León Cathedral, Spain

Founded: 1255
Architect: Enrique de Arfe
Patron: King Alfonso X
Style: Gothic (Early Pointed)
Location: North-West Spain
Height: 105 ft
Material: Limestone

Due to frequent invasions, the Romans constructed the city of León with heavy fortifications. After brief capture by Muslim invaders, Ordoño I of Asturias built a palace on the site of Roman baths and located a cathedral outside the city walls. As a gift of gratitude for his military victories, Ordono converted the palace into a church under abbot Fruminio II, with three naves.

The subsequent invasion of Al-Mansur completely wiped out the population and left the city in ruins. Immediate reconstruction by the Christians were completed by the end of the tenth century, for the crowning of King Alfonso V. The Romanesque church was improved in the eleventh century under Alfonso VI, and totally rebuilt in 1205 in the Gothic style by master builder Enrique.

Values

Celebrate Conquest – Ordoño conceived of the cathedral as a monument to the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. Bishop Froylan and Pelayo placed top priority on rebuilding this edifice after the invasion of Al-Mansur and did so in a considerably short amount of time. The religious monument stood in stark contrast to the Moors and their architectural styles, and also stood as a reminder that while the Moors destroyed, the Spaniards constructed.

Historians believe Pedro Cebrian began as architect under the reconstruction at the end of the 12th century. Maese Enrique continued on close to the end of the 13th century.

While many early cathedrals adopted characteristics unique to Spain, this cathedral discarded foreign aesthetics and concentrated on a decidedly European design. As development went on in the later centuries, various styles of Gothic influence became dominant, as they were in vogue at the time. The good times and rough times are written into its aesthetics. Through the centuries, the building became perfected as a monument to the victories and tenacious dominance of the Spaniards residing in Leon.

Lofty Vaulting – As with all Gothic cathedrals, designers aimed for a maximum height and as much window space as possible, while using stone walls and vaulted ceilings. The technical challenge was even greater at León due to the Roman bath ruins underneath the floor and the quality of limestone available.

To solve this technical challenge, the flying buttresses spread over quite a horizontal distance and parts of the building gain structural independence. They rise above the building, indicating a greater height may have been expected. The front two towers are pushed outwards so that the buttresses are visible from the front. The walls and buttresses become considerably robust as they meet the ground, and they are capped by tall spires to pin them down. The builders placed large boulders in the ground to support this considerable weight.

Sacred Art – The cathedral’s museum contains 1,500 works of religious art, from pre-historic to Neoclassical times. The statues and frescoes are intricate pieces, particularly the carved choir stalls, the Our Lady del Foro, and the Offering of the Kings.

Vast stained glass windows stream light from all sides into the bays, with greater brightness than under Romanesque styles. With open choir affords a straight view from the front entrance all the way to the altar, illuminated by enormous rose windows on either side of the nave. Lighting is treated similarly to the cathedrals in Amiens, Rheims, and St. Denis, as are also the polygonal apse, and correspondence of structural detail between the groining and arches.

Technical Descriptions

Henry O’She described various parts of the cathedral:

Front Facade – This facade is picturesque, effective, and spacious, and is an epitome of the history of the building, bearing vestiges of its different periods, but mostly belonging to the earliest. It is composed of a grand and effective porch formed by five ogival arches, the three largest being portals, and flanked by two towers; the latter are different in size and style, and mar the general effect. The north one is small, severe in style, somewhat heavy, ornamented, and of two stages; the window of the first being circular, those of the second slightly pointed, and crowned with a massive octagon steeple, clumsily decorated….

This facade is composed of three stages; the first is formed by three ingresses, with double arches forming a very sharp ogive, the central being higher and wider than the rest… There are evident vestiges of the influence of the Byzantine Transition school in the forms and proportions of the small pillars, the leaf ornament on the capitals, the handling of the flower-decoration, and not less in the quaint original treatment of the large cabbage-leaf and stem forming the eyes and mouth, and nose of the grotesque satyrs or mascarons…

The statues, forty in all, belong to the second Gothic period… Those in the porch next to the north tower… represent several kings and a queen holding scales and a sword… Here was held, in the 13th century, no doubt, an open, public court of appeal… The central doorway is divided by a low pillar supporting an effigy of the Virgin Blanca, the French Notre Dame des Neiges, enclosed within glass, and dating the early part of the 15th century, to which are attached indulgences granted by the Bishop Cabeza de Vaca…

Over the principal portal is an alto-relievo, most probably paintined formerly, and representing the Last Judgement… On the archivols, and to complete this scene, are groups representing, on one side, the blessed and all the phases of celestial bliss, whist the other represents the wicked personified by grotesque figures… Over the south portal is another alto-relievo representing the Virgin’s Transito… The relief over the north portal, which is the earliest, is divided into four compartments, representing scenes from Scripture. The doors themselves are carved, and represent… crosses… Death and Resurrection, and the south, very plain, is decorated with ogival patterns. Over these ingresses runs a balustraded gallery or parapet with open-work decorated pinnacles of the 13th century. Over it, and within an early ogive, observe a glorious decorated rose-window. Above it… a large relievo representing the Annunciation…

Southern Facade – This elegant facade forms three stages; the first or lower one is crowed by an open-worked gallery, and composed of three very acutely pointed ingresses; the central larger, and the archivolts decorated with relievo ornaments, all the work of the beginning of the 15th century. The second stage was formerly composed of two large ogival windows and a rose above… The third or upper stage is of the Revival.

Interior – It is divided into three naves, as far as the transept, whence five naves diverge, two of which occupy the length of the arcades parallel to the high altar, and form the Chapels of N.S. del Dado and Nativity, sweeping gracefully round the presbytery; the proportions are 303 ft long, 128 ft wide, and 125 ft high….

All the interior is marked by great unity of execution, and dates of the 14th century. Eleven pillars on each side, formed each by groups of three shafts, support the ten vaults of the principal nave between the entrance and the presbytery; the basements are circular; the shafts and pillars are plain, and rise up boldly into the air to meet the springing of the arches, which bend with exquisite elegance. The capitals belong to the Byzantine transition style. Over the arches, which serve to connect the central with the lateral naves, runs all round the church an elegant triforium. Over this gallery the walls are pierced by large windows, 40 ft high, with superb and unrivaled stained glass; each is composed of six arches closed within the main external one, and decorated with three roses in the vacant spaces, and resting on octagon pillarets…

The naves are narrow, although their width is apparently absorbed by the great height… This interior, one of the most elegant in Europe, stands unrivaled in Spain for beauty of constructive ornamentation, unity of design, and proportion.

See more description here

Recently Completed Buildings

French Gothic cathedrals appear to have the most influence on this building’s design. Most notably are:


(Ted Drake– flickr/creative commons license)
Amiens Cathedral
France
1270
Robert of Luzarches,
Thomas & Regnault de Cormont

(Chi King– flickr/creative commons license)
Reims Cathedral
France
1275
Jean d’Orbais, Jean-Le-Loup,
Gaucher de Reims, Bernard de Soissons
St. Denis Cathedral
Paris France
1144
Abbot Suger

More images:


(jl.cernadas– flickr/creative commons license)

(amateur photography by michel– flickr/creative commons license)

(espinr– flickr/creative commons license)

(jafsegal– flickr/creative commons license)

(jl.cernadas– flickr/creative commons license)

(jl.cernadas– flickr/creative commons license)

(guillenperez– flickr/creative commons license)

(Tomás Fano– flickr/creative commons license)

(Chema Foces– flickr/creative commons license)

(Julikeishon– flickr/creative commons license)

 

(featured images by Tomás Fano on flickr/public domain)