Part 1
Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
Turrets, Towers, and Temples
_BOOKS BY MISS SINGLETON_
FAMOUS PICTURES, SCENES, AND BUILDINGS DESCRIBED BY GREAT WRITERS
TURRETS, TOWERS, AND TEMPLES GREAT PICTURES WONDERS OF NATURE ROMANTIC PALACES AND CASTLES FAMOUS PAINTINGS
PARIS--LONDON--A GUIDE TO THE OPERA LOVE IN LITERATURE AND ART
[Illustration: ST. MARK’S]
Turrets, Towers, and Temples
The Great Buildings of the World, as Seen and Described by Famous Writers
EDITED AND TRANSLATED
BY ESTHER SINGLETON
TRANSLATOR OF “THE MUSIC DRAMAS OF RICHARD WAGNER”
_With Numerous Illustrations_
❦
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1912
_Copyright, 1898_, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
Preface
In making the selections for this book, which is thought to be the realization of a new idea, it has been my endeavour to bring together descriptions of several famous buildings written by authors who have appreciated the romantic spirit, as well as the architectural beauty and grandeur, of the work they describe.
It would be impossible to collect within the small boundaries of a single volume sketches and pictures of all the masterpieces of architecture, and a vast amount of interesting literature has had to be ignored. I have tried, however, to gather choice examples of as many different styles of architecture as possible and to give a description, wherever practicable, of each building’s special object of veneration, such as the Christ of Burgos and the Cid’s coffer in the same Cathedral; the Emerald Buddha at Wat Phra Kao, Bangkok; the statue of Our Lady at Toledo; the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury; etc., as well as the special feature for which any particular building is famous, such as the Court of Lions in the Alhambra; the Chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey; the Convent of the Escurial; the spiral stairway at Chambord; etc., and also a typical scene, like the dance _de los seises_ in the Cathedral of Seville; and the celebration of Easter at St. Peter’s.
Ruskin says: “It is well to have not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands have handled and their strength wrought all the days of their life.” It is also well to have what sympathetic authors have written about these massive and wonderful creations of stone which have looked down upon and outlived so many generations of mankind.
With the exception of the Mosque of Santa Sofia, all the translations have been made expressly for this book.
E. S.
NEW YORK, _May, 1898_.
Contents
ST. MARK’S, VENICE 1
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE TOWER OF LONDON 11
WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON.
THE CATHEDRAL OF ANTWERP 18
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.
THE TAJ MAHAL, AGRA 23
ANDRÉ CHEVRILLON.
THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME, PARIS 28
VICTOR HUGO.
THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW 38
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
THE CATHEDRAL OF YORK 49
THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN.
THE MOSQUE OF OMAR, JERUSALEM 56
PIERRE LOTI.
THE CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS 65
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
THE PYRAMIDS, GIZEH 71
GEORG EBERS.
ST. PETER’S, ROME 76
CHARLES DICKENS.
THE CATHEDRAL OF STRASBURG 84
VICTOR HUGO.
THE SHWAY DAGOHN RANGOON 92
GWENDOLIN TRENCH GASCOIGNE.
THE CATHEDRAL OF SIENA 98
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
THE TOWN HALL OF LOUVAIN 102
GRANT ALLEN.
THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE 105
EDMONDO DE AMICIS.
WINDSOR CASTLE 110
WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON.
THE CATHEDRAL OF COLOGNE 117
ERNEST BRETON.
THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES 126
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.
THE CATHEDRAL OF LINCOLN 132
THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN.
THE TEMPLE OF KARNAK 137
AMELIA B. EDWARDS.
SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE, FLORENCE 143
CHARLES YRIARTE.
GIOTTO’S CAMPANILE, FLORENCE 147
I. MRS. OLIPHANT. II. JOHN RUSKIN.
THE HOUSE OF JACQUES CŒUR, BOURGES 152
AD. BERTY.
