somewhere in the fifteenth century--helps to show off to better
advantage the rich sculptural decorations, leaf and floral designs on
capitals and friezes.

The real wonder of the cathedral is the far-famed Portico de la Gloria,
the vestibule or narthex behind the western entrance of the church, and
as renowned as its sculptural value is meritorious.

So much has already been written concerning this work of art that really
little need be mentioned here. Street, who persuaded the British
Government to send a body of artists to take a plaster copy of this
strange work, could not help declaring that: "I pronounce this effort of
Master Mathews at Santiago to be one of the greatest glories of
Christian art."

And so it is. Executed in the true Romanesque period, each column and
square inch of surface covered with exquisite decorative designs,
elaborated with care and not hastily, as was the habit of later-day
artists, the three-vaulted rectangular vestibule between the body of the
church and the western extremity where the light streams in through the
rose window, is an immense allegory of the Christian religion, of human
life, and above all of the mystic, melancholy poetry of Celtic Galicia.
Buried in half-lights, this song of stone with the statue of the Trinity
and St. James, with the angels blowing their trumpets from the walls,
and the virtues and vices of this world symbolized by groups and by
persons, is of a sincere poetry that leaves a lasting impression upon
the spectator. Life, Faith, and Death, Judgment and Purgatory, Hell and
Paradise or Glory, are the motives carved out in stone in this unique
narthex, so masterful in the execution, and so vivid in the tale it
tells, that we can compare its author to Dante, and call the Portico de
la Gloria the "Divina Commedia" of architecture.

At one end there is the figure of a kneeling man, the head almost
touching the ground in the body's fervent prostration in front of the
group representing Glory, Trinity, and St. James. Is it a
twelfth-century pilgrim whom the artist in a moment of realistic
enthusiasm has portrayed here, in the act of praying to his Creator and
invoking his mercy? Or is it the portrait of the artist, who, even after
death, wished to live in the midst of the wonders of his creation? It is
not positively known, though it is generally supposed to be Maestro
Mateo himself, kneeling in front of his Glory, admiring it as do all
visitors, and watching