Burgos Cathedral: Difference between revisions

Cathedral of Saint Mary of Burgos Catedral de Santa María de Burgos
Gothic Burgos Cathedral
Religion
Affiliation	Roman Catholic
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Metropolitan cathedral
Year consecrated	1260
Location
Location	Burgos, Castile and León, Spain
Geographic coordinates	42°20′26.9″N 3°42′16.1″W
Architecture
Type	Church
Style	Gothic
Groundbreaking	1221
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name: Burgos Cathedral
Type	Cultural
Criteria	ii, iv, vi
Designated	1984 (8th session)
Reference no.	316
State Party	Spain
Region	Europe and North America
Spanish Cultural Heritage
Official name: Catedral de Santa María
Type	Non-movable
Criteria	Monument
Designated	April 8, 1885
Reference no.	RI-51-0000048
Website
www.catedraldeburgos.es

The Cathedral of Saint Mary of Burgos (Spanish: Catedral de Santa María de Burgos) is a Catholic church dedicated to the Virgin Mary located in the Spanish city of Burgos. Its official name is Santa Iglesia Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Santa María de Burgos. Its construction began in 1221, following French Gothic patterns . Had major changes in the 15th and 16th centuries: the spiers of the main facade, the Chapel of the Constable and dome of the cruise, elements of the advanced Gothic which give the temple its unmistakable profile. The last works of importance (the Sacristy or the Chapel of Saint Thecla) already belong to 18th century, century in which were also modified the Gothic portals of the main facade. The style of the cathedral is the Gothic, although it has, in its interior, several decorative Renaissance and Baroque elements. The construction and renovations were made with limestone extracted from the quarrys of the nearby town of Hontoria de la Cantera.

In the cathedral are preserved works of extraordinary artists, such as architects and sculptors of the Colonia family (Juan, Simón and Francisco), the architect Juan de Vallejo, sculptors Gil de Siloé, Felipe Bigarny, Rodrigo de la Haya, Martín de la Haya, Juan de Ancheta and Juan Pascual de Mena, the sculptor and architect Diego de Siloé, the fencer Cristóbal de Andino, the glazier Arnao de Flandes or painters Alonso de Sedano, Mateo Cerezo, Sebastiano del Piombo or Juan Ricci, among others.

The design of the main facade is related to the purest French Gothic style of the great cathedrals of Paris and Reims, while the interior elevation as a reference to Bourges Cathedral. It consists of three bodies topped by two lateral square towers. The squelettes of Germanic influence were added in the 15th century and are the work of Juan de Colonia. In the outside are outstanding also covers del Sarmental and la Coronería, 13th century Gothics, and the cover de la Pellejería of 16th century Plateresques-Renaissance influences.

There are numerous architectural, sculptural and pictorial treasures inside. Highlights include:

• The Gothic-Plateresque dome, raised by Juan de Colonia in the 15th century.
• The Chapel del Constable, of Isabelline Gothic style, which worked the Colonia family, Diego de Siloé and Felipe Bigarny.
• The Spanish-Flemish Gothic altarpiece by Gil de Siloé for the Chapel of Saint Anne.
• The stalls of the choir Renaissance Plateresque work by Bigarny.
• The late Gothic reliefs of the girola by Bigarny.
• Numerous Gothic and Renaissance tombs.
• The Renaissance Golden staircase by Diego de Siloé.
• The Santísimo Cristo de Burgos, image of great devotional tradition.
• The tomb of El Cid and his wife Doña Jimena, his letter of Down payment and his chest.
• The Papamoscas, articulated statue that opens his mouth to give the chiming of the hours.

The cathedral was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on October 31, 1984. It is the only Spanish cathedral that has this distinction independently, without being joined to the historic center of a city (as in Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, Ávila, Córdoba, Toledo, Alcalá de Henares or Cuenca) or in union with other buildings, as in Seville. It is similar in design to Brussels Cathedral.

History of the cathedral

Romanesque building of the 11th century

Burgos was converted into bishopric in 1075 by the king Alfonso VI of León and Castile "the Brave", who gave so a canonical continuity to the tradition episcopal diocese of the Oca, whose prelate already contained in 589 as signatory to the Third Council of Toledo in Visigothic times.

The monarch promoted the construction of a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary that its traces are not known, but it is supposed Romanesque and of the type of contemporary works (of the Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos, of the Monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza of San Martín de Tours de Frómista or the Cathedral of Jaca). There is documentary evidence that the monarch donated for the great work the enclosure occupied by a royal palace that had belonged to his father Ferdinand I of León and a small church dedicated to Saint Mary and that was in construction.