WAT PHRA KAO, BANGKOK 158
CARL BOCK.
THE CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO 163
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
THE CHÂTEAU DE CHAMBORD 170
JULES LOISELEUR.
THE TEMPLES OF NIKKO 177
PIERRE LOTI.
THE PALACE OF HOLYROOD, EDINBURGH 187
DAVID MASSON.
SAINT-GUDULE, BRUSSELS 193
VICTOR HUGO.
THE ESCURIAL, MADRID 195
EDMONDO DE AMICIS.
THE TEMPLE OF MADURA 204
JAMES FERGUSSON.
THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN 209
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
THE MOSQUE OF HASSAN, CAIRO 215
AMELIA B. EDWARDS.
THE CATHEDRAL OF TRÈVES 221
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN.
THE VATICAN, ROME 225
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.
THE CATHEDRAL OF AMIENS 234
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE MOSQUE OF SANTA SOFIA, CONSTANTINOPLE 242
EDMONDO DE AMICIS.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY, LONDON 248
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY.
THE PARTHENON, ATHENS 257
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
THE CATHEDRAL OF ROUEN 263
THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN.
THE CASTLE OF HEIDELBERG 269
VICTOR HUGO.
THE DUCAL PALACE, VENICE 278
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA 286
EDMONDO DE AMICIS.
THE CATHEDRAL OF THRONDTJEM 293
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.
THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA 298
CHARLES DICKENS.
THE CATHEDRAL OF CANTERBURY 301
W. H. FREMANTLE.
THE ALHAMBRA, GRANADA 308
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
Illustrations
PAGE
ST. MARK’S _Italy_ _Frontis._
THE TOWER OF LONDON _England_ 14
THE CATHEDRAL OF ANTWERP _Belgium_ 20
THE TAJ MAHAL _India_ 23
THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME _France_ 30
THE KREMLIN _Russia_ 40
THE CATHEDRAL OF YORK _England_ 49
THE MOSQUE OF OMAR _Palestine_ 58
THE CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS _Spain_ 65
THE PYRAMIDS _Egypt_ 72
ST. PETER’S _Italy_ 78
THE CATHEDRAL OF STRASBURG _Germany_ 86
THE SHWAY DAGOHN _Burmah_ 94
THE CATHEDRAL OF SIENA _Italy_ 98
THE TOWN HALL OF LOUVAIN _Belgium_ 103
THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE _Spain_ 106
WINDSOR CASTLE _England_ 110
THE CATHEDRAL OF COLOGNE _Germany_ 121
THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES _France_ 126
THE CATHEDRAL OF LINCOLN _England_ 132
THE TEMPLE OF KARNAK _Egypt_ 139
SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE _Italy_ 144
GIOTTO’S CAMPANILE _Italy_ 147
THE HOUSE OF JACQUES CŒUR _France_ 155
WAT PHRA KAO _Siam_ 159
THE CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO _Spain_ 164
THE CHÂTEAU DE CHAMBORD _France_ 172
THE TEMPLES OF NIKKO _Japan_ 178
THE PALACE OF HOLYROOD _Scotland_ 187
SAINT-GUDULE _Belgium_ 193
THE ESCURIAL _Spain_ 195
THE TEMPLE OF MADURA _India_ 204
THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN _Italy_ 213
THE MOSQUE OF HASSAN _Egypt_ 216
THE CATHEDRAL OF TRÈVES _Germany_ 221
THE VATICAN _Italy_ 225
THE CATHEDRAL OF AMIENS _France_ 234
THE MOSQUE OF SANTA-SOFIA _Turkey_ 242
WESTMINSTER ABBEY _England_ 248
THE PARTHENON _Greece_ 257
THE CATHEDRAL OF ROUEN _France_ 265
THE CASTLE OF HEIDELBERG _Germany_ 269
THE DUCAL PALACE _Italy_ 280
THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA _Spain_ 288
THE CATHEDRAL OF THRONDTJEM _Norway_ 293
THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA _Italy_ 298
THE CATHEDRAL OF CANTERBURY _England_ 301
THE ALHAMBRA _Spain_ 310
Turrets, Towers, and Temples.
