more
ornamented, has, like its sister, extremely bald lower surfaces, the
four angles in both cases being merely broken by projecting buttresses.
The lowest story was completed in the fourteenth century. It was added
to in successive centuries by Maestro Jusquin and Alfonso Ramos, but its
great open-work spire, of decided German form, probably much influenced
by Colonia's spires at Burgos, was first raised in the fifteenth
century.

It is a complete monotonous lacework of stone, not nearly as spirited as
similar, earlier, French work. The spire is separated from the bald base
by a two-storied belfry, with two superimposed openings on each surface.
Gothic inscriptions decorate the masonry and the huge black letters
spell out "Deus Homo--Ave Maria, Gratia plena."

At the base, between these huge, grave sentinels, stands the magnificent
old portico with the modern facing of the main body of the church above
it. This screen of later days, built after the removal of a hideously
out-of-keeping Renaissance front, is contained within two buttresses
which meet the great flying ones. In fact, looking down the stone gorge
between these buttresses and the towers, one sees a mass of pushing and
propping flying buttresses springing in double rows above the roof of
the side aisles towards the clerestories of the nave. The screen itself
contains, immediately above the portico, an arcade of four subdivided
arches, corresponding to the triforium, and above it a gorgeous rose
window. It is the best type of late thirteenth or early
fourteenth-century wheel of radial system, very similar in design to the
western wheel of Notre Dame de Paris and the great western one of
Burgos. Springing suddenly into being in all its developed perfection,
it can only be regarded as a direct importation from the Isle de France.
The ribs of the outer circle are twice as many as those of the inner,
thus dividing the glass surfaces into approximately equal breadth of
fields. This and the rose of the southern transept are similar, and both
are copies of the original one still extant in the north transept. A
fine cornice and open-work gallery surmount the composition, flanked by
crocketed turrets and crowned in the centre by a pediment injurious in
effect and of Italian Renaissance inspiration. The gable field is broken
by a smaller wheel, and in an ogival niche are statues of the
Annunciation.

The portico is the most truly splendid part of the Cathedral. Ere