CLIL lesson on Spanish History, Culture and Traditions Central Market Valencia´s Central Market has almost 1000 shops and around 1500 people work here every day (that is shop owners, cleaning, delivery services, etc.). According to Wikipedia it is the biggest centre in Europe dedicated to selling fresh products, and one of the most beautiful Markets in the continent and it is the first one that delivers food to costumers´ homes. The architectural style of this building is called Art Nouveau. It was built at the beginning of the 20th century. Does anyone know of other Art Nouveau buildings? (Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sacred Family in Barcelona). We recognise it is an Art Nouveau building because of the materials: metal, glass, decorated tiles and brick. And if we look closely at the motifs that decorate the tiles, the mosaics or the columns, we will see that there are a lot of natural elements such as animals (lizards, dragon flies, etc.) and flowers and leaves that make beautiful curves.
Lonja or Silk Market The Lonja is also called the Silk Market and it was used as an exchange market. It was built between the 15th and 16th centuries in a late gothic style and it´s now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the 15th century Europe was going through a big transformation: before, in the Middle Ages, it had been a feudal, agricultural society, but from the 13th century onwards it was changing into a more commercial and manufacturing society, a new social class was appearing: the bourgeoisie, they were bankers, merchants, “factory” owners, and they needed places like the Lonja to meet and exchange their products, borrow money, etc..
This market dramatically illustrates the power and wealth of Valencia in the XV century. Valencia was at the time one of the great Mediterranean mercantile cities. It was such a powerful city that there were three valencian Popes in Rome during the XV century, and you have to take into account that at this time Popes were almost always from Italian families. Before this building, there was another older exchange market here, but it became too small and a new one had to be built. The first products to be auction and exchange here were fish, then later on silk and many others. The Lonja is also called the Silk Market, because the silk industry had a great importance here. Up to 15.000 people worked in Valencia making textiles using silk (does anybody knows where silk comes from, what animal produces silk?). But in the 15th century the Silk Market was mainly famous for the big volume of bank operations that were made here. It was a bank. Merchants, factory owners, anyone who needed money for his business came here to borrow it from bankers. A lot of these bankers were Jewish at the time (we will talk later about the religions that cohabited in Spain in medieval times). It was the valencian bankers who borrow money to Christopher Columbus to do his first trip to America. In the Middle Ages gothic cathedrals were being built everywhere in Europe. Do you know any? (Notre Dame de Paris, Koln cathedral in Germany). There are many gothic religious buildings, but it is rather difficult to find a gothic building that is not a church, this is one of the very few examples an exceptional example of a nonreligious building in Gothic style in the whole of Europe. Despite that, it shares some characteristics with the gothic churches: in the outside, there are gargoyles and decorated windows and doors, inside they have very tall ceilings and beautiful columns. It is almost like a temple for commercial exchange. The building has four main parts or bodies: the first one is the court with orange trees, then there is also a tower that was used as prison for merchants that didn´t pay their debts. The third part is called the Sea Consulate, it was built in Renaissance style, which is an art style characteristic of the 15th and 16th centuries. The ceiling is made in painted wood and decorated with heraldic shields, plants, the zodiac and many other motifs.
The fourth part and the most impressive is the hall of Columns, also called the hall of Contracts. This is the place where all bank transactions were made. This room is decorated in gothic style. The ceiling of this hall is really beautiful, is made by a set of vaults supported by 24 columns. Only 8 columns are detached from the walls. Each column is 11 meters high and it looks like a palm tree with branches that intersect with other branches.