❦
ST. MARK’S.
JOHN RUSKIN.
A yard or two farther, we pass the hostelry of the Black Eagle, and, glancing as we pass through the square door of marble, deeply moulded, in the outer wall, we see the shadows of its pergola of vines resting on an ancient well, with a pointed shield carved on its side; and so presently emerge on the bridge and Campo San Moisè, whence to the entrance into St. Mark’s Place, called the Bocca di Piazza (mouth of the square), the Venetian character is nearly destroyed, first by the frightful façade of San Moisè, which we will pause at another time to examine, and then by the modernizing of the shops as they near the piazza, and the mingling with the lower Venetian populace of lounging groups of English and Austrians. We will push fast through them into the shadow of the pillars at the end of the “Bocca di Piazza,” and then we forget them all; for between those pillars there opens a great light, and, in the midst of it, as we advance slowly, the vast tower of St. Mark seems to lift itself visibly forth from the level field of chequered stones; and, on each side, the countless arches prolong themselves into ranged symmetry, as if the rugged and irregular houses that pressed together above us in the dark alley had been struck back into sudden obedience and lovely order, and all their rude casements and broken walls had been transformed into arches charged with goodly sculpture and fluted shafts of delicate stone.
And well may they fall back, for beyond those troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away;--a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long, low pyramid of coloured light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory,--sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined together into an endless network of buds and plumes; and, in the midst of it, the solemn forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded back among the branches of Eden, when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago. And round the walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, “their bluest veins to kiss”--the shadow, as it steals back from them, revealing line after line of azure undulation, as a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and mystical signs, all beginning and ending in the Cross; and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continuous chain of language and of life--angels, and the signs of heaven, and the labours of men, each in its appointed season upon the earth; and above these, another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches edged with scarlet flowers,--a confusion of delight, amidst which the breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden strength, and the St. Mark’s Lion, lifted on a blue field covered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break into a marble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been frost-bound before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid them with coral and amethyst.
Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what an interval! There is a type of it in the very birds that haunt them; for, instead of the restless crowd, hoarse-voiced and sable-winged, drifting on the bleak upper air, the St. Mark’s porches are full of doves, that nestle among the marble foliage, and mingle the soft iridescence of their living plumes, changing at every motion with the tints, hardly less lovely, that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years.
And what effect has this splendour on those who pass beneath it? You may walk from sunrise to sunset, to and fro, before the gateway of St. Mark’s, and you will not see an eye lifted to it, nor a countenance brightened by it. Priest and layman, soldier and civilian, rich and poor, pass by it alike regardlessly. Up to the very recesses of the porches, the meanest tradesmen of the city push their counters; nay, the foundations of its pillars are themselves the seats--not “of them that sell doves” for sacrifice, but of vendors of toys and caricatures. Round the whole square in front of the church there is almost a continuous line of cafés, where the idle Venetians of the middle classes lounge, and read empty journals; in its centre the Austrian bands play during the time of vespers, their martial music jarring with the organ notes,--the march drowning the miserere, and the sullen crowd thickening around them,--a crowd which, if it had its will, would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards; and unregarded children,--every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperation and stony depravity, and their throats hoarse with cursing,--gamble, and fight, and snarl, and sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised _centesimi_ upon the marble ledges of the church porch. And the images of Christ and His angels look down upon it continually.... Let us enter the church itself. It is lost in still deeper twilight, to which the eye must be accustomed for some moments before the form of the building can be traced; and then there opens before us a vast cave hewn out into the form of a Cross, and divided into shadowy aisles by many pillars. Round the domes of its roof the light enters only through narrow apertures like large stars; and here and there a ray or two from some far-away casement wanders into the darkness, and casts a narrow phosphoric stream upon the waves of marble that heave and fall in a thousand colours along the floor. What else there is of light is from torches or