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Post by Jake on Feb 2, 2008 16:56:20 GMT -5
So I'm tired of waiting and leaving Craig's last broadside sitting there. Let’s clear out the battlefield a little here.
First of all, Craig, I know you carefully said this over and over, but let me restate it here, because it seems to fade from view in your discussion: my argument 25 years ago was about the location of the temporary church, which for a while I thought had been at the south end of the convento. I wrote my early version of the discussion about it to see how well I could support that idea. Ultimately, it didn’t work, and I changed my thinking about the location of the temporary church to have been in the granary from fairly early, after 1727 and perhaps after 1740, as you say. When you look at an ms in progress, you get things like that. But I believe it’s better to have even the interim ms available, to avoid all those cases where one has heard somebody was working on such-and-such a discussion, but now he’s dead and who knows where that went?
But I have never doubted that the Tello church was on the same site as the present church, and formed the lower two feet or so, of the present church – and every piece of evidence I have seen continues to support that idea.
So let’s quit being distracted by the temporary church and look at the evidence for the first permanent church.
First, the stairs. You say you were not claiming that there was only one set of stairs in the convento “throughout history,” and that I shouldn’t go conjuring up stairs. Well, let’s see: you said “there was only one set of stairs in the convento; the stairs were where La Bastida, Everett, et al placed them - in the southeast part of the convento, where they could double as access to the choir loft of the church - the first stone church.” How am I supposed to interpret this, if not a statement that the stairs shown by Everett and Labastida are the same stairs that are mentioned in 1756? Since these are the only mentions of stairs, and you’re saying they’re the same stairs, aren’t we forced to assume you therefore must be claiming that there was only one set of stairs, even if we leave off my faintly sarcastic “throughout history”? How can this be seen as protesting too much? And don’t you conjure stairs as well? Don’t you say “A few wooden steps, inside the building would have sufficed”? Sure, there was an access to the choir loft in the granary. It was either the stairs described in 1756 or another set of stairs, undescribed, that we both would have to assume existed.
We have only two (well, one and a group) of references to stairs. The first is in 1756 (this is the only reference during the colonial period to any stairs in the convent). This mentions stairs to the second floor of the convento that also have a doorway to the choir loft of some church. No mention of a landing – the doorway to the choir loft is “en la escalera,” in the stairs, so why are you making an issue about a landing that isn’t mentioned? No location is given for these stairs, but they are to give access to the second story of the convento, almost certainly by means of a temporary (probably wooden) second story deck or porch ran along the east side of the convento building – something else we have to assume existed. The stairs probably were wooden and temporary as well. It was Hieronymo Ibarra who built the arch-supported stone porch between 1756 and 1759, and where he put the new permanent stone stairs is unknown. These stairways, the temporary wooden one of 1756 and the stone one built soon thereafter, could be anywhere along the east side – where one places them, in fact, is determined by where one places the choir loft that is accessed from them (or at least how one assumes that access).
We have a second reference or group of references to stairs. This is the 1836 stairway shown at the south end of the second-story porch by Labastida and Sanchez, and a similar stairway in the same general location shown by Everett in 1848. Note, however, that the Everett 1846 plan shows no stairway, which suggests that the 1836 stairway had fallen by 1846, and a new one was built by the US Army by 1848. There can be no direct or necessary connection between these two, possibly wooden, stairways of 1836-1848 and the temporary wooden stairway of 1756 that we know must have been replaced with stone stairs by Ibarra.
The Tello church: We know something about the first permanent church. First, and most important, we know it was transepted, like the present church – two people were buried in the church on November 16, 1749 – the first person buried in the center of the transepts, and the second buried in the south transept [see John O. Leal, “Burials of Mission San Francisco de Solano (San Antonio de Valero – the Alamo), 1703-1782,” p. 37, entries 737-39, November 17, 1749, ms. in the library of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, the Alamo, San Antonio, Texas]. Any interpretation of the connecting wall as the wall of this church has to include a transept extending to the north through this wall.
Second: we know construction on the church was continued after Tello’s departure in 1744, and that the church eventually collapsed sometime between the end of 1749 and mid-1756. You acknowledge the variations in the statements about the completeness of the Tello church, the one in 1756 saying the Tello church was still under construction, the 1759 saying nothing about this, and the 1762 saying that it had been “completed perfectly with its tower and sacristy...” In other words, the statement made closest in time to the event described the church as incomplete, while the one written six years later claims it was completed (with this sort of statement we’re creeping into the area of missionaries making cases, rather than reporting factually, but that’s another story). Not that this matters particularly – a building can fall down at any point, depending on how poorly the walls are built.
