page_title: Las Palmas Cathedral
section_title: Architecture and fittings
hierarchical_section_title: Las Palmas Cathedral / Architecture and fittings
caption_attribution_description: Patio degli aranci
context_page_description: The Cathedral of Santa Ana is a Roman Catholic church located in Las Palmas, Canary Islands. The cathedral is the seat of the Diocese of the Canaries. It is situated within the Vegueta neighborhood, next to the Plaza Mayor of Santa Ana. The feast of the cathedral's dedication is celebrated annually on November 26. The structure is considered the most important monument of Canarian religious architecture.
context_section_description: The cathedral was designed in the Gothic Pointed architectural style. The present structure consists of a nave with double aisles, pseudo-transepts with eastern aisles, and a sanctuary. The nave and aisles are of four bays westward of the cross. The primary aisles are carried to the same height as the nave. The secondary aisles are low, and used for chapels. The wall between the two aisles carries a clerestory. The piers are worked in imitation of palm-trees. On a bold square base, 5 square feet (0.46 m²), is imposed an octagon. On the octagon, there is a circle of deeply cut classicizing mouldings from which rise columns circular in plan. These columns are finely moulded; four bold circular rolls at the cardinal sides; between each are three fluted members. The whole effect combines the Corinthian and Pointed. These columns are banded twice with a very rich and effective moulding, combining a cable, with a row of ball-flowers above it; below, a deeply cut chevron, pointing downwards. These shafts have no capitals; they run up into a horizontal fillet, from which spring plain vaulting ribs, which flow from the shafts as palm-branches do from the trunk. The vaulting is good sexpartite. Between the two aisles are pure pointed arches. The responds to the circular piers,—that is, the responds on the wall between the aisles, into which the vaulting of the primary aisles falls,—are half shafts of ordinary Pointed work, without fillets, and of five foliaged heads; the caps of the aisle vaulting are also foliaged. The western responds to the circular shafts are also ordinary Pointed. It is plain, therefore, that the architect could only trust to his palmary development in the isolated shafts. This is the old work: the church being left unfinished in the sixteenth century.
  Eastward of the four bays is Eduardo's eighteenth century work; it consists of a cross, with transepts, or rather pseudo-transepts, carried up throughout to the height of the nave and first aisles, but not extending laterally beyond the secondary aisles. Throughout the arches are scarcely pointed, as nearly as possible forming a semi-circle. The square of the cross is like the old work, except that the soffits of the four sustaining arches are enriched with featherings of shell-work, and above these is a deeply sunk hollow, enriched with ornaments. Above the arches rises a second pointed arch, sustaining a vaulted ciborium, entirely classical on the exterior, but pointed within. The space between the two arches is pierced with three windows; between each window is a statue. The transepts have eastward aisles, the piers of all which are exactly the same palm-trees as in the old work. The sanctuary has one bay more, without aisles, to itself, making in all seven bays to the nave, cross, and sanctuary, and six to the rest of the church. As is frequently the case in Spain, a mass of sacristy and the "panteon" are attached to the east end, which has therefore no constructive architectural feature. The dimensions of the church from the west are as follows:—four bays, each 23 feet (7.0 m) long; three piers, each 5 feet (1.5 m) in the square; two piers for the cross, each 5 feet (1.5 m) in the square; the cross, 30 feet (9.1 m); the aisle of the cross, 25 feet (7.6 m); the sanctuary, 25 feet (7.6 m); equal to 197 feet (60 m), total length. The nave is 36 feet (11 m) wide, and the aisles are each 27 feet (8.2 m); equal to 144 feet (44 m) total width.
  The second and third bays from the west are filled, or rather walled up, with a vile classical coro. The aisle-windows are broad single-lights, and pointed. Many of them, however, are classicized internally, as the secondary aisles have been tampered with. Several are walled off for chapels, and in the two western bays of the north aisle the vaulting is plaistered over; and in one of the bays of the south aisle, the old piers have been cut away, and Corinthian shafts have been stuck onto the walls. There are two ambons against the easternmost piers of the cross. 
  The exterior was intended to be entirely cased by Eduardo, an
caption: One of the campaniles.
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