Stained Glasses in Jaén Cathedral

Abstract

A study of stained glasses in Jaen´s Cathedral leads us to distinguish two different types: the transparent ones, corresponding to the classicist taste from the XVI-XIX centuries on the one hand and the ornamented or stained ones, dating back from the beginning of the XX century, on the other. Unfortunately we lack information from Vandelvira´s --the main architect of the Cathedral--original project: whether it was according to the gothic prevalent ideas, which were carried out in many of the Spanish cathedrals at that time, or embraced the new ideas from the Italian Renaissance, which were in favour of a «white light» instead. A survey of the inventory of his goods, made after he died, reveals that Vandelvira was in possession of two of Sebastiano Serlio´s books on architecture. They show that Serlio was in favour of using transparent glasses.  The verification of this new aesthetic in the followers of the work of Vandelvira is evident. A comparison of the luminous effect between classicist stained-glass windows and historicist windows gives us the idea of two totally opposed conceptions of the treatment of light.