t; two flanking towers,--of which only the northern
has been constructed, the other having been substituted by a cupola of
decided Byzantine or Oriental taste,--and a noble western facade of
three immense doors surmounted by a circular rosace thirty feet wide.

The size of the building was in itself a guarantee that it would be one
of the largest in the world, being four hundred feet long by two hundred
broad, and one hundred feet high at the intersection of transept and
nave.

[Illustration: TOLEDO CATHEDRAL]

It took 250 years for the cathedral to be built, and even then it was
not really completed until toward the middle of the eighteenth century.
In the meantime the nation had risen to its climax of power and wealth,
and showered riches and jewels upon its great cathedral. Columbus
returned from America, and the first gold he brought was handed over to
the archbishop; foreign artisans--especially Flemish and
German--arrived by hundreds, and were employed by Talavera, Cisneros,
and Mendoza, in the decoration of the church. Unluckily, additions were
made: the pointed arches of the facade were surmounted by a rectangular
body which had nothing in common with the principle set down when the
cathedral was to have been purely ogival.

The interior of the church was also enlarged, especially the high altar,
the base of which was doubled in size. The _retablo_ of painted wood was
erected toward the end of the fifteenth century, as well as many of the
chapels, which are built into the walls of the building, and are as
different in style as the saints to whom they are dedicated.

As time went on, and the rich continued sending their jewels and relics
to the cathedral, the Treasury Room, with its pictures by Rubens, Duerer,
Titian, etc., and with its _sagrario_,--a carved image of Our Lady,
crowning an admirably chiselled cone of silver and jewels, and covered
over with the richest cloths woven in gold, silver, silk, and precious
stones,--was gradually filled with hoarded wealth. Even to-day, when
Spain has apparently reached the very low ebb of her glory, the
cathedral of Toledo remains almost intact as the only living
representative of the grandeur of the Church and of the arts it fostered
in the sixteenth century.

Almost up to the beginning of the nineteenth century the building was
continually being enlarged, modified, and repaired. Six hundred years
since the first stone had been laid! What vicissitudes had not the