The
Granada Cathedral of the Incarnation was free with our city pass, so we figured we'd have a look.
From the side we entered, the cathedral looked more like a modest chapel than anything deserving the title "cathedral". Upon entering, our minds were not immediately changed. We were ushered into what Jess guessed was a dressing room for priests or others who need to don special costumes for their religious roles. This room was encircled by high mirrors glaring down at those standing before the dressers framing the room on all sides. Outside of this room, a hallway was lined with what appeared to be large wooden wardrobes.
 |
| Hallway lined with dark wooden wardrobes. |
Her guess seemed like a good one, assuming no one in the changing room expected any privacy. We continued forth from the dressing room and were finally blown away by the sheer size of everything in the cathedral (which clearly deserved such a characterization).
Not only were the vaulted ceilings unquestionably lofty, but every
shrine (when I published the first draft of the post, I did not know that the caged-in statues and paintings of saints that surround the main chapel area were called shrines) was large enough to warrant its own small chapel.
 |
| A shrine and, seemingly, a crypt below it. |
Between the shrines were glass book cases, each quite large yet only able to contain two open books each. These books were several feet tall, a few feet wide, and contained exceptionally large fonts and dots that jumped up and down across the page. We decided that these were communal hymn books intended to be read from across the chapel by those 18th-century slackers in the back row. I guess that, back in the day this would have saved on printing costs (if for no other reason than that books were too often reincarnated sooner than necessary into their next life as latrine paper if put into the hands of those who did not fully appreciate their re-readability).
 |
| Hymnbook about half my height, perhaps taller. |
What Jess and I really wished we could hear and inspect more thoroughly were the two building-sized organs (each with their own entrance, in fact) that were situated on either side of the rows of pews in the middle of the cathedral.
 |
| One of the two multi-story organs sandwiching the nave of the cathedral, with the door to the organ included in the photo for scale. |
Would they be overwhelming or magnificent to listen to, or a little bit of both? We still have no idea, because by this time we were ready to go rediscover the spice shops we had espied the day before.
No comments:
Post a Comment