably among King Alfonso's subjects, and they have kept well abreast of every other European community. All this is true, and it would be easy to enumerate many other peculiarities. The tendency, however, is to exaggerate the points of difference between Spaniard and Catalan, and to lose sight of their fundamental affinity. The language of Catalonia, though not a mere dialect as some suppose, is as essentially Spanish as the Castilian. It was spoken by those Hispani who were driven out of Spain by the Saracens and returned in the ninth century to settle in the north-east corner of the country. Thus Catalan language and people were born in the very heart of the Peninsula and have since been confined to a portion of it only by political causes. There is, of course, no such essential difference between Catalans and Castilians as between Welsh and English, Bretons and French. Both are branches of the great Iberian family. If Catalonia were an independent State, it would be its affinity to Spain that would impress us most, and set us wondering, as we do in Portugal, how two countries so much alike could continue politically distinct.

The superior enterprise and energy of the Catalans may be attributed less, I think, to racial differences than to historical and geographical causes. Far removed from the scene of the secular struggle with the Moor, and dwelling on the marge of the sea which was the principal commercial arena of the ancient and mediaeval world, the people of Catalonia had from a very remote period opportunities for development denied to the inhabitants of every other part of Spain. The Moors were expelled from Barcelona at the beginning of the ninth century. Catalonia had thus a start of more than four centuries over Seville, and of six over Malaga--to say nothing further of the incontestable advantages of her geographical position.

Without wishing, it need hardly be said, to depreciate the progressive tendencies of the Catalans, I confess I am inclined to attribute them, not to any racial superiority over other Spaniards, but mainly to the causes I have indicated.

Catalonia thus bears witness to the aptitude of the Spaniard, for the most active forms of commercial and industrial life, to his ability to keep in the van of progress. The lead given by Barcelona will inevitably be followed by all the other towns in the kingdom, now that the special circumstances which retarded their development have been removed. In the most populous city of Spain I fail to recognise a miracle or the work of another people than the Spanish. I see instead the results of Spanish enterprise and capacity singular only in having had the opportunity to assert itself.

The conquests of the great King James of Aragon gave a great impetus to the commerce of Barcelona as well as to the development of arts and letters. The extension of the city's relations to the Levant and Egypt led to the appointment of consuls in all the parts frequented by Catalans. A Maritime Code was promulgated in 1258, and soon became very generally adopted throughout the Mediterranean. A second time the hardy sailors of Barcelona drove the pirates from their nest in the Balearics, the islands this time remaining definitely annexed to the crown of Aragon. All the ships were furnished by the city on this occasion, and the King named as commander Ramon de Plegarno?s, a rich citizen, expert in naval affairs.

In the thirteenth century, Aragon was the most formidable power in the Mediterranean. Her merchant princes competed successfully with the traders of Genoa and Venice, at the farthest ports of Egypt and Syria. King James when appealing to the States of Aragon for a subsidy to carry on the war against the infidel, reminded them that if Majorca were lost, Catalonia would lose the dominion and absolute power she exercised over the sea. Montaner, the Froissart of his nation, has bequeathed to us a stirring chronicle of the expedition of the Catalans to Greece under the leadership of Roger de Flor. In the year 1332, Philip of France, when about to embark on the Crusades, was advised to entrust the management of the expedition exclusively to the Genoese and Catalans, these being provided with the best ships and seamen, and the most experienced in naval matters. As late as the year 1467, the Grand Signior found it expedient to pay an indemnity to the King of Aragon to secure immunity for his coasts from the persistent attacks of the dreaded privateers of Barcelona. It is with reason that Capmany attributes to the seamanship of the Barcelonese the extension of the power of Aragon over the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. Upon the consolidation of Spain at the beginning of the sixteenth century and the rise of the great modern States, the city was eclipsed as a sea power. Its merchants looked with little favour on the discovery of America, an enterprise promoted by Castile. Of the reception of Columbus here by the Catholic Kings, not one word is said in the archives of the city.

