Spain Guide
Around Madrid
The Catedral
Opening time: Mon– Sat 10am–6.30pm & Sun 2–6.30pm; main body closed noon–3.30pm
Price: €7, free Sun pm
In a country overflowing with massive religious institutions, the metropolitan Catedral has to be something special – and it is. A robust Gothic construction that took over 250 years (1227–1493) to complete, it has a richness of internal decoration in almost every conceivable style, with masterpieces of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods. The exterior is best appreciated from outside the city, where the hundred-metre spire and the weighty buttressing can be seen to greatest advantage. From the street it's less impressive, so hemmed in by surrounding houses that you can't really sense the scale or grandeur of the whole.
Inside the cathedral, the central nave is divided from four aisles by 88 clustered pillars supporting the vaults, the aisles continuing behind the main altar to form an apse. There is magnificent stained glass throughout, particularly beautiful in two rose windows above the north and south doors. Beside the south door (Puerto de los Leones) is a huge, ancient fresco of St Christopher.
At the physical heart of the church, blocking the nave, the Coro (Choir; closed Sun morning) is a panoply of sculpture. The Capilla Mayor stands directly opposite. Its gargantuan altarpiece, stretching clear to the roof, is one of the triumphs of Gothic art, overflowing with intricate detail and fanciful embellishments. It contains a synopsis of the entire New Testament, culminating in a Calvary at the summit. Behind the main altar is an extraordinary piece of fantasy – the wildly extravagant, Baroque Transparente, with its marble cherubs sitting on fluffy marble clouds.
The Capilla de San Juan houses the riches of the cathedral Tesoro (Treasury), most notably a solid silver custodia (repository for Eucharist wafers), 3m high and weighing over two hundred kilos. An even more impressive accumulation of wealth is displayed in the Sacristía (Sacristy), where paintings include a Disrobing of Christ and portraits of the Apostles by El Greco, Velázquez's portrait of Cardinal Borja and Goya's Christ Taken by the Soldiers.