Reportage on the goings on of Craighan
The Cathedral of Seville was built on the foundations of a 12th century mosque. As John Allyne Gade notes, “each of the four side aisles is nearly as broad and high as the nave of Westminster Abbey, while the arcades of Seville’s nave have twice the span.” Some remnants of the 12th century mosque remain. Most notable are the Court of the Oranges, the Giralda, and the Gate of Pardons.
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Built on the foundations of an earlier, Romanesque church, St. Mary’s has undergone numerous renovations over the centuries. A new vault over the nave was completed in 1397; the side chapels were added in the 15th century; in the 18th century the interior was rebuilt with baroque features; and 1887-1891 the temple was painted with its current polychrome interior.
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The edifice of the Church of St. Anne was erected in 1689-1705 after having been destroyed or demolished several times in history. The current building is based on the design of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome.
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The Cathedral of Avila was constructed throughout an architectural transition period from Romanesque to Gothic, and is thought to be the first Gothic cathedral in Spain. Construction began on the apse in 1091, when Gothic design was in its infancy in Spain. But more than the interesting melding of Romanesque and Gothic is the melting of the militaristic and ecclesiastical in the temple. The apse of the cathedral is built into the city wall, incorporating a fortified, crenelated eastern facade.
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San Vicente de Ávila (Basilica de San Vicente) was built on the location where the remains of the martyred saints Vicente, Sabina and Cristeta were said to have been deposited. The cenotaph was made in the second half the 12th century, and the baldachin in the 15th.
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Iglesia de San Pedro in Ávila was built from the early-mid 12th century until the 13th century, with periodic work stoppages evidenced by changing architecture and decoration. The church has a Latin cross plan, with three naves that terminate in semicircular apses. It lies outside the city walls, separated from from the turret fortification of Ávila’s cathedral by Calle de San Segundo and Plaza de Santa Teresa.
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While St. Stephen’s Basilica is a Catholic church, its could easily double as a shrine to Hungarian monarchy.
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Matthias Church is not the biggest church that I’ve seen (seven chapels?), and I was thinking that I could do a quick pop-in, snap a few pics, and be back in Pest quicker than you can say “Neo Gothic.” It did turn out to be the most ornately painted churches I’ve seen. Every square centimeter was covered in floral or geometric patterns, and I really had to restrain myself photographing literally every wall.
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We haven’t visited that many synagogues on this trip, and so I don’t know why I should be surprised at how church-like the few that we’ve seen are. According to our tour guide at the Dohány Street Synagogue, in this case, it was no accident, as the Jewish community who built it were working very hard to show Budapest that they were “integrated” into Hungarian culture.
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Construction on La Catedral de Santa María, now known as the “Old Cathedral” of Salamanca, was started in the 12th century and completed in the 13th. Owing to the availability of space for a replacement and the need for a place of worship, the Old Cathedral was saved from destruction when the New Cathedral (Catedral de la Asunción de la Virgen) was built starting in 1520 (and lasting until 1733). The New Cathedral was built astride the Old Cathedral, and so share a wall; the Old Cathedral lost its northern transept and width in its left aisle (Evangelical nave).
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