Soon after, Barcelona just escaped becoming the scene of a discovery almost as important as that of the New World. Here, says O'Shea, on January 17, 1543, a ship of 200 tons was launched, propelled by two wheels driven by steam. The inventor was Blasco de Garay, and the trial was successfully made in the presence of a royal commission. The King's treasurer, one R?ongo, for some personal motive it is said, drew up a report unfavourable to the invention, declaring the ship made only six miles in two hours, and that the boiler was likely to burst. Perhaps this report was not ill-founded, for though Garay received a grant of 200,000 maravedis in addition to his expenses, he made no further progress with his invention. The fate of this and many other experiments with steam in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries seems to prove that our ancestors rather failed to recognise the necessity of any improvement in the means of locomotion, than wanted the skill to effect it. It will be remembered that Mr. Shandy thought that on economical grounds alone the inventors of mechanical means of transport should be discouraged. A useful invention with which the Barcelonese may fairly be credited, is marine insurance.

BARCELONA

Barcelona has remained true to her traditions. She is still, as of old, a city of merchant princes, a hive of industry, at once the Liverpool and Manchester of Spain. To those who visit the capital of Catalonia after an acquaintance only with the moribund cities of Old Castile, this vision of Espa?a Moderna comes as a shock and a revelation. The first impression is not pleasing. You approach the city through a vast wilderness of suburbs, teeming with life, and breathing apparently through grimy factory chimneys. We realise that we have returned to the civilised twentieth century. But the brighter side of modernity is soon revealed. In its heart Barcelona is clean, bright, and spacious. The boulevards are unequalled in Europe--except perhaps by Budapest--and the street prospects are worthy of Washington. The Rambla is the most delightful of promenades; in the Calle Fernando the contents of every shop window tempt the unthrifty. A noble, beautiful modern metropolis, still worthy of Cervantes' encomium: "Flor de las bellas ciudades del mundo, honra de Espa?a, reglo y delicia de sus moradores, y satisfacci?n de todo aquello que de una grande famosa, rica, y bien fundada ciudad, puede pedir un discreto y curioso deseo."

Barcelona is richer in monuments of the past than many a more ancient-looking city. Foremost among these is the Cathedral in the very heart of the town, one of the grandest examples of Gothic architecture in Spain. Its extreme sombreness and apparently massive character produce a similar impression to that created by the much larger Cathedral of Seville.

Street thinks very highly of this church, and remarks on the skill with which the architect has contrived to make it appear much larger than it really is. He observes "the architecture of Catalu?a had many peculiarities, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when most of the great buildings of Barcelona were being erected, they were so marked as to justify me, I think, in calling the style as exclusively national or provincial, as ... was our own Norfolk middle-pointed.... Besides this, there was one great problem which I may venture to say that the Catalan architects satisfactorily solved, the erection of churches of enormous and almost unequalled internal width."

The primitive Cathedral was built by Count Ram?n Berenguer between 1046 and 1058, and considerably enlarged in the year 1173. The building, not yet satisfying the needs of the thriving city, was entirely rebuilt at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The design is attributed by Street to Jaime Fabre, a native of Majorca, who was succeeded as master of the works in 1388 by Master Roque. The last stone of the vault was placed on September 26, 1448.

In plan the church is externally a parallelogram, semicircular at the east end. The transepts do not project beyond the line of chapels opening off the aisles, and form each the basis of a tower, 170 feet high. The old timber roofs of these towers have been removed laying bare simply the vaulting covered with tiles. Over the Puerta de San Ivo by which you enter the north transept, a series of reliefs illustrates a combat between a knight and a dragon. The former is not St. George, the patron of Aragon, but a legendary hero, one Villardell, who by Divine favour was armed with a miraculous sword. With this he slew the monster which had been let loose by the Saracens, and exultingly cried, "Well done, good sword, and stout arm of Villardell!" But at that instant some drops of the dragon's blood fell on his arm, and he at once expired. He was thus punished for taking the credit of the victory to himself.

