d support the great weight is most impressive. The
outer walls have in some places a thickness of ten feet and the piers
are much larger in section than those of the new Cathedral which carry
vaults soaring far above the roof of the earlier structure. The choir
had formerly blocked the clear run of the nave; to the good fortune of
the old church and the injury of the new, this was removed to the latter
when it was sufficiently advanced to receive it. Unfortunately, the plan
of the west front was very radically disturbed by the building of the
new Cathedral, the two old towers flanking the entrance being removed
and a narrow passage, which leads into the nave through the immense
later masses of masonry, taking the place of the old entrance. The nave
is 33 feet wide, 190 feet long and 60 feet high; the side aisles are 20
feet broad, 180 feet long and 40 feet high, thus surprisingly high in
proportion to the nave.

The main piers which subdivide nave and side aisles are most
interesting, as their greater portion belongs to the original structure.
They are faced by semicircular shafts which carry simple, unmolded,
transverse ribs in the central aisle. A small additional columnar
section is seen in the angles of the piers, supporting in an awkward
position, with the assistance of the interposed corbel, molded, diagonal
vaulting ribs. Columns, reaching to about two thirds of the height of
the tall shafts of the nave, carry the arches separating nave from side
aisles. The undecorated base-molds of the total composite piers are all
supported upon a heavy, widely projecting, common drum, a curious
remnant of the earlier single Byzantine pillar of but one body and base.

The capitals are among the great glories of the edifice. They are
remarkable from every point of view, and among the finest Byzantine
extant, comparable to the best of Saint Mark's or of Sancta Sofia. The
acanthus leaves are carved with all the jewel-like sparkle and crispness
and the play of light and shade of the best period; the life and spring
of a living stem are in them. Their oriental parentage is apparent at a
glance. Much of the carving is alive with all the fancy and imagination
of the day,--beasts and monsters, real and mythical animals, masks and
contorted human figures and devils interlace on the bells and peer out
from the foliage. The execution is quite unrestrained. It has a
divergency which must have had its unconscious origin in the different
a