of the northern and southern transepts, while cloisters
which abut to the south are entered through the fifth chapel. When
Segovia was built, Spaniards were thoroughly reconciled to the idea of
placing the choir west of the crossing and the Capilla Mayor east, and
consequently the latter was designed no larger than was requisite for
its offices, and a space was frankly screened off between it and the
choir for the use of the officiating clergy. The third and fourth bays
of the nave contained the choir.

As one enters the church, there is a consciousness of joy and order. The
stone surfaces are just sufficiently warmed and mellowed by the
glorious light from above. The piers are very massive and semicircular
in plan; the foliage at their heads underneath the vaulting is so
delicate and unpronounced that it scarcely counts as capitals. The walls
of the chapels in the outer aisles, as well as round the ambulatory, are
penetrated by narrow, round-headed windows, as timid and attenuated as
those of an early Romanesque edifice; the walls of the inner aisle, by
triple, lancet windows; and the clerestory of the nave, by triple,
round-headed ones. Under them, in the apse, is a second row of
round-headed blind windows. None of them have any tracery whatever. The
glass is of great brilliancy of coloring and exceptional beauty, but the
designs are as poor as the glazing is glorious. In the smaller windows,
the subjects represent events in the Old Testament; in the larger,
scenes from the New. Around the apse much of the old, stained glass has
been shamefully replaced by white, so as to admit more light into this
portion of the building.

There is no triforium, but a finely carved late Gothic balcony runs
around the nave and transepts below the clerestory. In the transepts,
this is surmounted by a second one underneath the small roses which
penetrate their upper wall surfaces. Both nave and side aisles are
lofty, the vaulting rising in the former to a height of about 100 feet
and, in the latter, to 80 feet, while the cupola soars 330 feet above.
The vaulting itself is most elaborate and developed. While the early
Gothic edifices have only the requisite functional transverse, diagonal
and wall ribs, we now find every vault covered with intermediate ones of
most intricate designs. Especially over the Capilla Mayor in its
ambulatory chapels and around the lantern, this ornamentation becomes
profuse,--everywhere ribs are met by bosses