Third: we think we know Tello worked on the other missions as well. Actually, we don’t know this as a certainty – I infer this, based on the evidence of work going on at the other missions at the same time Tello is in town, and there being no other master mason mentioned in the records for this period. It’s a simpler explanation than three other masons that we know nothing about all working at the same time on the four missions and all leaving before 1745. Also, it is an assumption on my part that Tello used the same design for the Valero church as he used for the Concepcion church – again, it’s simpler to assume that two churches with the same plan came from the same designer, rather than the Valero church being an Ibarra copy of the Concepcion church. The reason I make these assumptions is because of the similarities between Concepcion and Valero. At Concepcion, (presumably) Tello laid out and began the construction of a church and one wing of a convento. He placed the church way off from the original convento and designed the new, vaulted convento wing to connect the two together. At Valero we find a church of the same plan set way off from the existing convento wing, and parts of a new vaulted convento wing tying the church to the old convento, while at the same time forming the south side of a complete convento square enclosure. We also find oddities about the church – its lowest walls seem different up the first two or three feet from the construction above that, and form a ledge at the front and inside the church.
It seems simplest to me to assume both churches were designed by Tello to the same plan, placed in the same way relative to the existing convento, and the oddities of the lower Valero walls are because the lowest section is construction by Tello, while above about two or three feet it’s new construction by Ibarra. I see no need to invent an entire second church foundation at the south end of the convento without the slightest documentation.
That leaves the connecting wall and its figuring, supposedly of raised stone. We have Gentilz’s paintings and drawings showing this figuring, and one photograph that you say shows the same thing with enough enhancement or whatever. I’ll accept that, provisionally, although I’ve also suspected that Gentilz simply misinterpreted markings he saw on the walls. But although I said 25 years ago that that sort of figuring would be on the wall of the nave of a church, I have come to believe I was wrong on that. In fact, I don’t know where such figuring would go. I haven’t seen it anywhere else, so who knows?
You say your case doesn’t depend on the 1756 stairs with a choir doorway. OK, but your case does depend on the connecting wall and its figuring shown by Gentilz. It boils down to this: if you can find one example of a church with those designs built into the wall of the nave, I’ll admit that you have enough of a case for the possible existence of some church, not necessarily (or even likely) the first permanent church, there that I should at least mention that possibility in a footnote.
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crc
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Post by crc on Feb 6, 2008 0:37:33 GMT -5
Jake and readers,
Sorry about the delay in this response to the second part of Jake’s 2-part answer to my initial “prodding” post in December. I’ll try to answer Jake’s latest post in a more timely fashion.
Jake's comments are in brown type.
Finally, the question of the “wall” itself, and why the church was set back from the plaza and convento, that I’m not allowed to get away with. Since Craig insists, I’ll walk you through it, but let me warn you it’s not easy.
It took me a while, looking at the mission churches we have in San Antonio, to work out what seems to have been going on with Tello (other than hanky-panky during off hours)(or even work hours, who knows?).
Tello was hired to design and build four mission churches, at the four Queretaran missions of San Antonio (San José was run by the friars of the college of Zacatecas), and apparently was hired to build the parish church as well. It appears that he designed what amounts to the same church for all four missions – the two we have, at Valero and Concepción, are virtually identical in plan. The other two, at Espada and San Juan, didn’t get above-ground, although the 1772 inventory says that the foundations of the permanent church at Espada were “half-built.” There are indications at both missions of significant foundations in the ground, and probably excavated foundation trenches where the foundations themselves were not completed. Archaeology would be able to trace these structures and tell us more about Tello’s approach.
I suggest then, that we stick mainly with Valero and Concepcion and work with them. It certainly would have been economical for Tello to use the same design for all four Queretaran churches; and though there is no above ground evidence for that conclusion at all of the missions (as you said yourself), there is mention that Valero, Concepcion, and Espada all had transepts.
