A singular effect is here created
by the gilded organ pipes thrust out horizontally from the choir. When
the powerful choral anthems of the church peal out over the kneeling
multitude, it requires little fancy to imagine them the golden trumpets
of concealed archangels, who would be quite at home in that incomparable
choir.
If one should speak of all the noteworthy things you meet in this
Cathedral, he would find himself in danger of following in the footsteps
of Mr. Parro, who wrote a handbook of Toledo, in which seven hundred and
forty-five pages are devoted to a hasty sketch of the basilica. For five
hundred years enormous wealth and fanatical piety have worked together
and in rivalry to beautify this spot. The boundless riches of the Church
and the boundless superstition of the laity have left their traces here
in every generation in forms of magnificence and beauty. Each of the
chapels--and there are twenty-one of them--is a separate masterpiece in
its way. The finest are those of Santiago and St. Ildefonso,--the former
built by the famous Constable Alvaro de Luna as a burial-place for
himself and family, and where he and his wife lie in storied marble; and
the other commemorating that celebrated visit of the Virgin to the
bishop, which is the favorite theme of the artists and ecclesiastical
gossips of Spain.
There was probably never a morning call which gave rise to so much talk.
It was not the first time the Virgin had come to Toledo.
Pages:
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185