ntique caps serving again in the early Byzantine edifices. The ancient
carvers must have realized the full importance of sculptural relief in
their poorly lighted edifices. Again, the corbels which carry the
diagonal ribs are formed by crude contorted beings and animals, in some
instances bearing figures leaning against the lower surfaces of the
diagonal ribs and intended still further to conceal its faulty spring.
At the intersections of the diagonal ribs are bosses with figures at the
salient points.

With an astonishment verging on incredulity, we look up at the vaulting
supported by these piers. In place of the great Burgundian barrel vaults
above the nave and semicircular arches between nave and side aisles,
there are pointed Gothic transverse arches and quadripartite vaulting of
low spring and simplest sections, but nevertheless ogival. It is evident
both by the appearance of shafts, as well as by other indications, that
it could not have been the original construction, but rather one reached
at a later day when the new art was supplanting the old, a substitution
for the original Romanesque vaulting; the upper windows and the most
glorious lantern are all constructed in the Romanesque style to which
the Spanish builders clung so long and tenaciously in preference to the
subtle and nervous French Gothic which suited neither their temperament
nor conditions. The church must originally have been carried out in
their more native art, which they better understood.

The western termination of the church is formed by three semicircular
apses crowned by semicircular vaults. In the central one, closed from
the transept by a simple iron reja, stands the high altar backed by a
great Gothic retablo of fifty-five panels and crowned in the vaulting by
a most remarkable painting. In the walls of the niches is a series of
tombs of persons with varying claims to our interest and esteem. Its
original exclusiveness in the reception of royal princes of pure lineage
gave way in the thirteenth century to admit princesses and bastards.
Here lies the Dean of Santiago and Archdeacon of Salamanca, a natural
son of the King of Leon. His mother, owing to her short-comings, got no
farther than the cloister vaults. Some one has extracted from the
archives of the old Cathedral the origin of the ancient mural decoration
above the high altar. On the 15th of December, 1445, the Chapter engaged
the services of Nicholas Florentino, painter, who for