That being said, as to Valero and Concepcion being “virtually identical in plan,” though, one has to wonder what significance this statement actually holds. Since we don't know if Tello's Valero (#1) was identical to Concepcion or not, I assume you are referring to the present-day church, Valero #2 (The Alamo), as "virtually identical" in plan to Concepcion. So If I read your implication correctly, Tello’s Concepcion is cruciform, Tello’s Valero #1 was cruciform, Ibarra’s Valero #2 is cruciform; therefore Valero #2 must be on, or is most likely built on Valero #1’s foundations. The problem with that is, the cruciform church plan is certainly not a signature idea of Tello’s - one could literally swamp this web site with examples from the Southwestern U.S., Mexico, Central and South America. Even at San Antonio’s Zacatecan mission, San Jose, the church was designed to be cruciform (only during its construction were the transepts left off, the nave shortened, and the twin towers reduced to one). Is this a sign Tello designed it? So the fact that their drawn planforms are so similar has objectively no value as evidence in placing both Valero #1 and Valero #2 on Tello’s footprint. I’m not saying this provides any value to a contradiction of your statement, just that the ubiquity of the cruciform design precludes it’s being used as a means of individual identification. My Honda has four wheels and a chassis, but that doesn’t mean Enzo Ferrari must have designed it, even if he lived next door.
Working with the construction at these other missions, some things become apparent. First and foremost, Tello had a sort of over-complex approach to church/convento design and the relationship between the two. Concepción is the best example: what you see there is not what he was dealing with. The convento there was to the south, around the area where the visitor’s center is now (they built it there over my screams of outrage, but at least they did some archaeology first). The vaulted and arcaded structure running south from the church is Tello’s design, half finished by him along with the church. So, you see, he built the church away from the standing convento, and connected it to the standing convento with a new, vaulted and arcaded leg of convento building. You see where I’m going with this?
I do, but I can’t agree with your direction, and I suggest readers go to the HABS site on Concepcion for confirmation of the following:
First of all, the issue of Valero’s second church being built away from the convento and what was done at Concepcion are not parallel. Unlike at Valero, Concepcion’s church was built as close to permanent standing structures as possible- in fact, its sacristy butted up against the existing granary.
Second of all, the convento at Concepcion had been an adobe structure that was only in the initial stages of being rebuilt in stone when Tello arrived. There were only two ground-floor rooms, and two second-story rooms in stone at that time. Tello had not “connected it to the standing convento with a new, vaulted and arcaded leg of convento building” by the time he hastily departed; and after, neither did any of his successors. From the Park Service manuscript on the missions:
The convento was still in use as of that date, [June 4, 1756] but Ortiz described it as “casi arruinada,” partly in ruins. Consequently, a new convento was under construction. It was to be only one story high, with three cells and several storerooms, all vaulted. (my italics) And from the HABS report on Concepcion:
Work started on the new convento in ca. 1750. Construction had progressed southward to the area of the old two-story convento by ca. 1758. In about that year, the former convento was demolished to make way for the proposed southward extension of additional vaulted rooms. (my italics)
So the old convento was torn down so workshops could be built right over their location. Unlike at Valero, there was no substantial convento to connect to in the first place, and since later events show there was no incorporation of the old part of the convento with the new, we’re left with the fact that Tello was building an entirely new friary. Since Concepcion was the headquarters for the Father-President, it wouldn’t be surprising that work on the more prosaic building was stopped when so little was completed, in anticipation of the new master mason-designed one.
He didn’t do this at the two smaller missions – at Espada, he started the new church at the north end of the already-existing west wing of the convento, and got something like half the sacristy built before he left town. This west wing, though, attached to the second courtyard in the same way that the new convento wing at Concepción attached to the original convento – and for all I know, he intended to make the second courtyard into the actual convento, so that the plan of Espada’s convento would have worked out to look the same as Concepción’s. Same, apparently, with San Juan, although we have way less to work with here, since nobody has uncovered enough of the big foundations in the plaza to see what the plan of the building is, and whether it was the new church.
Since Tello did not attach his new wing to the old one at Concepcion, and at Espada you acknowledge he placed his church against the existing convento wing in the more traditional manner, and HABS has contradictory information on Espada’s and San Juan’s churches, maybe we should drop the two outlying missions for now and get into them on another thread perhaps. You say there hasn’t been archaeology enough for conclusions anyway, so I don’t see any of this speculation helping your argument.
Now, at Concepción and Valero we have identical church plans, and churches set back from standing convento buildings with the intent to connect them together with a new wing. Doesn’t that sound like an explanation to you?
