d crossing and the
consequent erection of an even bulkier and far more weighty
superstructure, tremendous circular supports upon octagonal bases were
substituted. They are thoroughly Plateresque in feeling, 50 feet in
circumference and delicately fluted and ribbed as they descend, with
Renaissance ornaments on the pedestals and similar statues under Gothic
canopies, evidently inserted in their faces as a compromise to the
surrounding earlier style.

Glancing up at the superstructure and vaulting, there is a great
consciousness of light and joy,--a feeling that it would have been
well-nigh perfect, if the choir and its rejas could only have remained
in their old proper place east of the crossing, instead of sadly
congesting a nave magnificent in length and size. The brightness is due,
partly to the stone itself, almost white when first quarried from
Ontoria, and partly to the uncolored glass in the greater portion of the
clerestory. Here and there the masonry has the mellow tones of
meerschaum, shaded with pinkish and lava-gray tints, but the effect is
rather that of ancient marble than of limestone. The interior, compared
to Toledo, is a bride beside a nun. Granting the loss of original
simplicity and a rather distressing mixture of two styles, the
combination has been handled with a skill and genius peculiarly Spanish
and therefore picturesque. The austerity of the French prototype has
been replaced by joyousness and regal splendor. If we examine carefully
the older portions of the interior structure and carving as well as the
traces of parts that have disappeared, we feel how very French it is,
and undoubtedly erected without assistance from Moorish hands. The
vaulting is like some of the French, very rounded, especially in the
side aisles. It is all plain excepting under the dome and the vaults
immediately abutting, where additional ribs were evidently added at a
later time. The vaulting ribs of the main arches start unusually low
down, almost on a level with the top of the triforium windows, giving
the church relatively a much lower effect than Leon or the French Rheims
or Amiens.

Both triforium and clerestory are very fine, especially in the nave,
where, although they have undergone alterations, these are less radical
than in the Capilla Mayor. The triforium, which is early
thirteenth-century work, is strikingly singular. Its narrow gallery is
covered by a continuous barrel vault parallel to the nave. Six slende