CATHEDRAL OF VALENCIA, IRON DOOR OR BAROQUE
DOOR
Historical setting and background
This Baroque style façade was built at the historical moment of the change of dynasty in Spain at the beginning of the 18th century. With the death of the last king of the House of Habsburg, Charles II, a war for the succession to the Spanish throne began between the French Philip of Bourbon, later King of Spain as Philip V, and the Archduke of Austria Charles, later Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire under the name of Charles VI.
The award of this facade was made through a design competition won by Konrad Rudolf, supporter of Archduke Charles, with, surely, the most avant-garde of the three projects submitted, participating in the discussions of the award, important progressive intellectuals Valencians as the Novator Father Tomas Tosca.
Tomas Tosca, besides being a great mathematician, was the author of the exceptional plan of Valencia of 1704.
The cathedral based on Father Tosca's 1704 plan.
Konrad Rudolf had to leave Valencia in 1707 when the army of Archduke Charles lost the battle of Almansa, so this façade was finished under the Bourbon government.
This
Baroque door replaced another one of Gothic style of the 15th century that was
built when the cathedral was enlarged, by the masters Francesc Baldomar and
Pere Compte joining the Miguelete and the Chapter House, which were exempt. We
will also comment that the Baroque door was made thanks to a donation from a
lady of the Valencian nobility in the 17th century.
Inspiration
The door is of capital importance in architectural terms, since it is the first time in the Iberian peninsula that waving curved shapes, concave/convex/concave, have been used for a construction of this type. This construction is strongly inspired by the façade of the Roman church of “San Carlo alle quattro fontane” designed by the architect Francesco Borromini in the middle of the 17th century for the Spanish order of the Discalced Trinitarians in Rome
Baroque façade of Valencia Cathedral
Façada of "San Carlo alle quattro fontane" in Roma, of Borromini
It must be said that Konrad Rudolf had previously worked in Rome, where he was familiar with the work of Italian baroque architects.
Looking
at the façade of the door and seeing the angle it forms, it is clear how little
space there is for such a monumental door, between the bell tower - called “El
Miguelete” because the largest bell was consecrated on the day of St. Michael
in the sixteenth century - and the Chapter House to the right of the door.
Chapel where the Holy Chalice of the Last Supper is venerated today. Moreover,
at that time there was no Reina's Square, but a narrow street whose end was the
door of the cathedral.
The door is therefore an exercise of virtuosity to achieve in a small space an effect of grandeur, for it is played with curved shapes. When you approached, the difference in scale between the houses and the doorway achieved the effect of grandeur in addition to forming, in the concavity of the curve, a small square of access. When the houses were demolished and the current Reina's square was opened in the 20th century, the opposite effect was produced, losing the original scale, that is to say the façade was reduced in relation to the size of the square
The old Zaragoza street, with the tramway, framing the baroque façade.
Let's go with a brief description of the façade:
The entrance is a small elliptical atrium -the ellipse is one of the typical geometric figures of the Baroque style-, framed by iron railings.
The façade has three levels, with six columns on the first level, on the second level there are four columns and two exterior pilasters, all above the columns of the first level and, on the third level there are two more pilasters also above the interior columns of the second level.
The columns on the first two levels have a one-piece shaft and are decorated on the lower part. Note the slight éntasis (bulging of the column to correct an optical effect, used by the classical Greeks and also in ancient Egypt).
The
capitals of the columns are Corinthian, decorated with representation of
acanthus leaves, with the architrave - lintel that rests on the capital -
mixtilinear and a continuous frieze, this one decorated with religious motifs.
The third body has an irregular curved pediment, above which is placed the bronze globe with an iron cross and two angels adorning it.
Decorated shaft
Corinthian capitals with architrave and mixtilinear frieze.
In the
first body, in the niche on the left as one looks at the door, is the statue of
Saint Thomas of Villanueva, Augustinian friar and Bishop of Valencia in the time
of emperor Charles I and great preacher, giving alms to the poor.
