San Isidoro, Leon
The pantheon of the early Kings of Leon - an excerpt from GE Street
The other great architectural attraction of Leon is the church of San Isidoro 'el Real'. This is altogether earlier than, and has therefore an interest entirely different from, that of the cathedral.
Gil Gonzalez Davila says that the church was founded in 1030 by Ferdinand I the Great. An inscription in the floor of the church gives the name of its architect, Petrus de Deo; and from the mention of Alonso VI, who came to the throne in 1065, and his mother Sancha, who died in 1067, the date of his death must have been between these two periods. In 1063 King Ferdinand – Alfonso's father – and Queen Sancha had very richly endowed the church, in the presence of various bishops, who had come together to celebrate the translation of the remains of San Isidoro. Finally Davila gives the date of the consecration of the church as 1149.
San Isidoro was one of the most popularly venerated saints in Spain, and many are the miracles said to have been wrought by him. One of them is not a little suggestive of plans for church-building, not a whit behind the cleverest schemes of the present day. It is said that in a time when much sickness prevailed, the body of the saint was taken out in procession to a village near Leon, Trobajo del Camino, the bearers of the body barefooted, and all singing hymns, in order to charm away the disease from the people. Suddenly the weight became so great that it was impossible to move or lift the saint, even by the aid of a strong body of men; and many complained not a little of the Canons for bringing the body out on such an errand, whilst the King, who was at Benavente, was so incensed, that he insisted, as the saint would not move, that they should build a church over him for his protection; and at last came the Queen, grieving bitterly appealing to her 'beloved spouse' San Isidoro, and saying 'Turn! O blessed confessor! Turn again to the monastery of Leon, which my forefathers, out of their devotion, built for you'; and then the saint, moved by her prayer, allowed himself to be borne back upon the shoulders of four children, who brought him back to Leon amid the rejoicings of the people; and these, moved by the miracle, at once built a chapel on the spot which the saint had marked out for the purpose by his pertinacious refusal to move until the King had ordered it to be built, and until the Queen had shown how deep was her interest in the work.
This church of San Isidoro at Leon is cruciform in plan, with apsidal chapels on the eastern side of the transepts. The nave and aisles are of six bays in length, and there is a tower detached to the west. There is a chapel dedicated to Santa Catalina (now called El Panteon) at the north-west end of the church, and a choir of the sixteenth century takes the place of the original apse. The whole of the nave is vaulted with a waggon-vault, with transverse ribs under it in each bay; and this vault is continued on without break tot chancel arch, there being no lantern at the crossing. The arches into the transepts have a fringe of cusping on their undersides, which has a very Moorish air, and the transepts are vaulted with waggon-vaults, but at a lower level than the nave. The chapels to the east of the transept are roofed with semi-domes. The nave has bold columns, with richly sculptured capitals, stilted semi-circular arches, and a clerestory of considerable height, with large windows of rich character.
The capitals are all richly sculptured, generally with foliage arranged after the model of the Corinthian capital; but some of them historiés with figures of men and beasts; and I noticed one only with pairs of birds looking at each other.
I am on the whole disposed to regard the chapel of Santa Catalina (the Panteon) as the original church, and to assume that the remainder of the building was built between 1063 and 1149... The body of San Isidoro was sent for rather suddenly, and brought from Seville, and the King had but short time for the preparation of the building for its reception. Two years later the body of San Vicente was brought from Avila, and no doubt the popularity of the two saints soon made it necessary to enlarge the church. Then it might well happen that the old church was left in its integrity and the new building added to the east, but with its north wall in a line with the north wall of the old one, so as to allow of the cloister being built along their sides, and without at all disturbing the early church or relics. The relative position of the two churches makes it probable, in short, that the large church was added to the small one, and not that the latter was a chapel added to the former.
The style of the two buildings leads to the same conclusion, for in Santa Catalina we have a small, low, vaulted church, two bays only in length and three in width. The two detached columns which carry the vaults are cylindrical, with capitals of somewhat the same kind as in the church, but simpler and ruder. Recessed arches in side walls contain various tombs of the Royal Family, who for ages, from the time of Fernando I and Doña Sancha his queen, have been buried here; and the very circumstance that this little chapel was selected for the burial of so many royal persons, seems to make it extremely probable that it was the very chapel in which the body of San Isidoro had first been laid.
The door of communication from the chapel to the church has an arch of the same kind as the transept arches, semi-circular and fringed with several cusps; and the chapel is now lighted by two open arches on the north side, which communicate with the cloister. The groining is all quadripartite, without ribs, but with plain bold transverse arches between the bays.
The exterior of the church has some features which have all the air of being very early and original in their character. Such is the grand south doorway of the nave. Its arch is semi-circular, and above it the spandrels are filled with sculpture. Above this is a line of panels containing the signs of the Zodiac; below are figures with musical instruments; and below these again, on the west, is a figure of San Isidoro, and on the right a figure of a woman, I think, book in hand, both of them supported on corbels formed of the heads of oxen. The tympanum itself is divided into two parts, the lower half being surmounted by a flat pediment, and the upper filling up the space from this to the intrados of the arch. The upper half has an agnus dei in a circle in the centre, and the lower half has Abraham's sacrifice, with figures on horseback either side. The head of the opening of the doorway is finished with a square trefoil, under which rams' heads are carved. The whole detail of this sculpture is very unlike that of most of the early work I have seen in Spain; the figures are round and flabby, and badly arranged, and very free from any of the usual conventionality. All this made me feel much inclined to think that the execution of this work was at an early date, and soon after the first consecration of the church.
The elevation of the south transept is rather fine. It has a doorway, now blocked, with a figure against the wall on either side, standing between the label and a second label built into the wall from buttress to buttress. Above this is a rich corbel-table, and then an arcade of three divisions, of which the centre is pierced as a window; in the gable is another statue standing against the wall. .. The design of the apsidal chapel east of the apse is so precisely like the eastern apsidal chapels of many of the Spanish Romanesque churches, that its date must, to some extent, be decided by theirs; and it may well be doubted whether it can be much earlier than 1150, though the lower part of the south transept appeared to me to be as early as the south door, or at any rate not later than 1100.
The chapel of Santa Catalina (Panteon de los Reyes) is specially interesting on account of the remarkable paintings with which the whole of the groining is covered. These all appeared to me to have been certainly executed at the end of the twelfth century, circa 1180-1220, and they are remarkably rich in their foliage decoration, as well as in painting of figures and subjects. Beginning with the eastern central compartment, over the altar, and going round to the right, the subjects in the six bays of the vault are as follows;
1. In this our Lord is seated in a vesica, at the angles of which are four angels, with the heads of the four Evangelists, with their books and names painted beside them.
2. The angel speaking to the shepherds, with the inscription 'angelus a pastores'.
3. The massacre of the innocents.
4. The Last Supper, painted without the slightest regard to the angles formed by the groining, and as if the vault were a flat surface.
5. Herod washing his hands; St Peter denying our Lord; our Lord bearing His Cross; the Crucifixion.
6. Our Lord seated with His feet to the west; the seven churches around Him, seven candles, and an angel giving the book to Saint John. [from the Apocalypse]
The soffeits of the cross arches between the vaults are painted, some with foliage, others with figures. Of the latter, one has the twelve apostles, another the Holy Spirit in the centre, with angels worshipping on either side, and a third a Hand blessing (inscribed 'Dextra Dei' [the right hand of God] in centre, and saints on either side. The whole detail of the painted foliage is of thoroughly good conventional character, and just in the transitional style between Romanesque and Pointed.