Even ignoring that your previously "virtually identical" has now become "identical" (which they are not), your explanation doesn’t hold up for me, for the two reasons given already: The fact that the two churches’ outlines are cruciform is immaterial in the context of identifying who built it, and it’s demonstrable that Tello did not place his church of Concepcion arbitrarily at a distance away from a viable convento or permanent structures as per your case for Valero. He clearly did not join up his one-story, arcaded convento wing to the moribund, pre-existing two-story segment at Concepcion - so it can’t be used to establish a pattern of behavior exercised at Valero. It’s possible of course, that his intention was to do that at Valero where there was a vital, functioning friary wing already; but unlike at Concepcion, there is no (yet) apparent reason or motive for the church to be placed back from the convento in the first place. The taunt “you wouldn’t let me get away with that” in regards to your omission of a cause for this was to see if you had a reason for it – not an explanation. I was hoping you had some document where Tello or some friar explained boggy ground, or an existing cemetery – something was in the way of a more convenient liaison between church and friary. It appears, after all, that you are also using just the same limited information generally available, plus that which you have unearthed personally, and generously already supplied to me, and others.
So the odd, “over-complex approach to church/convento design” you attribute to Tello isn’t enough explanation or reason for me, given the disparity of conditions at Valero and Concepcion, and the completely different evolutionary developments seen at the two missions’ conventos. Editorializing here, I feel you are perhaps too heavily invested in Antonio Tello. His work was most realized at Concepcion, and when he went on the lam, his church there was only half-finished, his convento half-finished or less; at Valero his church barely cleared ground, and there is no mention of his plans or any progress on the convento. I doubt sincerely that there was ever any attempt at making a vaulted wing of the convento to connect with the unvaulted one at Valero, whether he did or didn’t plan one. According to the reports, when Tello left, there would have been nothing high enough above ground that would have dictated that necessarily be done; and as Fr. Mariano Dolores y Biana wrote of Concepcion in April of 1759:
“Some rooms of the convento have been built for the ministers’ dwelling, the storerooms, weaving room, and other purposes; although the work has not been completed, it is of stone, and up until now, most of it was vaulted; but this proved to be unsuitable and because of this it has been ordered to continue with flat beamed roofs.”
Tello’s vaulted design was not being carried through for a good reason: it was impractical, even with master masons present. At Valero, if Tello’s intention had been for a vaulted convento wing, I can’t recall anything mentioned about one being attempted. The identification of unspoken evidence in a Seth Eastman 1848 drawing of a “vaulted” room to the north of the church, adjoining the sacristy, is actually due to a misinterpretation I can explain in a series of illustrations I’ll eventually post here when I get the technicalities mastered. (I’ll email you them when I post this, Jake).
Tello was an adulterous murderer who fled justice, abandoned his contractual obligations, broke his bond, and whose mission plans may have been too ambitious for the Texas frontier. I’m not so sure the Franciscans would have remained faithful to his designs given those circumstances. The fact that his actual construction progress at the missions other than Concepcion, was minimal at the time of his departure means the friars were not forced into carrying his plans through to completion, even if he had prepared certain elements for those constructions. (The reuse of what is possibly his sacristy door on the façade of Espada’s present church comes to mind.)
One additional note: Tello was also not so hot at alignments. Look, for example, at the lack of parallel in his layout of the vaulted convento wing at Concepción – the east and west main walls separate by nearly a foot as they go south. This suggests that it wouldn’t be odd for Tello to have screwed up the layout of the convento wing that was to connect the church to the west wing. The various angles and thickness changes are the results of the attempts of later architects to correct Tello’s error.
Details: note the thicker wall of Valero for the first few feet of the facade, up to the little cornice about thigh-high. Note that inside the church, in the walls of the transepts, there’s a similar thickening that forms a ledge across the recessed arches in the end walls of the transepts. I think this is the top of Tello’s actual construction work, marking the point where he stopped and someone else carried the church on up, and down to which Hieronymo Ibarra removed the stone of the fallen church – down to the dependable foundations built by the master mason himself, removing all the crap wall built by whoever failed to pass the builder’s test – does it stay up?
Well, I got this much: Tello’s approach to church/convento design is “over-complex,” and his alignments are “not so hot,” but his foundations are “dependable.” Seriously, your interpretations of the various peculiarities in the present church are very intriguing and plausible, and your scenario of collapse and rebuild is worth exploring and questioning in depth, but goes beyond the scope of the reasons for church placement in this rejoinder, so I’ll save that for later.
I think in front of the present church of Valero there are burials in the campo santo, but no first church building. Certainly it’s worth a look, if for no other reason than to resolve this question for good.
At least we agree there is a question worth a look at!
-Craig
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Post by Jake on Feb 6, 2008 13:34:54 GMT -5
Craig--
Is there some way we could make an overlay of the Valero and Concepcion plans and post them here? That would show what level of "identical" I'm talking about. Considering the huge range of designs and proportions that make use of a cruciform plan, it should be made clear that I don't mean "yeah, they're kind of similar transepted churches." Other than that Concepcion is slightly smaller, the plans are really, really alike. Really.