In 1096 the works of this temple were finished, but soon became too small for the needs of a city that was the symbolic capital of the kingdom, a powerful bishopric (the cathedral chapter had more than thirty members already before 1200) and an increasingly dynamic business center. The decision to build a new cathedral was begun finally took the 13th century. As was common at the time, the Romanesque building was destroyed (of which only some sculptural remains) and its site, expanded with the demolition of a neighboring houses donated by the Bishop Marino, it rose the new Gothic cathedral.

Ground

Current ground, year 2008, of the cathedral of Burgos begun in 1221.

1. Portico del Sarmental.
2. Transept, South arm.
3. Door of the upper cloister.
4. Chapel of the Visitation.
5. Chapel of Saint Henry.
6. Capilla de Saint John of Sahagún.
7. Chapel of the Relics.
8. Chapel of the Presentation.
9. Chapel of the Santísimo Cristo de Burgos.
10. Central nave and Papamoscas.
11. Chapel of Saint Thecla.
12. Chaple of Saint Anne or of the Conception.
13. Transept, North arm and Golden staircase.
14. Chaple of Saint Nicholas.
15. Cruise, Dome, Grave of El Cid and Doña Jimena.
16. Chapel and Altarpiece.
17. Central nave, Choir.
18. Chapel of the Nativity.
19. Chapel of the Annunciation.
20. Chapel of Saint Gregory.
21. Aisles, Ambulatory and Girola.
22. Chapel of the Constable.
23. Sacristy.
24. High cloister.
25. Cloistered chapel of Saint Jerome.
26. Chapel of the Corpus Christi.
27. Chapterhouse.
28. Chapel of Saint Catherine.
29. Chapel of Saint John the Baptist and Saint James.
30. Narthex, Door of Saint Mary.
31. Door of the Coronería.
32. Door of the Pellejería.
33. Low cloister.

Gothic foundation and works in the 13th and 14th centuries

Overview from the north (left to right): Condastable Chapel, the Octagonal tower and the two western Flamboyant spires

The first stone of the new cathedral was placed on Jule 20 of 1221 in the presence of the promoters of the temple: the king Ferdinand III of Castile "the Saint" and Bishop Mauricio, bishop of the Burgalese diocese since 1213. Presumably, the first master builder was an anonymous French architect -although some researchers give the name of the canon Johan de Champagne, cited documentary in 1227-, most likely brought to Burgos by bishop Mauricio itself, after the trip he had made by France and Germany to arrange the marriage of the monarch with Elisabeth of Swabia, bridal ceremony that held precisely in the old Romanesque cathedral.

The construction of the cathedral, located just at the point where begins to rear it the hillside chaired by the Castle of Burgos, was initiated by the head and the presbytery, place it where was buried the founding bishop, whose remains were later transferred to the center of the capitulate choir. By 1240 assumed the direction of the works the called Master Enrique, which would be a responsible for the erection of the Cathedral of León and was inspired definitely by the Cathedral of Reims, whose facade the gable of the Cathedral of Burgos keeps great similarities. The work progressed very quickly and for 1238, year of the death of the founder prelate, buried in the chancel, were already almost completed the head and much of the cruise and the naves. The consecration of the temple took place in 1260, but has divine office holding it from 1230.

Between the second half of the 13th century and early 14th century the chapels of the aisles were completed and a new cloister was built. The Master Enrique, who died in 1277, it took over the Master Johan Pérez. Stonemasons were later Aparicio Pérez, active in 1327, Pedro Sánchez de Molina and Martín Fernández, who died in 1396 and 1418 respectively.

Expansions and reforms in the 15th to 18th centuries

In the 15th century the the Colonia family incorporated the spiers of the main facade, the dome over the transept and the Chapel of the Constables. In the 16th century, besides the modifications to several chapels, highlights the construction of a new dome by Juan de Vallejo, who replaced the Juan de Colonia (sunk after a hurricane). In the 18th century were made the Chapel of Saint Thecla, the Chapel of the Relics and the Sacristy.

Restorations of the 19th and 20th centuries

Burgos Cathedral owes its many works of art of the 13th to 18th centuries, especially the fact that during the 19th and 20th centuries no undertake decisive any restoration.

• 
  Entrance to Burgos by Scottish David Roberts in 1838 in the work Picturesque views in Spain and Morocco. The Cathedral is seen at background.
• 
  A house attached to the Cathedral of Burgos by Scottish David Roberts in the 1837, in the work Picturesque Sketches in Spain.