Valencia´s Cathedral Outside The place occupied by the cathedral was originally a roman temple. The temple became a Visigoth cathedral, but under the Muslim occupation of Spain, it was turned into a mosque. Muslims occupied Spain during 800 years. Following a long period of wars between Christians and Muslims, Muslims were expelled from Spain. But it was a complex time: Muslims and Christians were not always enemies, they lived together for very long periods of peace, and they formed alliances to fight other Christians or other Muslims from other parts of the territory. Christians fought sometimes with Muslims against the Christian king and the other way round is well. Christians were able to live in Muslim territories, with Muslim people, and they had their own religion, traditions and authorities and the other way round, Muslims lived with Christians, preserving their religion, laws, etc. To make things more complex, there was also a big Jewish community living in Spain. Jewish acted often as translators between Christians and Muslims. The rest of Europe was experiencing a period of decadence which is often called the dark ages: towns were very small, people work the land, they didn´t know how to read and write,
they were very superstitious. Meanwhile Spain was a tolerant society, with people from three different religions living together, and Muslim Spain was quite rich and sophisticated. Muslims introduced changes in agriculture such as irrigation systems and new products like oranges, lemons, and rice. The Muslim capital, Cordova, was the intellectual centre of Europe, there were big libraries full of books about philosophy and science, medicine, biology, astronomy, chemistry, etc. All this knowledge was introduced to the European culture through Spain, and it helped transform Europe into a more advanced society. But as we said earlier there were also wars during this time. When the Christians arrived to Valencia in the 13th Century, the mosque was knocked down, because it was a Muslim symbol. A new cathedral was built, that´s the church you can see now. Later on, in the 15th Century, Spain became a totally Christian kingdom, the Muslims had lost all their kingdoms and the last Muslims living with the Christians where expelled from the territories by a law established by the Catholic Kings. The same thing happened to the Jews, they were also expelled from the Spanish territory. Look at Valencia´s cathedral and try to guess what its architectural style is. What makes you think it is a gothic church? Normally gothic churches have pointy pinnacles (towers), and the buttresses that join the pinnacles to the main building, but in this church the pinnacles were removed, taken away when they were out fashion. We know it´s a gothic church because a gothic church, if we look at it from a plane, has the shape of a cross. The vertical part of the cross is longer than the horizontal part. In this church we can´t see the shape of the cross from outside very well, because there are a lot of chapels built in the sides of the cross. Each chapel is dedicated to a Saint or to a Christian symbol. In this cathedral the centre of the cross has an octagonal tower. It´s basically a gothic church, but it also has Romanesque, Renaissance, Baroque and NeoClassical elements.
1. The Main Door
Look at the main door of the cathedral. What style is it? It´s Baroque, it´s very charged with decoration and causes a unique and studied perspective effect, (although this effect was
distorted because of the demolition of some parts of the building). The door was built in the 17th Century.
It is a façade with three floors. In the first floor there are angels and plants as ornament and a shell with the name “Maria” inside. In the second floor, there are four columns and the statues. In the centre there is a big oval window covered with a stained glass depicting the image of the Virgin. Obviously, the door is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
2. The Door of the Apostles
The Tympanum It´s one of the second oldest door, it dates from the 14th Century. It has the shape of a pointy arch and it´s decorated with human figures that look quite realistic. It has four pointed arches, with reliefs in the space between the columns representing the virgin and angels. Under the arches there are six statues of the apostles. 3. The Palau Door
It´s the oldest door, it was built in the 13th Century and it´s Romanesque. The door is formed by seven semicircular arches and the decoration is much more geometrical, the figures of angels and saints are smaller and less realistic than the figures that appear in the other doors.
4. The bell tower is called “El Miquelet” and it was originally an outside tower, but it was joined to the Cathedral when the cathedral was extended. 5. Behind the main door there are the galleries: three superimposed arcades, supported by columns forming a semicircle, the top parts are like a balcony form which the priests contemplated the performances in the square.
6. The Ogival Windows have pointed arches and stained glass and they are characteristic of gothic architecture.
Inside the cathedral As it happens in many churches around the world, this cathedral is a mixture of different styles that we are going to discover. This mixture of artistic and architectural styles is even bigger in the inside of the cathedral than it is in the outside. But there is one predominant style. Do you know which one?
Gothic elements: 1. The naves
We recognise it is a gothic church because it has tree naves, three big “corridors” divided by columns that sustain the ceiling. The ceiling of the main nave is taller than the ceiling of the lateral naves. This way it is possible to put windows in the main nave of the church. For gothic architects it was important to illuminate the church, they wanted to make churches much bigger and they wanted them to be full of light, perhaps because previously, in the Romanesque period, churches were quite dark and small. 2. The ceilings
The ceilings are made by extending the pillars, like a tree extending its branches. The “branches” then cross other “branches” coming from other pillars and the effect that these crossings produce in the ceiling is called a rib vault, it´s very beautiful because it produces repetitive patterns that play with different shapes. But it´s also a very clever form of construction because it makes the ceiling very strong, it stops it from falling down.
3. The Dome above the high altar
Also, as typical gothic church, this cathedral has the shape of a cross – like the cross where Jesus was crucified, according to the bible. One of the lines that make the cross is longer than the other one. And in the place where the two lines meet there is usually a dome, just like here. The dome is even higher than the main nave. The Dome of the Valencia cathedral is an octagonal tower that has two sets of eight pointed arches one above the other. There is a window under each arch, which allows for more light to come into the church and illuminate the altar that is placed under the dome. This is a sophisticated example of Gothic architecture, with large windows creating a sense of grace and luminosity. Bellow the Dome there is the altar, the central place of the church, where the priest says mass and where we find the main figure to whom the church is dedicated, which is usually the Virgin or Jesus.
