sacred glory of an artistic one. The lofty aspiration, boldly hewn in
the Spanish fortress, is no less admirable than the constructive genius
rounded in Brunelleschi's dome.

The remainder of the interior is now singularly undecorated and severe.
The entrance has been so much transformed by later additions that, in
place of the original portal and vestibule, there remains only a
vestibule considerably narrower than the nave, compressed on one side by
the huge towers of the new Cathedral, and on the other by later
alterations. The two older towers which contained, one the chimes and
the other the dwelling of the Alcaide, have quite disappeared. The
vestibule has excellent allegorical sculptures and Gothic statuary.

The northern aisle still has a few mural paintings, but the larger part
of those which once illuminated the bare walls were washed off by a
bigoted prelate in the fifteenth century and the present gray of the
stone, as seen in the dim light, looks cold compared to the rich gold of
the exterior masonry bathed in sunshine. The excellence of the vaulting
is such that to-day hardly a fissure or crack is visible. The old
pavement consists of great rectangles marked by red sandstone borders
and bluestone centre slabs, the size of a grave, with central dowels for
lifting and closing. In the southern transept-arm leading to the
cloisters, some of the original windows are still preserved with their
fine columns, archivolts, and carved moldings. The ribs of the vaults
are decorated by zigzag ornamentation, and here a few magnificent old
tombs remain intact in their ancient niches.

There is, properly speaking, no exterior elevation of the whole
structure. The western front is hidden by the modernization, the north
and south, by the new Cathedral, the cloisters, and squalid, encumbering
walls and chapels. From the "Patio Chico" alone, the old structure can
be seen unobstructed. The curves of the apses bulge out like
full-bellied sails, their great masonry surfaces broken by the small
windows, which are cut with enormous splays and encased and arched by
typical Romanesque features, the windows protected by heavy Moorish
grilles. Engaged shafts run up the sides of the central apse to below a
quatrefoil gallery, originally a shelter for the archers stationed to
defend the building. Two fortress-towers formed the eastern angles north
and south; the one to the north was removed in building the new
Cathedral. A scaled tur