seem generally to have worked more or less in conjunction with each
other, several being employed on the same building, or called in turn to
advise in one place or superintend in another. Sometimes a whole body of
them reported together, or several of them were jointly consulted by a
cathedral chapter.

The original conception of the Cathedral of Granada was the work of
Enrique de Egas of Brussels, who, when he was commissioned by the new
Chapter to plan a fitting memorial to the final triumph of Christianity
over Islam in Spain, was among the most celebrated builders of his day.
He had already succeeded his father as Maestro Mayor of the Cathedral of
Toledo when, just before his death, in 1534, he executed the Royal
Chapel of Granada Cathedral, as well as built the hospital of Santa Cruz
in the same city. The Colegio de Santa Cruz at Valladolid was also his
work, and he had been summoned with other leading architects to decide
the best mode of procedure in Seville Cathedral after the disastrous
collapse of its dome. At times he was giving advice in both Saragossa
and Salamanca. Enrique de Egas' designs were accepted in 1523. He had
hardly proceeded further in two years than to lay out the general plan
of the Cathedral, when, either through misunderstanding or some
controversy, he was supplanted in his office by the equally celebrated
Diego de Siloe. Like Egas, his activity was not confined to Granada, but
extended to Seville and Malaga.

In the year 1561, two years before Siloe's death, the building was
sufficiently completed to be opened for public worship, and consequently
on August 17th of that year it was solemnly consecrated. The foundations
and lower portion of the northern tower were executed about this time by
Siloe's successor, Juan de Maeda. The tower was completed and partially
taken down again during the following twenty years by Ambrosio de Vico.
Then follows the main portion of the exterior work, especially the west
facade (of the first half of the seventeenth century), by the
celebrated, not to say notorious, Alfonso de Cano, and Jose Granados.
The decoration of the interior, the addition of chapels and the building
of the sagrario were continued through the latter part of the
seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries.

[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid

CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA

The exterior cornices of the Royal Chapel]

The building operations thus extended over a period of two