4. The High Altarpiece and the Frescoes
There is a double door that opens and closes the altarpiece and the doors are decorated inside and outside with paintings representing themes form the New Testament such as the Nativity or Christmas (The Adoration of the Shepherds) and also Easter (the Resurrection of Christ). Only when the doors are open we can see the figure of the Virgin and child. 5. There are many other decorative elements from the gothic period, such as the pulpit, which is the place from which the priest speaks. 6. The Gothic rose window above the door Another very characteristic gothic element is the rose window that is usually placed above the door. It´s made with stain glass (glass decorated with different colours making a kaleidoscope of repetitive shapes). The rose here has the shape of a star, and this is a reference to the Star of King David form the Old Testament. In the centre of the star there is a flower and in the centre of the flower there is the cross.
Renaissance elements We said earlier that there is a mixture of different styles in this church and we are going to talk them now about. 7. Chapel of the Chalice consists of reliefs showing six episodes from the New Testament.
In the centre of the chapel there is a Chalice of medieval appearance, it is said that it´s the cup used by Jesus in the last supper. Have you seen a film called Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail? There are lots of churches that claim to have the Holy Grail; Valencia is not the only one. According to the legend of the Holy Grail, which starts in the Middle Ages, the Grail is a source of life and whoever drinks from it never dies. If you look at the reliefs you can see that Renaissance figures look more realistic than gothic figures, and they almost remind us of classic Greek and Roman figures. 8. The choir stalls and the Archbishop's chair are also from the Renaissance period
9. Chapel of the Resurrection is a portico, a door, sculpted in alabaster
Barroque elements 10. Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, by Orrente is one of the most important masterpieces of this Cathedral. We can see it´s baroque because there is a strong contrast in the painting between lightdark and also the shape of the body in the painting is making a curve, like an S shape, and this is characteristic of the baroque period.
Neoclassical elements 10. Chapel of St Francis Borgia
Francis of Borgia belongs to a family of Popes that come from this region, from Valencia. Pope Alexander VI was his greatgreat grandfather and other popes from the Borgia family where Calisto III and Innocence X. There is a legend about the Borgia family as being extremely corrupt: the Popes had lovers and children, and their children, in turn, became new Popes. According to the legend they killed other bishops and archbishops within the Vatican if they became their enemies. It is apparently true that Pope Alexander VI took his own daughter, Lucrecia Borgia, as his lover. But Lucrecia had a brother called Cesar who was also her lover and with whom she had a child. After giving you this piece of historical gossip I have to explain that the Borgias were not any more corrupt than other Italian families of Popes at the time. All Popes in the 15th and 16th centuries were apparently corrupt, but the Borgias were foreigners in Rome at a time when there were only Italian popes. So it is possible that the black legend that surrounds the Borgia name was created by their enemies. What is important about these paintings is the fact that they were painted by Goya, one of the most important painters of all times. At the time Spain was involved in a traumatic war against Napoleonic France. Spain wanted its independence but also there were revolts that opposed the reformists who wanted more democracy against the traditional forces of society. It was a
time of violence and Goya show this in his paintings: people is represented with animal faces that tell us of human cruelty.
Left: St. Francis Borgia saying goodbye to his family, by Goya. Right: St. Francis Borgia assisting a dying man, by Goya.
Torres de Serranos The Torres de Serranos is one of the twelve gates that had the medieval city wall of Valencia. It is one of Valencia's most iconic buildings and is one of the best preserved monuments in the city. The gate was built in the 14th century, it was the main entrance to the city and it was originally build with a defensive function. But it was also used for ceremonies and the official entrance of ambassadors and kings. It has been used as a prison, and also as a deposit for all the paintings that were taken out of the Museum of El Prado in Madrid during the war. Now a day it is used again for ceremonies during the town festival.
CLIL lesson on Spanish History, Culture and Traditions 1. Link the following art movements to their historical period.
Romanesque
17th century
Art Nouveau
20th century
Baroque
13th15th century
Gothic
11th 12th century
2. Can you name any other art movements?
3. A new social class appeared in the 13th century. Choose the right answer.
Bourgeoisie
Middle class
Aristocracy
4. Which of the following professions belongs to the social class mentioned
above? Merchants
peasants
bankers
factory owners soldiers
nobles
5. Draw one of the columns of the silk market.
6. Gothic columns remind us of the shape of a ________________________ .
7. During how many centuries was Spain occupied by the Muslims?
That is from the beginning of the 8th century to the _______________ century.
8. How was the relationship between Muslims and Christians during this period?
Were they always enemies?
9. There was a third religious community that lived in Spain in medieval times.
Which one?
10. Feel in the gaps: a. The _______________capital, Cordova, was the _____________________ centre
of
Europe;
there
were
big
___________________________
libraries
and
full
of
books
about
____________________________,
medicine, biology, astronomy, chemistry, etc. All this _______________________ was introduced to the European culture through Spain, and it helped transform Europe into a more _________________society. b. A Gothic church has the shape of a _______________________. c.
Compared
to
Romanesque
churches,
Gothic
churches
much______________________ and full of ________________________.
11. What shape has a “rose window”?
were