luence. To-day, with only about ten thousand
inhabitants, thrown in the background by Madrid, it manages to keep
alive and nothing more.

The date when the erection of the cathedral church of Avila was begun is
utterly unknown. According to a pious legend, it was founded by the
third bishop, Don Pedro, who, being anxious to erect a temple worthy of
his dignity, undertook a long pilgrimage to foreign countries in search
of arms, and returned to his see in 1091. Sixteen years later, according
to the same tradition, the present cathedral was essentially completed,
a bold statement that cannot be accepted because in manifest
contradiction with the build of the church.

According to Senor Quadrado, the oldest part of the building, the apse,
was probably erected toward the end of the twelfth century. It is a
massive, almost windowless, semicircular body, its bare walls
unsupported by buttresses, and every inch of it like the corner-tower of
a castle wall, crenelated and flat-topped.

The same author opines that the transept, a handsome, broad, and airy
ogival nave, dates from the fourteenth century, whereas the western
front of the church is of a much more recent date.

Be that as it may, the fact is that the cathedral of Avila, seen from
the east, west, or north, is a fortress building, a huge, unwieldy and
anti-artistic composition of Romanesque, Gothic, and other elements. The
western front, with its heavy tower to the north, and the lack of such
to the south, appears more gloomy than ever on account of the obscure
colour of the stone; the facade above the portal is of one of the most
peculiar of artistic conceptions ever imagined; above the first body or
the pointed arch which crowns the portal comes the second body, divided
from the former by a straight line, which supports eight columns
flanking seven niches; on the top of this unlucky part comes an ogival
window. The whole facade is narrow--one door--and high. The effect is
disastrous: an unnecessary contortion or misplacement of vertical,
horizontal, slanting, and circular lines.

The tower is flanked at the angles by two rims of stone, the edges of
which are cut into _bolas_ (balls). If this shows certain _Mudejar_
taste, so, also, do the geometrical designs carved in relief against a
background, as seen in the arabesques above the upper windows.

The northern portal, excepting the upper arch, which is but slightly
curved and almost horizontal, and weighs down