nada is not at all remarkable. Its interest is
derived from the city of which it is the chief Christian edifice and the
great bodies which it contains; to students of architecture it is in a
manner a connecting link between the Gothic building of the middle ages
and the modern revival of classical building methods.

It is the death of the old and the birth of the new; it marks the advent
of stagnant, uninspired formalism in constructive forms. Its sarcophagi
and much of its decoration are both in design and execution most
exquisite and appropriate examples of Renaissance art in Spain. Its easy
victory in decorative forms was owing to the fact that there had
practically been evolved little or no Spanish ornamental design outside
of that produced by the ingenuity and peculiar skill of the Moors. The
influence of Moorish design is long traceable in Christian decoration.
The Spanish nature craves rich adornment in all material. The art of the
great sculptors who, like Berruguete, returned at the beginning of the
new century with inspiration gained in the workshops of the Florentine
Michael Angelo, soon found a host of pupils and followers. Not only in
stone, but in wood, metal, plaster, and on canvas, the new forms were
carried to a gorgeous profusion never dreamt of before. Charles V stands
out amid its glories in as clear relief as in the tumult of the
battlefield. The decline and frigid formality did not set in until the
reign of his unimpassioned and repulsive son. The grandest epoch in
Spain's history thus corresponds to the most inspired period of its
sculpture. The first architects of this period worked on Granada
Cathedral; the work of the greatest sculptor, the Burgundian Vigarny, is
found in inferior form on the retablo of the Royal Chapel. In Spain,
where the climate made small window openings desirable, the churches
offered great wall spaces to the sculptor. The splendid portals, window
frames, turrets and parapets, the capitals and string courses and niches
all became rich fields for Spanish interpretation of the exquisite art
of Lombardy.

The new art first found tentative expression in decorative forms, then
in more radical and structural changes. The world-empire of which
Ferdinand had dreamed, and which his grandson almost possessed, placed
untold wealth and the art of every kingdom at the disposal of Spain.

Granada Cathedral has a strange exterior, meaningless except in certain
portions, which are essen