s daughter. Upon her mother's death she learnt her real
origin, and wedded her lover. In gratitude for her non-relationship with
her husband, she founded the convent her mother had ordered, but she
herself remained without its walls!

The least that can be said about the cathedral of Valladolid, the
better. Doubtless there are many people who consider the building a
marvel of beauty. As a specimen of Juan de Herrero's severe and majestic
style, it is second to no other building excepting only that great
masterwork, the Escorial, and perhaps parts of the Pillar at Saragosse.
But as an art monument, where beauty and not Greco-Roman effects are
sought, it is a failure.

The original plan of the building was a rectangle, 411 feet long by 204
wide, divided in its length by a nave and two aisles, and in its width
by a broad transept situated exactly half-way between the apse and the
foot of the church. The form was thus that of a Greek cross; each angle
of the building was to be surmounted by a tower, and the _croisee_ by an
immense cupola or dome. (Compare with the new cathedral in Salamanca.)
The lateral walls of the aisles were to contain symmetrical chapels, as
was also the apse.

From the foregoing it will be seen that symmetry and the Greco-Roman
straight horizontal line were to replace the ogival arch and the
generally vertical, soaring effect of Gothic buildings.

The architect died before his monument was completed, and Churriguera,
the most anti-artistic artist that ever breathed,--according to the
author's personal opinion,--was called upon to finish the edifice: his
trade-mark covers almost the entire western front, where the second body
shows the defects into which Herrero's severe style degenerated soon
after his death.

Of the four towers and the cupola which were to render the capitol of
Valladolid "second in grandeur to none excepting St. Peter's at Rome,"
only one tower was erected: it fell down in 1841, and is being reerected
at the present time.

In the interior the same disparity is everywhere visible, as well as in
the unfinished state of the temple. Greek columns are prevalent, and,
contrasting with their simplicity, the high altar, as grotesque a body
as ever was placed in a holy cathedral, attracts the eye of the vulgar
with something of the same feeling as a blood-and-thunder melodrama.
Needless to say, the art connoisseur flees therefrom.

[Illustration: WESTERN FRONT OF VALLADOLID CATHEDRAL