Magnificent Baroque Architectures in Europe: Segovia Cathedral, Spain and Chateau De Chantilly, France

Magnificent Baroque Architectures in Europe: Segovia Cathedral, Spain and Chateau De Chantilly, France

By Mr Ghaz, April 20, 2011

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Magnificent Baroque Architectures in Europe: Segovia Cathedral, Spain and Chateau De Chantilly, France

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Segovia Cathedral

Spain

Begun 1525

The last great Gothic church to be built in Spain, and also the last in Europe, was the cathedral at Segovia. It was built to replace the old cathedral, which had been so badly damaged during the Revolt of the Comuneros in 1520-21 that a totally new building had to be constructed. Its architect was Juan Gil de Hontanon, also responsible for the New Cathedral at Salamanca, begun 12 years before Segovia. As at Salamanca, work on Segovia Cathedral was completed by Roderigo de Hontanon.

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The architect was given a superb site for Segovia’s replacement cathedral on the top of a ridge in the center of the city. He designed for it a building in golden stone, a little larger than the already enormous Old Cathedral of Salamanca, and gave it much the same design details:pinnacles, buttresses and parapets, a nearly flat roof, a splendid cupola over the crossing and, inside, complex ribbed vaults. Hontanon’s main change (and an improvement) at Segovia was to replace Salamanca’s square east end with a rounded and stepped one. On the whole, Segovia Cathedral is a restrained, even austere, building, with little external sculpture and a simple main western entrance.

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Because by now the influence of the Renaissance style was being felt in Spain, there are some Renaissance- style decorative elements, notably in the fine wrought- iron screens that enclose the chapels: but the cathedral is essentially a late Spanish Gothic building. There are even some reminders of the old cathedral, whose choir stalls and figure of the Virgen del Perdon were saved and installed in the new cathedral.

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Above: Segovia Cathedral, known as ‘the Lady of cathedrals’, was begun by Juan Gil de Hontanon (who also built Salamanca’s cathedral) in 1525, and was continued by various architects, including his son, Rodrigo.

Chateau De Chantilly

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France

Begun 528; rebuilt after 1643

The chateau that was built in the 16th century, by the powerful and immensely rich Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France, at Chantilly, 26 miles (42km) north of Paris, was on a site that had known larger, fortified houses and chateaux since the time of the Romans. The new chateau, that replaced a medieval castle, was a grand palace in the French Renaissance style. A French architect,Pierre Chambiges, designed it and another Frenchman, Jean Bullant built a charming chatelect (little castle) on a small island in the lake beside it.

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In the mid- 17th century Chantilly passed into th hands of the Code, a branch of the royal house of Bourbon. The Prince of Conde, aided by the famous architect, Frabcois Mansart, virtually rebuilt Anne de Mountmorency’s palace (except for the chatelet, which survives to this day) in the Baroque style. The gardens were landscaped by the great Andre Le Notre, who included fountains and jeux d’eauz that would become the most famous in France.

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Disaster struck Chantilly during the French Revolution, when the great palace and the gardens were destroyed. The Conde line became extinct in 1830, and a member of another branch of the Bourbon family, Henri, Duc d’Aumale, inherited Chantilly. Fortunately, he was rich enough to be able to restore his ruined inheritance to what it had been when Mansart had rebuilt it, and to fill it with a superb collection of paintings, sculptures, manuscripts and tapestries. The duke gave Chantilly and his art collection to the state, and today the great Baroque palace of Chantilly is home to the Musee Conde.

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Above: The Chateau de Chantilly comprises two attached buildings: the Grand Chateau, destroyed during the French Revolution and rebuilt in the 1800s. And the Petit Chateau, that was built in the 16th century for Anne de Montmorency, the then-powerful Constable of France.