ng
in size, rising some seventy-five feet above the altar. The Spaniard was
equal to any undertaking in the days of early Hapsburg splendor under
the pious Reyes Catolicos. With the aid of Sancho Munoz and Diego de
Yorobo, a Dominican Friar, Francesco de Salamanca designed them (1518)
and then superintended the welding, gilding and the final erection in
1523.

The east end of the Capilla Mayor is formed by the magnificent retablo,
almost four thousand square feet in size. One is immediately struck by
its immense proportions and the infinite amount of carving bestowed on
it. Its great scheme was conceived in 1482 by the Flemish sculptor
Dancart, evidently a man of prolific and versatile imagination. If we
try to compare it with the work of English churches, we might best liken
it to the great altar screens. This and the retablo at Toledo are
probably the richest specimens of mediaeval woodwork in existence.
Portions of the execution are somewhat inferior to the conception, and
yet the artists who labored on it with loving skill until the middle of
the following century carried out all their work with a richness and
delicacy which make it not only a representative piece of late Gothic
sculpture but one of the most magnificent specimens of this branch of
Spanish art. Its various portions embrace the whole period of florid
Gothic from its earlier, more restrained expression to the very last
stroke of the art, when wood was mastered and carved into incredible
filigree work as if it had been as soft and pliable as silver leaf.
Everything that could be carved is there, figures, foliage, tracery,
moldings and mere conventionalized ornament. The central portions are of
the earlier fifteenth century, the outer ones, of the late sixteenth,
executed under Master Marco Jorge Fernandez. The wood is principally
larch, with minor portions of chestnut and pine. The whole field is
divided by slender shafts and laboriously carved bands into forty-four
compartments representing in high and low relief various scenes from the
life of Christ and the Virgin Mary. In the centre is Santa Maria de la
Sede, the patron saint of the church, surmounted by a Crucifixion with
Saint John and the Virgin on either side.

Between the retablo and the rear wall enclosing the rectangle of the
Capilla Mayor, there is a dark space known as the Sacristia Alta, where
is preserved the Tablas Alfonsinas[18] brought from Constantinople to
Paris by Saint Ferdinand'