Outside the scope of the new cloister only was essential way reformed, after 1800, the chapel of the Santo Cristo or of Our Lady of the Remedies, located in the west of the old cloister. The renovation began with the transfer of the highly revered crucifix of the Holy Christ from the convent of Saint Augustine to the chapel, thereafter, was called chapel of the Santo Cristo de Burgos. In the 1890s Vicente Lampérez y Romea, master architect of the cathedral from 1887, undertook an extensive restoration of this chapel, removing the plaster added of the walls and vaults and completely renovated the cover that gives the nave. also date from this restoration the neo-Gothic tracery windows, the blind arcades of the walls and most of the remaining architectural elements.

Between 1899 and 1911 Lampérez also restored the called New cloister, getting essentially recover its original shape. In the cloister it had overbuilt a third level with small Baroque windows that this architect did eliminate, and, incidentally, he opened the original windows of the cloister that had been almost closed. The installation of ornamental windows following models and old techniques, represented the end of the restoration. While the upper body of the cloister hardly experienced any change, the lower cloister was remarkably restored. The forms of its rib, apparently late Gothic, are due to Lampérez. Before the restoration, the lower cloister was divided into several compartments and generally in poor state of conservation. It is likely that during the restoration of the cloister was removed the stairwell that had subsequently been added, situated in the inner southwest corner of the same cloister. Subsequently, the connection between the two levels of the cloister only is established through a wooden staircase beneath the chapel of Saint Jerome.

The most recent restoration of the cathedral, by architect Marcos Rico Santamaría, has replaced the roof by a light steel framing. Regarding the rib star freely suspended in the center tower of the transept, it has laid a glass surface that achieves the complete enlightenment of the fabric of the rib. Regardless of such measures, there have been few the recent attempts to modify the architectural and sculptural substance of the cathedral. On August 12, 1994, a statue of Saint Lawrence came off from the final stretch of the north tower of the main facade, which made public the immediate need to resume the protection and conservation measures of the monument.

Among the most famous of the bishops of Burgos was the 15th-century scholar and historian Alphonsus a Sancta Maria.

Sebastiano del Piombo, Holy Family (c. 1520), Burgos Cathedral.

Architecture

The 15th-century west front of northern French gothic style is flanked by towers on square plans terminating in octagonal spires covered with open stonework traceries. The façade, in three stories, has triple entrances in ogival arched framing, with a gallery enclosed by a pinnacled balustrade and a delicately pierced rose window. In the uppermost story, there are two ogival double-arched windows and statues on pedestals, crowned with a balustrade of letters carved in stone: PULC[H]RA ES ET DECORA ("Beautiful art Thou, and graceful"), in the center of which is a statue of the Virgin Mary. There are more balustrades and balconies in the towers, with further open-carved inscriptions: needle-pointed octagonal pinnacles finish the four corners. The main spires are 88 meters tall, just by way of comparison, the towers of the Cathedral of Reims reach 81.50 m, 88 m in Orleans, and 69 m in Paris.

Its cruciform floorplan, with a 106 meter long nave and wide aisles, is almost hidden, in exterior views, by the fifteen chapels added at all angles to the aisles and transepts, by the beautiful 14th-century cloister on the northwest and the archiepiscopal palace on the southwest. Over the three central doorways of the main or western façade rise the two lofty and graceful towers, crowned by their spires. Many of the altars, chapels and monuments within the cathedral are of artistic and historical interest.

The north transept portal, known as the Portada de la Coronería, has statues of the Twelve Apostles. Above, ogival windows and two spires crown the portal. On the south portal, the portada depicts the evangelists at their writing desks.

The magnificent octagonal Chapel of the Constable is of Flamboyant Gothic style, filled with traceries, knights and angels and heraldry. It was destined for the graves of Pedro Fernández de Velasco, 2nd Count of Haro, Constable of Castile and his family.

Gallery

• 
  Cathedral as seen at night
• 
  Interior of Constable chapel
• 
  Outside the Constable chapel
• 
  Detailed outside of the Constable chapel
• 
  The Cimborrio octagonal tower
• 
  North side's Coronería facade
• 
  South side, from the Plaza de San Fernando
• 
  South side's Sarmental facade
• 
  Mudéjar ceiling at the Chapter room
• 
  Inside the Major chapel
• 
  Golden stairs
• 
  Burgos cathedral cloister
• 
  East side's Pellejería facade
• 
  Detail of the Constables tomb
• 
  El Cid's chest
• 
  The Papamoscas clock
• 
  Burgos cathedral in 1911
• 
  Burgos cathedral during the 2011 White night festival

See also

• Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Burgos

External links

• Official site of the Cathedral
• World Heritage Site profile
• Virtual visit of the cathedral on high resolution