architects of her
age. Some attribute the original plans of the church to Alfonso
Rodriguez, others to Alfonso Martinez, who was Maestro Mayor of the
chapter in 1396, others again to Pedro Garcia; a long list of names
follows: Juan the Norman, Juan de Hoz, Alfonso Ruiz, Ximon, Alfonso
Rodriguez, and Gonzalo de Rojas, Pedro Mellan, Miguel Florentin, Pedro
Lopez, Henrique de Egas, Juan de Alava, Jorge Fernandez Alleman, Juan
Gil de Hontanon and the masters who after the earthquake hurried to
Seville from their buildings in Toledo, Jaen, Vittoria, and other
places. Casanova is the last of her many architects.

Correctly speaking, there is no facade. The Cathedral runs from west to
east, the western or main entrance portal being pierced by three ogival
doorways, the Puerta Mayor with a modern relief of the Assumption, the
Puerta del Nacimento or de San Miguel to the south, and the Puerta del
Bautizo or de San Juan to the north. Saint Miguel has a relief of the
Nativity of Christ, Saint Juan, one representing Saint John baptizing.
In the moldings surrounding these, are very exquisite little figures of
early sixteenth-century work executed in terra-cotta. They are full of
the best Gothic feeling, splendidly fitted to their spaces, alive with
the expression of the imaginative period of their sculptor, Pedro
Millan. Above and around the door of San Juan is a Gothic tracery of the
most elaborate character.

One cannot refrain from comparing the sculptural work of these three
doorways. Riccardo Bellver's modern Assumption over the central doorway
is as congealed as the terra-cotta sculptures above and around the side
portals are admirable. They are unquestionably among the most
interesting bits of relief as well as figure sculpture of their kind
produced in Spain during the fifteenth century. Pedro Millan stands out
as a great mediaeval master, not only from the consummate skill with
which the drapery is treated but from the living, breathing personality
and attitudes of the men and women around him, which we still gaze at in
the truth of their curious, naive, fifteenth-century light.

As the whole western facade was not completed in its present form until
1827, much of its work is as poor as it is modern.

There are two entrances to the eastern end, richly decorated with fine
terra-cotta statues and reliefs of angels, patriarchs, and Biblical
figures, attributed to Lope Marin. In the northern facade there are
three,--one cl