Abstract
When it came time for the critics and historiographers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to write the grand narrative of Spanish architecture, the decadence of Habsburg monarchy, economy and society was paralleled to the decline of the noble art itself. The completion of the Escorial in 1584 loomed more like an enormous granite epitaph for Spanish architectural production than the promise of a New Jerusalem. For seventeenth-century architects and theoreticians, like Fray Lorenzo de San Nicolas, and nineteenth-century commentators, such as Agustin Cean Bermudez, the intromission of painters, joiners, silversmiths and other guilds into the realm of architectural design was seen as the principal corruptive force which manifested itself in the unpardonable horrors of the Baroque. These negative topoi have, in many cases, found their way into the contemporary historiography of Spanish architecture of the period, typically depicted as all surface and no space, relegating it to a place lesser importance.
Highlights
In 1665, Fray Lorenzo de San Nicolás (1593–1679), wrote, ‘Los edificios grandes son los que hazen grandes Maestros: oy està España, y las demas Provincias, no para emprender edificios grandes, sino para conservar los que tienen hechos’ [Great buildings are done by great Masters: the current situation in Spain and its Provinces is not for undertaking grand projects, but rather maintaining those that we already have] (San Nicolás 1665: 216)
Social and political crises that affected seventeenth century Spain, a new form of architectural practice emerged. This is exemplified in the transition that occurred during the prolonged construction of the Sagrario of Seville Cathedral
This praxis was brought to an end in the middle of the eighteenth century
Summary
Cathedrals and Crisis in Seventeenth-Century Castile: The Case of Seville and Its Church of the Sagrario. For seventeenth-century architects and theoreticians, such as Fray Lorenzo de San Nicolás, and nineteenth-century commentators, such as Agustín Ceán Bermúdez, the introduction of painters, joiners, silversmiths and other guilds into the realm of architectural design was seen as the principal corruptive force leading to the unpardonable horrors of the Baroque. These negative topoi have, in many cases, found their way into the contemporary historiography of Spanish architecture of the period, typically depicted as all surface and no space, relegating it to a place of lesser importance
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