Galdosian route: 05. the Cathedral

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Routes · Subcategory: Galdosian route

Herrera Piqué tells of how, when passing the cathedral every day on his way to school at San Agustín, the future writer watched as the dome was elevated up to the top of the south tower, before finally resting there.

The death toll would have been rung many times by the bells of the cathedral, as they did around all the churches in Las Palmas, during the terrible cholera epidemic which swept through Gran Canaria in 1851, and forced the Galdós family to flee out to the estate of Los Lirios, in Santa Brígida.

In autumn 1866, Galdós spent some time in Las Palmas and stared up once more at the cathedral, not to draw it with a catlike face, but to create his romantic literary character for his tale called Necrología de un Proto-tipo. The Prototype, the purest caricature of romanticism, was the cathedral's organ operator, a kind of airborne ghost that would float around the chapels. He would spend all day in them before going home in the evening. Just as in París and Seville, the cathedral of Santa Ana also had its romantic character, as musical as Maese Pérez and just as hunchbacked as Notre Dame.

The cathedral of Santa Ana is the most outstanding monument in the ancient city. Work started on it in the 16th century in late gothic style, although the slow pace of construction meant that several architectural styles were incorporated into it, up to its neoclassical façade built in 1871, in accordance with designs by canon Diego Nicolás Eduardo. The Diocesan Museum, at the Patio de los Naranjos, is also well worth a visit if you are in the area.

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