The church of San Millan, Segovia
An excerpt from GE Street
Of the early churches here none is altogether so fine as that of San Millan. It stands in the southern valley, not far from the aqueduct, and exactly on the opposite side of the town to the Templars' church. Like that, too, it is outside the walls, and in a scantily-peopled suburb. It consists of a nave and aisle,s all finished at the east end with apses, and protected on both sides by cloisters [galleries] similar to those of San Esteban, save that they are confined to the sides, and do not return across the west front. There is a low square lantern at the crossing, and transepts which do not project beyond the aisles, and hardly show themselves, therefore, on the ground-plan. The central lantern is finished with a corbel-table, roofed with a low tiled roof, and lighted by a small window in each face. The apses are similar in style and detail to most of the early Spanish apses, having engaged shafts at intervals, richly wrought corbel-tables, and round-arched shafted windows.
The west front is quite unaltered, save by the addition of three little windows over the west door, and is a capital example of simple Romanesque. The cloister is a very rich composition, the shafts being coupled, with finely sculptured capitals, and the arches enriched with billet mouldings. The corbel-tables and cornices of these cloisters have evidently been carved at a date long after the original foundation of the church, the edge of the cornice being cut in a rich interlacing pattern of ivy-leaves, which cannot, I think, bear earlier than from 1250 to 1270, and the heads, figures and foliage on the corbels under it are all of the same character. There are fine north and south doors here, and there is a local peculiarity in their design which deserves notice. Their jambs consist of shafts set within very bold square recesses; and the number of orders in the arch is double those in the jamb, they being alternately carried on the capitals of the shafts, and upon the square order of the jambs. The effect is good, the bold spacing of the shafts, and the massiveness of the intermediate square jambs, tending to give that effect of solidity which these early Spanish architects never tired in their attempts to attain.
The interior of the church has been much modernised, but still enough remains to render the whole scheme intelligible. The arcades between the nave and aisles are all perfect; they are very plain, but spring from carved capitals of large size. The capitals of the nave arcades have their abaci planned with re-entering angles, so as exactly to fit the plan of the two square orders of the archivolt. Some of the capitals are of foliage only, others are historiés; one I remember having all round it the Adoration of the Magi, who are represented as large figures o
n horseback, and produce a most strange effect in such a place. The cross arches under the lantern are old, as also are those across the aisles, but the roof of the nave is now all under-drawn with plaster, and there are no means of telling precisely how it was originally covered; but on the whole I incline to the belief that it must have had a cylindrical vault, with quadrant vaults in the aisles, though it is possible, of course, that it had a flat wooden ceiling.