The west front, only finished ten years ago, compares very unfavourably with the older portions. The dome over the first or westernmost bay of the nave is also modern. Little else of the exterior can be seen. Inside, as I have said, the church is extremely sombre, and very conducive to what an eminent divine called Gothic devotion. This is due partly to the dark colour of the stone, and partly to the smallness of the windows, which are filled with beautiful fifteenth-century stained glass. The windows of the chapels in the south aisle open into a corresponding row of chapels in the adjacent cloister. Everything, in fact, has been done to keep out the torrid rays. The chapels are continued all round the church, there being no fewer than twenty-seven. The choir is, as usual, in the middle of the nave, being separated by the crossing from the chancel. Twenty massive and somewhat inelegant clustered columns separate the nave from the aisles and the chancel from the ambulatory, and from their capitals spring the nineteen arches forming the vaulted roof. Nave and aisles are alike 83 feet high. The cathedral is dedicated to a local martyr, Santa Eulalia, whose body since the year 1339 has reposed in the crypt beneath the chancel. The shrine of the saint was the work of Fabre and is in Italian Gothic style. The ark is sculptured with scenes from the saint's life.

A floor runs round the church above the side chapels and is carried across the west front. The upper rooms were never used as places of worship. The chapels are closed by mediaeval grilles of wrought iron. They date mostly from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and present no very interesting features. This is fortunate for the painstaking sightseer, as the obscurity renders an examination difficult. A crucifix in the uppermost chapel in the chevet is a memorial of the battle of Lepanto, where it was carried on the prow of Don Juan's flagship. The image is believed by some to have bent its head to avoid the Turkish bullets. In the chapels of San Miguel Arc?ngel and Nuestra Se?ora del Patrocinio, close by, are the fine Gothic tombs of Bishop Berenguer de Palau and of one of his successors, Poncio de Gualba . Leaving the ambulatory by the north, the chapel on the right contains another good Gothic monument to Bishop Escaler. The finest tomb, on the whole, is that of Do?a Sancha de Cabrera, lady of Noalles, in the chapel of San Clemente, in the south aisle; and three chapels farther on is the sarcophagus of the great Catalan saint, Ramon de Penafort. The two wooden urns covered with crimson velvet in the wall between the south transept and the sacristy enshrine the ashes of Count Ramon Berenguer the Old, and his consort, Almodis . Opening off the south aisle, close to the main entrance, is the large square chapel of the Holy Sacrament, or of St. Olegarius, with a fine star-vaulting, the seventeenth-century monument of the titular, and some paintings of Villadomat, a local artist of some repute, who lived in the first half of the eighteenth century. There are also some paintings of merit by the Tramullas, father and son, of Perpignan, but generally speaking this fine cathedral is poor in painting and statuary.