silver lamps, burning ceaselessly in the recesses of the chapels; the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished walls covered with alabaster, give back at every curve and angle some feeble gleaming to the flames; and the glories round the heads of the sculptured saints flash out upon us as we pass them, and sink again into the gloom. Under foot and over head, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one picture passing into another, as in a dream; forms beautiful and terrible mixed together; dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running fountains and feed from vases of crystal; the passions and the pleasures of human life symbolized together, and the mystery of its redemption; for the mazes of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always at last to the Cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every stone; sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapt round it, sometimes with doves beneath its arms, and sweet herbage growing forth from its feet; but conspicuous most of all on the great rood that crosses the church before the altar, raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of the apse. And although in the recesses of the aisles and chapels, when the mist of the incense hangs heavily, we may see continually a figure traced in faint lines upon their marble, a woman standing with her eyes raised to heaven, and the inscription above her, “Mother of God,” she is not here the presiding deity. It is the Cross that is first seen, and always, burning in the centre of the temple; and every dome and hollow of its roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised in power, or returning in judgment.
Nor is this interior without effect on the minds of the people. At every hour of the day there are groups collected before the various shrines, and solitary worshippers scattered through the darker places of the church, evidently in prayer both deep and reverent, and, for the most part, profoundly sorrowful. The devotees at the greater number of the renowned shrines of Romanism may be seen murmuring their appointed prayers with wandering eyes and unengaged gestures; but the step of the stranger does not disturb those who kneel on the pavement of St. Mark’s; and hardly a moment passes, from early morning to sunset, in which we may not see some half-veiled figure enter beneath the Arabian porch, cast itself into long abasement on the floor of the temple, and then rising slowly with more confirmed step, and with a passionate kiss and clasp of the arms given to the feet of the crucifix, by which the lamps burn always in the northern aisle, leave the church as if comforted....
It would be easier to illustrate a crest of Scottish mountain, with its purple heather and pale harebells at their fullest and fairest, or a glade of Jura forest, with its floor of anemone and moss, than a single portico of St. Mark’s.... The balls in the archivolt project considerably, and the interstices between their interwoven bands of marble are filled with colours like the illuminations of a manuscript; violet, crimson, blue, gold, and green alternately: but no green is ever used without an intermixture of blue pieces in the mosaic, nor any blue without a little centre of pale green; sometimes only a single piece of glass a quarter of an inch square, so subtle was the feeling for colour which was thus to be satisfied. The intermediate circles have golden stars set on an azure ground, varied in the same manner; and the small crosses seen in the intervals are alternately blue and subdued scarlet, with two small circles of white set in the golden ground above and beneath them, each only about half an inch across (this work, remember, being on the outside of the building, and twenty feet above the eye), while the blue crosses have each a pale green centre....
The third cupola, that over the altar, represents the witness of the Old Testament to Christ; showing him enthroned in its centre and surrounded by the patriarchs and prophets. But this dome was little seen by the people; their contemplation was intended to be chiefly drawn to that of the centre of the church, and thus the mind of the worshipper was at once fixed on the main groundwork and hope of Christianity--“Christ is risen,” and “Christ shall come.” If he had time to explore the minor lateral chapels and cupolas, he could find in them the whole series of New Testament history, the events of the Life of Christ, and the Apostolic miracles in their order, and finally the scenery of the Book of Revelation; but if he only entered, as often the common people do to this hour, snatching a few moments before beginning the labour of the day to offer up an ejaculatory prayer, and advanced but from the main entrance as far as the altar screen, all the splendour of the glittering nave and variegated dome, if they smote upon his heart, as they might often, in strange contrast with his reed cabin among the shallows of the lagoon, smote upon it only that they might proclaim the two great messages--“Christ is risen,” and “Christ shall come.” Daily, as the white cupolas rose like wreaths of sea-foam in the dawn, while the shadowy campanile and frowning palace were still withdrawn into the night, they rose with the Easter Voice of Triumph--“Christ is risen;” and daily, as they looked down upon the tumult of the people, deepening and eddying in the wide square that opened from their feet to the sea, they uttered above them the sentence of warning,--“Christ shall come.”