For Ibarra to have replicated the plan so closely, he would have had to carry out a detailed mapping of the Concepcion church, enlarged the plan slightly, and pegged it out at Valero. Since what you call "the ubiquity of the cruciform design" would indicate that any old cruciform plan would work, why replicate the Concepcion plan so exactly?
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 6, 2008 18:07:46 GMT -5
And what's more, if the archeologists are careful and crafty, they'll stay relatively close to the connecting wall, in order to avoid any possible graves farther out in the courtyard, which would immediately shut everything down. Mark My thought exactly. I certainly don't profess to know archeology techniques, but couldn't one dig all along the south wall of the friary and the connecting wall until one came to a perpendicular wall running south and then dig just along that wall, etc.? This would avoid any possible graves unless they were literally dug against the church wall. By the way, I do recall a primary report from Alamo de Parras days of the burial of a captain within the church. I know I have it somewhere in my notes. In the meantime, if anybody has access to Papers of the Robertson Colony (a several volume set), that's where I got it.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 6, 2008 18:10:33 GMT -5
While on it, Papers of the Robertson Colony is an amazing source for Alamo de Parras information.
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crc
Full Member
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Post by crc on Feb 7, 2008 3:38:08 GMT -5
Craig-- Is there some way we could make an overlay of the Valero and Concepcion plans and post them here? That would show what level of "identical" I'm talking about. Considering the huge range of designs and proportions that make use of a cruciform plan, it should be made clear that I don't mean "yeah, they're kind of similar transepted churches." Other than that Concepcion is slightly smaller, the plans are really, really alike. Really. For Ibarra to have replicated the plan so closely, he would have had to carry out a detailed mapping of the Concepcion church, enlarged the plan slightly, and pegged it out at Valero. Since what you call "the ubiquity of the cruciform design" would indicate that any old cruciform plan would work, why replicate the Concepcion plan so exactly? Jake, Yes, but I need to set up a PhotoBucket account so I can post pictures first. The technicalities have befuddled me so far. (Another sign I'm aging.) We should also show the plans side-by-side to scale. For the record, calling the planforms of Con. and Valero #2 "virtually identical, was fine - just not "identical," because of their size difference mostly. Ibarra wouldn't have had to do any mapping if he had Tello's actual plans; and then it wouldn't have been any more work for him to enlarge them than it was for Tello to do so, when/if he designed Valero #1/#2. And I could be an awful snit and say, "why didn't Tello exercise real economy and just use Concepcion's plan again as is - size and all?" But I won't... , I won't...
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Post by marklemon on Feb 7, 2008 23:05:01 GMT -5
There is one point that has heretofore not been mentioned (except by me to Craig over the phone) which in my mind argues for the steps' original placement at the southwest inner angle of the convento cloister. This is the odd placement, flush up against the nothern wall, of the porteria opening. The opening's placement there, when seen in plan view, and in relation with the steps' placement, seems to very clearly indicate that the opening was so placed (off-center, and all the way against the north wall of the porteria room) in order so as not to interfere with the steps. As it is, when one passes through the porteria opening, and energes into the cloister, the steps will be immeidately on one's right after exiting. If the opening had been any more to the left, or more centered in the space, passage through it would have been blocked by the steps against the southwest angle. The porteria was placed in the lower floor of the Convento by Heironimo Ybarra, I presume sometime in the 1750's (don't have my notes handy). In doing so, he placed the opening as I described it, in such a position so as not to be blocked by the steps. To me, this indicates, circumstantially, but strongly, that these steps were the ones described in the inventories, and the same ones which once gave dual access both to the upper floor of the friary, as well as the church choir loft.