We presently pass the Bishop's Palace, an eighteenth-century structure incorporating some late Romanesque arcading. But leaving other interesting buildings in this the oldest quarter of Barcelona for the moment, we will seek the next most notable church in the town, that of Santa Maria del Mar. It occupies the site of the earliest shrine of Santa Eulalia, over which Bishop Aetius built a temple in the thousandth year of our era. This modest church was replaced by another in the year 1329, which was restored and reconsecrated after a disastrous fire in 1383 under the reign of Pedro the Ceremonious. All classes of the community assisted in the work. Those who could not give money gave their labour, and in commemoration of this two small bronze figures carrying stone and timber adorn the principal door. The edifice is a good example of the Catalan church in its breadth and height of nave and simplicity of plan. Like the cathedral, it forms a parallelogram rounded at the east end, and presents an unbroken line of wall to the exterior. Churches of this type usually consist of nave only, but Santa Maria del Mar has two aisles. Enormous octagonal columns carry the main arches and the groining ribs which all spring from their capitals. The wall rib towards the nave is carried up higher than the main arches, so as to allow space between them for a small circular and traceried clerestory window in each bay. The arches of the apse are very narrow, and enormously stilted. There are small windows above them, but they are modernised. The aisles are groined on the same level as the main arches, a few feet, therefore, below the vault of the nave, and they are lighted by a four-light traceried window in each bay, the sill of which is above the string-course formed by continuing the abacus of the capitals of the groining shafts. Below this are three arches in each bay, opening into side chapels between the main buttresses. Each of these chapels is lighted by a traceried window of two lights, and the outer wall presents a long unbroken line, until above the chapels, when the buttresses rise boldly up to support the great vaults of the nave and aisles. The interior, though still simple and dignified, has been marred by modern restorations. Another peculiarity remains to be noted: the choir is placed behind the high altar. Of this latter, a costly but churrigueresque erection, the less said the better. The royal pew in the south aisle, recalling the days when Barcelona was a capital, was connected with the palace by a gallery now destroyed. The church contains some good glass and examples of the art of Villadomat, a painter of whom Catalonia can boast. His fate was extremely sad: for the last seventeen years of his long life, he was paralysed in both hands.

Street, "Gothic Architecture in Spain."

Standing on the sinister spot where, twelve years ago, twelve people were killed and fifty others injured by a miscreant's bomb, we survey the fine west front. This is flanked by two octagonal towers, of the telescope kind, and has a magnificent rose-window, above which I rather felt that an attic or story gable was wanted. The portal is richly moulded, and adorned with sculpture. The doors are faced with iron.

The churches of Santa Maria del Pino and of Santos Justo and Pastor are on the same plan, with slight modifications. Adjoining the former is a tall detached belfry, producing a fine effect. The church was consecrated in 1453, and derived its name according to one account from an image of the Virgin found in the trunk of a pine. The west front, Street considers to have been designed by the architect of the north transept door of the cathedral. Unlike Santa Maria del Mar, there are no chapels in the apse, though they are found between the buttresses of the nave. There is no aisle. In this church Villadomat is buried.

There remain to be visited the old chapel royal of Santa Agueda, now converted into an archaeological museum, where Alfonso el Casto was baptized, where the order of Montesa was established, and where the claims of the candidates to the crown of Aragon were discussed in 1410.

Santa Ana, built in 1146 in imitation of the church of the Holy Sepulchre , with a curious fourteenth-century cloister placed at an angle to the main building, and the simple graceful arches of the chapel of Montesion, where are hung the Turkish ensigns won by Spanish valour at Lepanto.

One instinctively searches at Barcelona for monuments of civic state befitting a city of such antiquity and dignity. Happily such are not lacking and have been preserved to us. The noble Gothic fa?ade of the Town Hall , erected in 1373, has been recently restored, fortunately with good taste. The Council Chamber , formed of two bays which support an artesonado roof, is lined by a collection of portraits of Catalan worthies, among whom we distinguish Capmany, Villadomat and Montaner. A finer building and preserving more of its primitive character is the Diputacion, the old Parliament House of Catalonia, and now the seat of the Provincial Court. This monument, declares Piferrer, "is the admiration of foreigners and the honour of Barcelona. He who seeks for originality of style, let him examine all its parts and be convinced that many are of a character entirely new." Built in the early fifteenth century, it underwent frequent restorations and enlargements, and was rebuilt in great part in 1609 by Maestre Pere Blai, who spared the best portions of the old work. The principal fa?ade is cold and devoid of interest, except for the figure of St. George above the entrance. To that saint is dedicated the chapel, with its fine ogival portal, and the adjoining wall damascened with reliefs. The chapel is the repository of an exquisite altar frontal, worked with the design of St. George and the Dragon, and designed by Antonio Sadarni, in 1458. The pillars sustaining the galleries of the patio, at one time much admired for their daring and ingenious execution, were bending and giving way under the strain till restored and strengthened a few years ago by Don Miguel Garriga y Roca, a local architect.

