The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1910-06-25
cA7HE0RAL At 5AN7O OONJYGO - FIRST kFEcZED ]"

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A/HERIC,A
- HEN the Spanish discover
WEFT and explorers Of America DIR
AN the prows of their frail vesI
GAA through unknown seas
WI search of the India of Il
dreams they left Europe s
ring with that new life VIII
Ga1 S-1azM was to blossom in the rem
NA1GS6H sance. The dark ages W
kNgyZHI Just closing and the wealth
- knowledge and art SO Il
boarded in monasteries
castles, barred from the flow of human
was about to burst forth like q flood to re
tilize European civilization. Crumbling ar
lecture was being restored, churches and
aces were being founded, great engineer
works undertaken. In many respects, inde
the wonderful activities and achievements
that time may be compared with those of
own, in spite Of the differences in methc
materials and purpose. When Columbus
Palos in 1892 St. Peters at Rome was in
hands of builders filled with the new ideas,
waiting for the genius of Bramante and Mic
Angelo; the cathedral of his native Genoa '
being greatly enlarged and embellished;
that Of Seville was nearing completion;
that Of Toledo was just finished For
300 years the Gothic beauty of Burgos
had been growing to its perfection in
1921, the year In which Cortez took the
City Of Mexico; and in the same year
the beautiful cathedral at Granada.
which enshrines the tombs of the Cath
olic kings and commentaries the de-
fiverance of Spain from the Moors, was
begun
This passion for building crossed
the ocean In the breasts of the Spanish
diseoverers and first colonists. who, al
though they celebrated their earliest re-
tgtous services in tents by the sea-
shore or beneath the branches of un-
FAMILIAR foliage, were impelled to erect
as soon as possible temples big and
splendid enough to express the master II
motives OF their age-religion and art
AS Hispaniola. or the island of San
Domingo, was the first land perma.
hently settled, so Isabella, the capifal
now the city of Santo Domingo, found.
ed in 1896 contains what is probably the =
est cathedral church in the new world hoo
IN 1ol4. Within it rested the body of Coin
bus until this part of the island was coded
tne FFench IN 1855, when the spaniards c.
ried what they supposed to be his rnn,oi
WIN enem 10 Cuba Since that time other
mains have been found here which the moor
of Santo Domingo, with Justice claim, ~ ~
the true relics of the discoverer. and AZ su
they are revered and jealously guarded Will
handsome modern monument
At Port au Prince, Haiti, there is a catl
drat long under construction and vet inf
ished. OF mixed French Gothic and Roma
esque style. The French cathedral At {
Pierre. Martinique, was destroyed by the erl
lion of Mount Pelee, and the bishops seat w
removed to Fort de France Owing to the IA
mat the government of Cuba rested for near
40 years at Santiago, from 151S-1582. IT ha
pens that this town boasts cathedral wifi
antedates that OF Havana, but It is not renoar
@ole as compared with many of the Spani,
colonial editices. The cathedral at Havar
and indeed that at Santo Domingo. has mn,
80 inspire enthusiasm from the artistic stan
point, but Havana has been interesting AZ II
temporary sepulcher Of what were called n
bones Of the glnat admiral. His sarconhap1
and the memo1 tble inscription were SET in
the wall of the chancel at the left of the bie
sltar until after the war of 1898. when his i
scendant, the Duke of Veraguas, removed II
nueh-disputed bones to the family mausoleu
IN Seville.
Cortez landed and burned his ships on IL
beach near Veracruz in 1919, determined upc
the conquest of Mexico in the name of sDat
and Of the Catholic church. He marked h
subtugation of every town and province /
founding substantial works of engineering an
architecture. wonderful, indeed. when one co
siders his slight acquaintance with the mat
rials, the labor and the climate that confronte
him and the magnitude and beauty of the r
suits. On entering the City of Mexico Corte
destroyed the teocaH. or Aztec temple an
erected on It's site small chapel for the i
dams, traces of which still remain In it WE
Installed the seat of the first bishop of Mexic
who came out in 1928 as a suffragan Of III
bishop of Seville, but the cornerstone of tt
present cathedral was not laid until 1873. Tn
S the most stupendous of all the Spanish G.
onial cathedrals, the largest In all the Amer
as, and said to be outranked only by st. P
er's in Rome and ST. Paul's in London. 1t ha
ost at the time of its completion about 81 ,0OC
90 a sum as colossal I'm those davs or n