Lugo cathedral
An excerpt from GE Street's 'Gothic architecture in Spain'
This is a church of very considerable architectural value and interest. Lugo cathedral was commenced very early in the twelfth century, under the direction of a certain Maestro Raymundo, of Monforte de Lemos. His contract with the bishop and canons was dated 1129; and by this it was agreed that he should be paid an annual salary of two hundred sueldos of the money then current; and if there was any change in its value, then he was to be paid six marks of silver, thirty-six yards of linen, seventeen 'cords' of wood, shoes and gaiters as he had need of them, and each month two sueldos for meat, a measure of salt, and a pound of candles... and if he died before the church's completion, his son was to finish it.
The church built by Raymundo is said to have been finished in 1177, and still in part no doubt remains. It consists of a nave and aisles of ten bays in length, transepts, and a short apsidal choir, with aisle and chapels round it. The large central eastern chapel is an addition made in 1764; and the west front is a very poor work of about the same period. There is an open porch in front of the north transept, and a steeple on its eastern side.
The design and construction of the nave and aisles is very peculiar, and must be compared with that of the more important cathedral at Santiago. This had been finished, so far as the fabric was concerned, in the previous year, and evidently suggested the mode of construction used at Lugo.
Here the arches, with few exceptions, are pointed; but otherwise the design of the two churches is just the same. The nave has a pointed barrel-vault; the triforium, however, has quadripartite vaulting throughout, in place of the half-barrel vaults used at Santiago; and the buttresses externally are connected by a series of arches below the eaves. The triforium consists in each bay of two pointed arches under a round enclosing arch, carried upon coupled shafts, which have rudely sculptured capitals.
The whole of the choir is of much later date than the original foundation of the cathedral; and it is probable, I think, that it was reconstructed in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The windows in the chapels of the chevet are of two lights, with a small quatrefoil pierced in the tympanum above the lights. The mouldings of the groining are extremely bold and simple. The aisle-vaulting, too, is very simple... The sculpture of the capitals in the chevet is nowhere, I think, earlier than about the end of the thirteenth century, though that in the chapels round it, being very simple, looks rather earlier. Unfortunately all the upper part of the choir was rebuilt about the same time that the eastern chapel was added. It has strange thin ogee flying buttresses, large windows, and a painted ceiling.
The interior, of course, has been much damaged by the destruction of the old clerestory of the choir. It is, nevertheless, still very impressive, and much of its fine effect is owing to the contrast between the bright light of the nave and the obscure gloom of the long aisles on either side of the Coro. The length of the nave, too, is unusually great in proportion to the size of the church; and though much of the sculpture is rude in execution, it is still not without effect on the general character of the building.
The north doorway is of the same age as the early part of the church, and has a figure of our Lord within a vesica in the tympanum, and the Last Supper carved on a pendant below it. The head of the door-opening is very peculiar, having a round arch on either side of this central pendant. The door has some rather good ironwork. The porch in front of it is a work of the fifteenth century, or perhaps later, and is open on three sides.
The only good external view of the church is obtained from the north side. Here the tower rises picturesquely above the transept, but the belfry and upper stage are modern and very poor.