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Post by Jake on Feb 8, 2008 14:18:45 GMT -5
First, let me deal with Craig’s comments. “Virtually identical in plan” – this is, of course, subjective, but how close is “virtually identical”? For example, my plan of Valero on my desk is identical to the plan of Valero the building sitting in Alamo plaza – the size of the plan doesn’t enter into it. I don’t mean that both are sort of similar, I mean if you get a plan of Concepcion and a plan of Valero, and you size them on a xerox so that both are the same size, and you lay them on a light table, as I’m doing now, you find that all the walls overlap each other by at least half their thickness in the worst fitting areas (the side walls of the transepts and the end walls of the bell towers) and in most cases fit virtually their entire widths over each other. Buttresses fall in the same places with about a three-quarters thickness overlap. It’s the same plan within the vagaries of laying the places out using measuring sticks, string and stakes and a crew new to this sort of thing. I doubt you could find another plan on the northern frontier of New Spain that would fit either of these two as well, even though there are hundreds of transepted churches out there. “The fact that their drawn planforms are so similar has objectively no value as evidence in placing both Valero #1 and Valero #2 on Tello’s footprint.” Huh? I’m arguing that one piece of evidence that the Valero church of today is on the Tello foundations is that it’s the same plan as the Tello church at Concepcion, and you’re saying that the fact that the plans are the same has no value in my argument? I’m sorry, I don’t understand your reasoning there. “Concepción’s church was built as close to permanent standing structures as possible – in fact, its sacristy butted up against the existing granary.” Well, no. Tello apparently planned and began the granary as well (it was going to be a vaulted structure like the one at San Jose, which he may also have begun, and he apparently started another similar one at San Juan that never got above the foundations), so the location of the church is a matter of his choice – or rather, his design following the Franciscan’s requirements. The relationship of the Concepción church to its convento. Craig, you’re mixing periods together in order to create an argument out of nothing. First of all, I wrote both the Park Service manuscript and much of the historical text for the HABS drawings, and I can assure you that my research results have progressed considerably in the 25 years or so since then, the late 1970s and early 1980s. For example, in the later 1980s, as testing in the area of the present visitor’s center at Concepción, we found by archaeology that the old convento formed a complete square, rather than being only the northern row of rooms we knew about from Harvey Smith’s excavations in the 1930s. And although some of the earliest buildings were adobe (like the early church, a nice little adobe rectangular building), the convento we’re talking about here was of stone. In the 1740s, when Tello designed and began his church and convento wing, all of this was in use (and some parts were still under construction) and apparently was intended to continue in use, and the new vaulted convento wing was obviously intended to connect the church to the original convento. Over the years after Tello’s departure and the hiring of Ibarra about 1750, Franciscan priorities and plans changed (part of the change was the appointment of a new Father President, the chief administrator of the Franciscans in Texas, who moved Franciscan headquarters from Valero to Concepción – while Tello was working out the designs, the Father President was at Valero, which would explain why the Valero church was bigger. The size of the church would be affected by the size of the congregation as well). But what happened later has no effect on what happened before – no predestination in this sort of architectural development. That the Franciscans eventually gave up on the old convento was part of the ongoing progression of construction at Concepción over the years, not some indication that in the 1740s they had no intent to use the building. Tello began the construction of the convento and probably built the first six feet or so, and it was designed to reach the north wall of the old convento. Ibarra, in response to the requirements of the new Father President, added an east corridor to the convento plan, as well as a wing going west, and extended foundations across the old convento, apparently intending to build an entire vaulted convento enclosure up beside the Tello wing on its west side, and to convert some of the rooms of the old convento to utility rooms and workshops – making it into the “second courtyard,” in other words. “Tello’s vaulted design was not being carried through for a good reason: it was impractical, even with master masons present.” Well, no. Ibarra continued the Tello-designed convento, finished the section still standing, and added an eastern corridor and a west wing to it (and both of these Ibarra constructions were as inaccurately parallel as anything built by Tello). The whole use of vaulted construction at Valero was called to a halt in 1759, not because of some failure on the part of Tello fifteen years earlier, but apparently because part of what Ibarra was building collapsed – in other words, it was Ibarra’s mistake that stopped the vaulted construction, not Tello’s. The evidence suggests that it was the collapse of the west wing that did it – that’s the broken half a vault running west from the south end of the standing vaulted building at Concepcion. “I don’t see any of this speculation helping your argument ... I was hoping you had some document where Tello or some friar explained boggy ground, or an existing cemetery ... no mention of his plans or any progress on the convento ... I can’t recall anything mentioned about one being attempted ...” Craig, that’s the nature of this business. If I went only with what was specifically mentioned, I would just recap Habig and spend the rest of my time in a bar. Instead, I take the scattered mentions of work and building conditions in the records (the Franciscans who wrote the reports had a pathological resistance to mentioning work being done, so usually you have to guess that he’s wandering among scaffolding and piles of materials, dodging people hauling doors and beams, to write his report), I work out what masons are in town (I found one mason and one sculptor by reading through all the mission account books), I look at the physical remains of the buildings above ground and in the archaeology, I look at the methods of construction, mason-hiring, and job-management elsewhere on the frontier as context for the work in San Antonio, and I work out a plausible pattern of planning and work that fits the scattered bits of evidence I have. It’s all speculation, Craig, and that’s the only way we get anywhere with this. So of course the speculation helps my argument, because it’s a large part of the basis for the argument.
