SALINAS "In the Midst of a Loneliness": The Architectural History of the Salinas Missions

CONSTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH (continued)

Antecoro and Bell Tower

As work on the church proceeded, in the southwest corner of the convento between the friary and the church the construction crew built a three-story room providing access to the choir loft and forming the bell tower. The first level, opening onto the ambulatorio, contained the stairs to the choir loft. The masons filled this space with earth and stone. On top of the fill they built a flight of stairs the full width of the room. The stairs had perhaps thirteen steps from the floor level of the ambulatorio up to the antecoro, the room leading to the choir loft itself. Two of these stairs were probably at the entrance from the ambulatorio and led up to a landing at the foot of the main flight to the antecoro. A window opened through the south wall of the room next to the east facade tower. [43]

From the antecoro, the crew probably built a ladder against one wall giving access through a hatch to the third level, a mirador or porch-like arrangement that served as the bell tower on the roof of the antecoro. The floor of this level was twenty feet above the ground. The stairs permitted the sacristan to reach the bells, hanging in a room built against the east face of the church east tower, at the south end of the mirador. The small bellroom had a parapet four feet high on the south side, and roof vigas ten feet above its floor, leaving a window-like opening toward the south six feet high and about six feet wide. The parapet around the roof reached to thirty-two feet, its top edge flush with the parapet of the nave. A doorway opened north onto the antecoro roof. The bell hung from a beam running east-west, with one end set into the side wall of the east tower of the church and the other in the east side wall of the bellroom. [44]

Figure 16. Section down the east side of the church of Quarai about 1660. The second story rooms above the sacristy have been added. The stairs to the antecoro and the bell tower on the third level can be seen at the south end of the church. The baptistry is visible beyond the front porch at the front of the church. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Finishing of the Church

The crew plastered the exterior surfaces of the church and friary with adobe. Gutiérrez may have had the exterior walls of the church and friary whitewashed as at Pecos. [45] On the interior a scratch coat of adobe plaster was laid on the walls to smooth the surfaces. Then the crew continued with the construction of the interior details.

Sanctuary and Side Altars

The masons built the sanctuary so that it was above the level of the transept floor, reached by stone steps with wooden treads. Each step had a rise of about six inches, a tread of twelve inches, and a width of about seventeen feet across the mouth of the apse. The steps began two feet south of the transept north wall, on a platform of packed earth about five inches high, edged with beams of wood. The platform was about eighteen feet across and four feet wide. The crews built four steps, giving a total rise of about 2 1/2 feet from the transept floor to the sanctuary floor. Along the sides of the stairs, the carpenters assembled balustrades or rails, with a large post at each end of the bottom step supporting the lower end of the railing, and the upper end set into the wall at the mouth of the apse about 6 1/2 feet above the nave floor. [46]

About two feet from the edge of the stairs they built another step up to the sanctuary platform. Two feet beyond they constructed the predella, the altar platform, a rectangular platform about eight feet wide and nine feet long with its surface about three feet above the level of the nave floor. Centered on the back edge of the predella, near the north wall, they built the altar itself. [47]

The altar consisted of several parts. The most substantial component was the altar table, a solid block of masonry about three feet high, two to three feet thick, and eight to ten feet wide. The table stood forward from the back wall of the apse, so that a space of about 2 1/2 feet remained behind it. Gutiérrez left the space between the altar table and the wall in hopes that it would eventually contain the base of the retablo. At seven feet above the nave floor, or about four feet above the predella surface, he set two blocks of wood into the walls. These would support the lower end of the retablo when it was installed. Gutiérrez hoped for a custom-made retablo of carved, painted, and gilded wood that would extend about twenty-six feet up the apse walls, and perhaps cover all three wall surfaces. The friar had laid out the plan of the apse walls so that they splayed outward, which would show the retablos to best advantage. [48] On top of the altar table the masons placed a smooth slab of carefully carved stone. Eventually various shelves and platforms would be placed here to hold the paraphernalia for the celebration of Mass. [49]

Along the north side of the transepts the masons built two collaterals, or side altars. They stood on platforms of packed earth about five inches high, edged with wooden beams, and measured about ten feet across and seven feet long. The altar tables were of stone, about seven feet wide and two feet thick, set 2 1/2 feet out from the north wall of the transept. Again, Gutiérrez planned that eventually the mission would be able to buy custom-made retablos to fit onto the transept walls behind the side altars. [50]

As a final touch, Gutiérrez gathered members of the crew with some artistic talent and put them to work painting decorations on the white wall plaster. When complete, these consisted of dados along the walls of the church, sacristy, and the choir loft stairwell and probably painted retablo designs behind the main altar, the two side altars, and the sacristy altar. The paintings were executed in red, black, gray, yellow, orange, and probably blue, white, and green. The retablo designs would serve until the new mission could afford to order carved and painted wooden retablos custom-made to fit into the spaces left behind the altars. [51]

With the completion of the wall painting, and after six years of effort, work on the church and convento of Concepción de Quarai came to an end. Gutiérrez began to stock the rooms of the convento with stores, equipment, supplies, and furniture that had either been stored in the purchased rooms of the pueblo or made to his order. Hay, corn, and wheat began to flow into the lofts and granaries. The Indian herdsmen moved the livestock into their places in the permanent pens and corrals. Gutiérrez placed the standard issue vestments and implements of the mass in the cabinets of the sacristy with a promise to himself to begin soon the process of replacing them with finer garments and vessels as the fortunes of the new mission allowed. He furnished the altars and hung the few pictures he had in appropriate places, imagining the splendor of the new church when the real retablos were in place. Concepción de Quarai was ready to face the future.