bare and
naked as was the outside, so luxurious and magnificent is the inside.
Involuntarily mediaeval Spanish palaces come to our mind: their gloomy
appearance from the outside, and the gay _patio_ or courtyard behind the
heavy, uninviting panels of the doors. The Moors even to this day employ
this system of architecture; its origin, even in the case of Christian
churches, is Oriental.

Leaving aside all architectural considerations, which will be referred
to in the chapters dedicated to the description of the various
cathedrals, let us examine the general disposition of some of the most
interesting parts of the Spanish church.

The aisles are, as a rule, high and dark, buried in perpetual shadow.
The lightest and airiest part of the building is beneath the _croisee_
(intersection of nave and transept), which is often crowned by a
handsome _cimborio_.

The nave is the most important member of the church, and the most
impressive view is obtained by the visitor standing beneath the
_croisee_.

To the east of him, the nave terminates in a semicircular chapel, the
farther end of which boasts of an immense _retablo_; to the west, the
choir, with its stalls and organs, interrupts likewise the continuity of
the nave. Both choir and altar are rich in decorative details.

Behind the high altar runs the ambulatory, joining the aisles and
separating the former from the apse and its chapels. The rear wall of
the high altar (in the ambulatory) is called the _trasaltar_, where a
small altar is generally situated in a recess and dedicated to the
patron saint, that is, if the cathedral itself be dedicated to the
Virgin, as generally happens.

Sometimes an oval window pierces the wall of the _trasaltar_ and lets
the light from the apsidal windows enter the high altar; this
arrangement is called a _transparente_.

The choir, as wide as the nave and often as high, is rectangular; an
altar-table generally stands in the western extremity, which is closed
off by a wall. The rear of this wall (facing the western entrance to the
temple) is called the _trascoro_, and contains the altar or a chapel;
the lateral walls are also pierced by low rooms or niches which serve
either as chapels or as altar-frames.

The placing of the choir in the very centre of the church, its width and
height, and its enclosure on the western end by a wall, render
impossible a view of the whole building such as occurs in Northern
cathedrals, and upon which t