so great also is my depreciation for those who have wronged her, being
her sons. Who are they? They know that best themselves.

Spain's architecture is both agreeable and disagreeable, but it is all
of it peculiarly Spanish. A foreigner, dropping as by accident across
the Pyrenees from France, can do nothing better than criticize all
architectural monuments he meets with in a five days' journey across
Spain with a Cook's ticket in his pocketbook. It is natural he should do
so. Everything is so totally different from the pure (_sic_) styles he
has learned to admire in France!

But we who have lived years in Spain grow to like and admire just such
complex compositions as the cathedrals of Toledo, of Santiago, and La
Seo in Saragosse; we lose our narrow-mindedness, and fail to see why a
pure Gothic or an Italian Renaissance should be better than an Iberian
cathedral. As long as harmony exists between the different parts, all is
well. The moment this harmony does not exist, our sense of the
artistically beautiful is shocked--and the building is a bad one.

Personality is consequently ever uppermost in all art criticism or
admiration. But it should not be influenced by the words pure, flawless,
etc. Were such to be the case, there would be but one good cathedral in
Spain, namely, that of Leon, a French temple built by foreigners on
Spanish soil. Yet nothing is less Spanish than the cathedral of Leon.

Under the circumstances, it is necessary, upon visiting Spain, to
discard foreignisms and turn a Spaniard, if but for a few days.
Otherwise the tourist will not understand the country's art monuments,
and will be inclined to leave the peninsula as he entered it, not a
whit the wiser for having come.

To help the traveller to understand the whys and wherefores of Spanish
architecture, I have written the "Introductory Studies." I hope they
will enable him to become a Spaniard, or, at least, to join the
enthusiastic army of _Hispanofilos_.

C. RUDY.

MADRID, _July, 1905_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

PART I. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES

I. General Remarks 11

II. Historical Arabesques 18

III. Architectural Arabesques 35

IV. Conclusion 66

PART II. GALICIA

I. Santiago de Campostela 75

II. Corunna 89

III. Mondonedo 95

IV. Lugo