nt compartments and dependencies belonging
to church and chapel,--a tremendous development, accumulation,
growth,--a city in itself. The cloisters, as well as almost all the
chapels, were added after the virtual completion of the Cathedral
proper.

The chevet is the keynote of the plan, and the solution of the problem,
how to vault the different compartments lying between the three
concentric circular terminations beyond the choir. Their vaulting shows
constructive skill and ingenuity of the highest order. The architects
solved the problem with a simplicity and grandeur which places their
genius on a level with that of the greatest of French builders. There
are no previous examples of Spanish churches where similar problems have
been dealt with tentatively. We are thus forced to acknowledge that the
schooling for, and consequent mastery of, the problem, must have been
gained on French soil. The central apse is surrounded by four piers, the
two aisles are separated by eight, and the outer wall is marked by
sixteen points of support. The bays in both aisles are vaulted
alternately by triangular and virtually rectangular compartments. The
vista from west to east is perfectly preserved, and the distance from
centre to centre of every second pair of outer piers is as nearly as
possible the same as that of the inner row. The outer wall of the
aisles, except where the two great chapels of Santiago and San Ildefonso
are introduced, was pierced alternately by small, square chapels
opposite the triangular, vaulting compartments and circular chapels
opposite the others.

In the cathedrals of Notre Dame de Paris, Saint Remi of Rheims, and in
Le Mans, we find intermediate triangular vaulting compartments
introduced, but they are either employed with inferior skill or in a
different form. In none of these cathedrals do they call for such
unstinted admiration as those of the architect of Toledo. They just fall
short of the happiest solution. In Saint Remi, for instance, we have
intermediate trapezoids instead of rectangles, the inner chord being
longer than the exterior.

The seventy-two well-molded, simple, quadripartite vaults of the whole
edifice (rising in the choir to about one hundred, and, in the inner and
outer aisles, to sixty and thirty-five feet) are supported by
eighty-eight piers. The capitals of the engaged shafts, composed of
plain foliage, point the same way as the run of the ribs above them.
Simple, strong molding