Saint Thomas of Villanueva
To the right is the niche with the statue of Saint Peter Pascual, Mercedarian and Valencian saint of the 13th century, bishop in the Nazarí kingdom of Jaén, where a redeemed captive is seen offering him the archiepiscopal mitre.
The Mercedarians and the Trinitarians were
religious orders founded for the redemption (rescue) of Christians in Muslim
power.
San Peter Pascual
Framed by the central columns, we see the entrance door, with semicircular arch and soffit decorated with a cloud of little angels in the center.
On top of the door, there is a crowned
scallop shell supported by two little angels, with the anagram of the Virgin Mary
and at her feet more angels, all in an environment with a profusion of vegetal
elements and clouds.
Scallop shell of the Virgin with angels
On the second level, with four columns
located on the four central columns of the lower level, we have on the left
side, a statue of St. Vincent Martyr, patron saint of the city of Valencia, who
was martyred in the early fourth century, with his classic iconographic
attributes: a cross in a X shape on which he was tortured and a millstone, to
which he was tied and thrown into the sea, according to tradition.
Saint
Vincent martyr
On
the right side, we have the statue of the deacon Saint Lawrence martyr "San
Lorenzo de la Parrilla" who was the one who sent the Holy Chalice from Rome to
Huesca in the middle of the 3rd century according to tradition, being martyred
on a grill, represented here under his left arm.
Saint Lawrence of the Grill
In the intercolumns there are two medallions of the Valencian Popes. On the left Calixtus III, Alfonso de Borgia (Italianized Borgia), Pope who canonized St. Vincent Ferrer and who made possible with his bull Inter Caetera of 1456 the Portuguese dominion of the entire African coast south of Cape Bojador, a cape located on the African continent a little south of the Canary Islands.
Pope Calixtus III
In the other medallion on the right side,
the other Valencian Pope, Rodrigo de Borgia (father of the famous Lucrezia
Borgia) and nephew of Calixtus III. Pope with the name of Alexander VI,
previously Bishop and then archbishop of Valencia, was the one who influenced
Pope Innocent VIII to elevate the diocese of Valencia to metropolitan. In
addition, by means of the Alexandrine Bulls of 1493, being already Pope, he
laid the bases for the division of the recently discovered America
between Spain and Portugal.
Pope
Alexander VI
Tiles in Avellanas Street, next to the Episcopal palace, recalling the accession of the cathedral to the metropolitan see in 1492.
Below and to the sides of the medallion of Calixtus III, we have two virtues, Justice, with the scales and Charity, with a child in her arms.
Allegories of Justice and Charity
On the right side, we have two other virtues, Fortitude with a column and Hope, with an anchor under her feet.
Allegories of Fortitude and Hope
In the center of this second level, in the middle of the central columns, we find an elliptical stained glass window.
Elliptical stained glass from the outside of the Cathedral
Stained glass window from the interior of the cathedral.
On the third level, we have a relief representing the assumption of the Virgin Mary.
Allegory of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary
And in the attic, another relief with the
representation of the Holy Spirit, and above, the ball of the world topped with
a cross, with two angels on its sides.
Representation of the Holy Spirit in the pediment
To the left, the statue of the Dominican
friar of the XIV/XV century, San Vicente Ferrer, with a book in the left hand
and the index finger of the right pointing towards the sky preaching, which is
his typical iconographic element. He is the patron saint of the Valencian
community.
Saint Vincent Ferrer
On the right is the statue of another Valencian Dominican saint, St. Louis Bertran, who lived in the 16th century and was a preacher in Colombia and Valencia. Here he is depicted with a chalice in his right hand and a crucifix in his left.
Saint Louis Bertrán
Finishing off the façade, we see a ball of the world, between two angels, with a cross dominating the composition of the façade.
In summary, the beautiful baroque facade of the Cathedral of Valencia,
designed and built in times of historical change, closed the substantial
modifications to the exterior of the cathedral that began with the Romanesque
of the thirteenth century, continued with the Gothic of the fourteenth century
and with the Renaissance of the obra nova in the sixteenth century. To complete the eclecticism of the cathedral,
inside there are also chapels in neoclassical style.
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