The halls breathe the dignity and gravity of a great corporation. The majestic Salon del Tribunal with its dome and hangings is adorned with portraits of the Kings of Spain, and paintings by Fortuny, one representing the victory of Marshal Prim over the Moors at Tetuan. Catalonia keeps ever green the memory of her heroes.

The rapid extension of the most populous city of Spain has fortunately spared several noble monuments of bygone ages and beliefs. About an hour's walk from the Tibidabo brings one to the Romanesque monastery of San Cucufat del Valles, founded by Charlemagne on the site of a Roman camp, and rebuilt between 1009 and 1014. The exterior is fortified with battlements and flanking towers, the main entrance being pierced through a tall square gatehouse, and having been defended by a drawbridge. The Abbey Church is in the finest Romanesque style, with an octagonal lantern, apse, nave, and aisles. The interior is plain and sombre, despite the abominable baroque chapels which have been added to the right aisle. The church contains but one tomb of importance--that of the builder or founder, the Abbot Otho, who was also Bishop of Gerona, and flourished at the dawn of the eleventh century.

The cloister of San Cugat has afforded the Romanesque sculptors the opportunity of gratifying their most exuberant fancy in stone. The capitals reveal an extraordinary profusion and variety of designs--Biblical scenes being associated with fables, conventional designs, and animals' heads. Examples of the quaint and more childlike conceptions of a rather later age may be found in some curious paintings, set in retablos, still adorning the church. They are specimens of a style peculiar to Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands, at the period "which analogies with the early Tuscan and old Cologne schools."

GERONA

Gerona deserves to be, but through some freak of fortune is not, as famous as Saragossa. Its many sieges, especially those that took place in the Peninsular War, are among the many proofs of the Spaniard's extraordinary tenacity in the defence of positions. Numantia, Saguntum, Saragossa, Gerona, and Cartagena--can any other country boast so many and such glorious instances of heroism and resistance to an overwhelming foe? These five names should be inscribed on the national escutcheon. They might even one day have more than a sentimental value, and cause potential invaders to think twice before violating Spanish soil.

Gerona, then, has covered itself with glory, not once, but repeatedly. The very paynim Moors were invigorated by the heroic atmosphere, for we read that as long ago as 785 they defied the arms of Louis the Pious, till the Christian townsfolk, thinking that enough had been done for the renown of Gerona, arose and expelled them. In the succeeding centuries the Geronese grew used to this business of sieges, and their assailants grew more wary. In 1285 the French King, Philippe le Hardi, sat down before the town and contentedly starved it into submission. Gerona yielded under protest, and took care to place it on record that she was not taken by force but by hunger, as the inscription not "per forsa, mes per fam" over the Puerta de la C?rcel to this day testifies. More than four centuries later came another Philippe from beyond the Pyrenees, welcomed by all Spaniards except Catalans. Gerona stubbornly held out for Austrian Charles, and her garrison of 2000 men bade defiance to Philippe's 9000. The Bourbon won; and to punish the recalcitrant city abolished her University. But a hundred years after, Gerona recovered her laurels. Her garrison of three hundred men, commanded by Colonel O'Daly, withstood successfully the repeated assaults of 6000 French under Duhesme, and beheld in August 1808 the hurried and inglorious flight of the besiegers. Of the great siege of 1809 you may read in the pages of Napier. The commander and hero of the defence was Mariano Alvarez--a much finer fellow than Palafox; and had he not been stricken with fever and rendered unconscious, the town might not have surrendered, as it ultimately did after a seven months' siege. It had cost Napoleon 15,000 men. Here, as at Saragossa, the women fought beside the men and worked the guns, under the banner of St. Barbara. Unconquerable Gerona! Well might the heirs to the crown of haughty Aragon have been proud to bear the title of your prince.