Now to what I see as the worst thing you could have said: “I feel you are perhaps too heavily invested in Antonio Tello.” Craig, look what you’re doing. You have created an entire building from nothing but a few odd marks on a wall as shown by one artist, and you are telling me to trust that, to change my entire reconstructed sequence of development at all the missions based on all the physical, archaeological, and historical evidence I can find, to ignore the clearly plausible body of work of a known and present master mason, all to do what? Not even to come up with evidence to support your view, but simple to get rid of apparently reasonably probable events that would argue against your view. All this, and I’m too heavily invested in Antonio Tello? An actual, provably present person? To support an idea with no evidence at all other than questionable interpretations of not all that demonstrably present markings on a wall? Who’s too heavily invested, Craig?
Finally, responding to Mark’s comments about the location of the walls of the portería room next to the portería opening. Mark, you’re forgetting that the walls of the interior of the convento were moved at some point after the 1790s, probably during the remodeling of the building as a hospital. Originally, during the period we’re talking about, the walls of the portería were symmetrically located on either side of the main entrance, and included the two little arched openings on either side of that entrance as well. So the location of the portería doorways relative to the later walls tells us nothing about the presence of stairs in 1756. Also, Ibarra built the stone porch and, presumably, stairs after the 1756 report – at the time of the report, the porch and stairs were both probably of wood.
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Post by Jake on Feb 8, 2008 15:07:17 GMT -5
“For the record, calling the planforms of Con. and Valero #2 ‘virtually identical,’ was fine - just not ‘identical,’ because of their size difference mostly.” So you’re accepting that we can say they’re the same plan, just sized slightly differently. For example, the nave of Valero is 25' 3" wide at the transept end, while Concepción’s at the same point is 21' 3". Valero is 105' long, while Concepción is 93' 1 ½" long, and so on. Depending on what you measure, the ratio of Concepción to Valero varies from 1:1.13 to 1:1.19.
“Ibarra wouldn't have had to do any mapping if he had Tello's actual plans; and then it wouldn't have been any more work for him to enlarge them than it was for Tello to do so, when/if he designed Valero #1/#2.” You’re arguing that the reason the Valero church plan is virtually the same as the Concepción plan is because Ibarra copied Tello’s plan in order to build it? As of 1755-1756, Valero still had a larger Indian population, although I would have expected the Father President, then at Concepción, to insist that the Valero church be made smaller than the one he was using at Concepción. You would argue that congregation size was the determining factor?
“And I could be an awful snit and say, ‘why didn't Tello exercise real economy and just use Concepcion's plan again as is - size and all?’” As I said in the above long posting, Valero was the headquarters mission at the time – and if that wasn’t enough, it was also the largest mission with 238 Indians in 1740. Concepción was next, with 210, then San Juan with 169, and finally Espada with 121. Because mission church sizes tended to be determined by the size of the congregation, that, too, would be enough of a reason for Valero to be larger than Concepción as of the time of Tello’s design about 1739-1740.
