re,
corresponding to the century in which they were erected.

The ensemble is an astonishing profusion of high and narrow windows, of
which there are three rows: the clerestory, the triforium, and the
aisles. Each window is divided into two by a column so fragile that it
resembles a spider's thread. These windows peep forth from a forest of
flying buttresses, and nowhere does the mixture of pinnacles and painted
panes attain a more perfect eloquence than in the eastern extremity of
the polygonal apse.

The western and southern facades--the northern being replaced by the
cloister--are alike in their general design, and are composed of three
portals surmounted by a decidedly pointed arch which, in the case of the
central portals, adorns a richly sculptured tympanum. The artistic
merit of the statuary in the niches of both central portals is devoid of
exceptional praise, that of the southern facade being perhaps of a
better taste. As regards the stone pillar which divides the central door
into two wings, that on the south represents Our Lady of the Blanca, and
that on the west San Froilan, one of the early martyr bishops of Leon.

Excepting the Renaissance impurities already referred to, each portal is
surmounted by a row of five lancet windows, which give birth, as it
were, to one immense window of delicate design.

Penetrating into the interior of the building, preferably by the lateral
doors of the western front, the tourist is overcome by a feeling of awe
and amazement at the bold construction of aisles and nave, as slender as
is the frost pattern on a spotless pane. The full value of the windows,
which are gorgeous from the outside, is only obtained from the interior
of the temple; those of the clerestory reach from the sharp ogival
vaulting to the height of the triforium, which in its turn is backed by
another row of painted windows; in the aisles, another series of panes
rose in the sixteenth century from the very ground (!), though in
recent times the bases have unluckily been blinded to about the height
of a man.

The pillars and columns are of the simplest and most sober construction,
so simple that they do not draw the spectator's attention, but leave him
to be impressed by the great height of nave and aisles as compared with
their insignificant width, and above all by the profuse perforation of
the walls by hundreds upon hundreds of windows.

Unluckily, the original pattern of the painted glass does not e