Towns with such stories invariably reflect them in their physiognomies. Gerona's aspect is eloquent of history and legend. Her balconied houses--yellow and white--seem to rise out of the waters of the river O?ar, reminding one at moments of a Venetian canal. But to dispel such an illusion you have but to lift your eyes to the castled hill of Montjuich, in which the defensive power of the town resides and whose sides have borne the brunt of every battle that has raged round Gerona. Penetrating into the labyrinth of streets behind the river front, we find them dark, narrow, and silent enough to be haunts of the muse of history; but here and there--often, indeed--we find animated squares and thoroughfares that show us that Gerona is not outside the brisk Catalonian current.

The vast cathedral lifts its towers near the river's marge. It was founded, after the expulsion of the Moors, by Louis the Pious, in 786, and was rebuilt in the year 1016. It was consecrated by the Archbishop of Narbonne, on the French side, assisted by bishops both Cispyrenean and Transpyrenean. Extensive alteration and restoration went on in the fourteenth century, among the architects being two from Narbonne. Perhaps I may be pardoned the digression when I remark that natural boundaries seem to have been of less importance in the Middle Ages than now; a fact which may, it seems to me, be partly attributed to the relative facility with which great mountain barriers could be passed by the usual means of conveyance in those days. If you travel only on horseback, a mountain pass presents little more difficulty than a high road. Street, who extracted these particulars of the cathedral's history from various Spanish works, tells us of the deliberations as to the adoption of the architect Guillermo Boffy's plan for a nave of a single span. Fortunately the twelve architects composing the jury pronounced in favour of the plan, and the work was put in hand that same year, 1417. The first stone of the campanile was not laid till 1581, and the west front was begun as lately as 1607.

This grand church consists, then, of a single nave 73 feet wide, four bays in length, and terminating in the usual semicircular east end. The west front, in the poor style of the seventeenth century, calls for no remark, and gives no promise of the grandeur of the interior. Street thinks the exterior could never have looked very well. Even the south door, executed in 1458, does not merit praise, though its terra-cotta statues are curious and well preserved.

The vast nave is blocked and greatly marred by the central choir, moved into this ill-chosen position long after the completion of Boffy's work. Three arches separate the east end from the nave. Above them are three large round windows. Street praises this arrangement and says that it enhances this effect of vastness. "In short, had this nave been longer by one bay, I believe that scarcely any interior in Europe could have surpassed it in effect."

The high altar is of alabaster with a silver frontal, and belonged to the old cathedral. It was the gift of Ermesindes, the wife of Count Ramon Borel . The reredos is a very rich and interesting work plated with silver. It was completed in 1348. The subjects in the three tiers of niches relate respectively to the lives of the saints, the life of the Blessed Virgin, and the life of Our Lord. The work is crowned by the figures of Christ and His Mother, and the saints Narcissus and Feliu. Of the same period is the baldachin, the vault of which is covered with sacred subjects, while the shafts are adorned with heraldic achievements. Behind the reredos is the bishop's throne, formed of a single piece of marble. "Here, when the bishop celebrated pontifically, he sat till the oblation and returned to it again to give the benediction to the people."

In addition to the objects of interest to which the architect of our Law Courts calls attention--the wooden wheel of bells, &c.--the cathedral contains several tombs worthy of examination. In the choir is buried Count Ramon Berenguer, surnamed Cap d'Estopa; in the presbytery, on the gospel side, is the tomb of Bishop Berenguer de Anglesola; Do?a Ermesindes lies between the chapels of Corpus and San Juan; Bishop Bernardo de Pau in the chapel of San Pablo.

Adjoining the church is the dark gloomy cloister, which existed in the early twelfth century, and in which Street recognised "one of the main branches of the stream by which Romanesque art was introduced into Spain" from south-eastern France. The galleries, with marble columns and stone roofs, enclose a court with tall trees and a cistern in the centre. Numerous black memorial tablets let into the walls have failed to keep alive the memory of the dead.

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