And this thought may surely dispose the reader to look with some change of temper upon the gorgeous building and wild blazonry of that shrine of St. Mark’s. He now perceives that it was in the hearts of the old Venetian people far more than a place of worship. It was at once a type of the Redeemed Church of God, and a scroll for the written word of God. It was to be to them, both an image of the Bride, all glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold; and the actual Table of the Law and the Testimony, written within and without. And whether honoured as the Church or as the Bible, was it not fitting that neither the gold nor the crystal should be spared in the adornment of it; that, as the symbol of the Bride, the building of the wall thereof should be of jasper, and the foundations of it garnished with all manner of precious stones; and that, as the channel of the World, that triumphant utterance of the Psalmist should be true of it--“I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches”? And shall we not look with changed temper down the long perspective of St. Mark’s Place towards the sevenfold gates and glowing domes of its temple, when we know with what solemn purpose the shafts of it were lifted above the pavement of the populous square? Men met there from all countries of the earth, for traffic or for pleasure; but, above the crowd swaying forever to and fro in the restlessness of avarice or thirst of delight, was seen perpetually the glory of the temple, attesting to them, whether they would hear or whether they would forbear, that there was one treasure which the merchantmen might buy without a price, and one delight better than all others, in the word and the statutes of God. Not in the wantonness of wealth, not in vain ministry to the desire of the eyes or the pride of life, were those marbles hewn into transparent strength, and those arches arrayed in the colours of the iris. There is a message written in the dyes of them, that once was written in blood; and a sound in the echoes of their vaults, that one day shall fill the vault of heaven,--“He shall return, to do judgment and justice.” The strength of Venice was given her, so long as she remembered this: her destruction found her when she had forgotten this; and it found her irrevocably, because she forgot it without excuse. Never had city a more glorious Bible. Among the nations of the North, a rude and shadowy sculpture filled their temples with confused and hardly legible imagery; but, for her the skill and the treasures of the East had gilded every letter, and illumined every page, till the Book-Temple shone from afar off like the star of the Magi.
_Stones of Venice_ (London, 1851–’3).
THE TOWER OF LONDON.
WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON.
Half a mile below London Bridge, on ground which was once a bluff, commanding the Thames from St. Saviour’s Creek to St. Olave’s Wharf, stands the Tower; a mass of ramparts, walls, and gates, the most ancient and most poetic pile in Europe.
Seen from the hill outside, the Tower appears to be white with age and wrinkled by remorse. The home of our stoutest kings, the grave of our noblest knights, the scene of our gayest revels, the field of our darkest crimes, that edifice speaks at once to the eye and to the soul. Grey keep, green tree, black gate, and frowning battlement, stand out, apart from all objects far and near them, menacing, picturesque, enchaining; working on the senses like a spell; and calling us away from our daily mood into a world of romance, like that which we find painted in light and shadow on Shakespeare’s page.
Looking at the Tower as either a prison, a palace, or a court, picture, poetry, and drama crowd upon the mind; and if the fancy dwells most frequently on the state prison, this is because the soul is more readily kindled by a human interest than fired by an archaic and official fact. For one man who would care to see the room in which a council met or a court was held, a hundred men would like to see the chamber in which Lady Jane Grey was lodged, the cell in which Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, the tower from which Sir John Oldcastle escaped. Who would not like to stand for a moment by those steps on which Ann Boleyn knelt; pause by that slit in the wall through which Arthur De la Pole gazed; and linger, if he could, in that room in which Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, searched the New Testament together?