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Post by marklemon on Feb 8, 2008 19:10:21 GMT -5
Welcome to the Battle of the Alamo Part 57: My Speculation is Better than Your Speculation.Let's be clear about one thing: There is speculation on BOTH sides of this argument, and a convincing argument can be made for each side's speculation. I wont belabor the point by listing all speculative elements of each side, but anyone reading these marathon postings can glean them as well as I can. As I have said before, the solution is so simple it's positively stupid, (which is probably why it appeals so much to me): all of this laborious thrashing about on the subject could be put to rest with the simplest of archeaological digs along the wall's south face. Carefully probe along the southern face to find southward leading footings, and the problem will be solved, one way or the other. But really, it just seems so fruitless to blast back and forth, with battling references, when nothing will ever be proved, unless, and until, such a dig is done. But I am compelled to point out one thing that you said Jake, that seems very dismissive and unfair,and which concerned the designs on the connecting wall ( which you seem to think are some sort of fantasy.) Some points: 1. First, the artist, Theodore Gentilz, while not a master artist by any means, was, if nothing else, a very technical one, and not prone to flights of fancy. Having lived in San Antonio for many years, he visited the Alamo many times, and made a very serious study of the place. He was very meticulous in his rendering of the church front (even if it WAS done later than 1844, as evidenced by some details which indicate it was done at a later date). For him to arbitrarily place imaginary motifs, at unusual locations, not symmetrical (contrary to what one would expect if they were imaginary) and with one of them being undeciferable (again, why do this if it's imaginary? If you're imagining a design, make it any way you want it-heck, put a clown face there if you want, no need to make an undeciferable smudge) all combine to point to a real feature. The "ring of truth" sounds very loudly here. 2. Here is the clincher. The designs, which you seem to really want to go away, are also seen in a photograph, circa 1860 or so, which shows faint traces of both of these designs, as well as the remains of a recessed archway set into the wall. No need to belittle a mere artist here...here they are, in real life, in a photo. If you do not agree with any other element of the argument of the first church being at the site which Craig and I put forth, at least, once and for all, admit that these features are not some artistic fantasy, but real, tangible features that once existed, the last traces of which were most likely obliterated during the Grenet, and Hugo & Schmeltzer businesses' intrusion on the site. Mark
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Post by Jake on Feb 10, 2008 11:37:59 GMT -5
Mark, I don't have a problem with the designs existing. Sure, Gentilz was a fairly good artist, not prone to making things up -- I mean, even his mistakes in his big Alamo battle picture are mistakes of chronology, rather than just making things up. But I have yet to see the photograph that you keep talking about -- and "faint traces" makes me nervous -- possibly you guys are fooling yourselves? But show me the designs reasonably present in a photo and I'll accept them without question. In fact, I pretty much accept them without the photo, because Gentilz was pretty good at recording the way things looked.
But let's be clear on the battling speculation. You both are operating on the assumption that these marks on the wall make a church. I say you have no evidence suggesting that such marks mean a church was there, no similar marks on the wall of actual churches, and you have nothing else, no documents, no physical evidence, no similar examples, nothing. Far as I can see, you guys have made up a church and just put it there.
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Post by marklemon on Feb 10, 2008 22:03:24 GMT -5
Jake, If I may ask you a question.... Assuming for the sake of argument, the carvings did exist, based upon your knowledge of Franciscan architecture, where would you expect to find such bas relief carvings ( including a stepped quatrefoil), inside a structure of some sort, or placed incongruously on an outside wall? Mark
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Post by stuart on Feb 11, 2008 1:35:20 GMT -5
I'll leave Jake to answer for Mexican churches, but over here in Europe that kind of carving would tend to be external. Interior decoration was/is usually painted on plaster. Carved stonework went outside as being more (but of course not entirely) weatherproof.
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Post by marklemon on Feb 11, 2008 2:25:09 GMT -5
Stuart, Jake can confirm or refute this, but my research indicates that on San Antonio area missions, while there may be some areas of extensive exterior ornamentation, it is confined to certain points on the exterior of churches or sacristys. I have never seen any such ornamentation, as I said, incongruously placed on a simple wall, with no real reason for its being there. I would say that, barring some reason (such as its once being part of another structure) this would be a real anomoly.
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Post by Jake on Feb 11, 2008 10:47:24 GMT -5
Mark: You've put your finger on the question. That sort of thing is usually seen on the facades of churches in New Spain, but if it was on the facade, there would be some indication of symmetry. The two forms are typical of windows, fairly large ones in this case, so you could argue that they are filled windows, but if a builder puts in such windows, he usually uses the same design for all of them, not a sort of selection from his window design book.
From my viewpoint, what I would have to argue is that, if they existed, these are designs placed on the wall of the convento. Since I've speculated among myself (so to speak) that that wall surface may have been intended to be the interior surface of a row of second story convento rooms (that would have begun at the church in the space between the north bell tower and the connecting wall), I've proposed to myself that these may have been decorations on the walls of some of the rooms (it wasn't the presence of the markings that led me to speculate on this possible layout, but rather a number of other characteristics in the history of development of that south wing). Somewhat similar patterns are painted on the interior walls of the second-story convento rooms at San Jose, for example. How likely is this layout? I can't say -- no excavation information to tell me if there are structural traces along the south face of the connecting wall. You understand that excavating and finding wall traces there won't prove a church there -- just the presence of a building at some point in the past -- a building like a convento, for example. For it to be Tello's first church, it would have to be a large structure, about the same size as the present Valero church, and it would have to have transepts. If it faced east-west, the north transept would have to go through the line of the connecting wall.
So anyway, yes, the patterns are an anomoly, and I don't know what to make of them. Insufficient data.
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