High over the town, on the crest of the slope, towers the cathedral. “This,” says Street (and none will disagree with him), “is one of the most noble and interesting churches in Spain. It is one of a class of which I have seen others upon a somewhat smaller scale (as, _e.g._, the cathedrals at Lerida and Tudela) and which appears to me, after much study of old buildings in most parts of Europe, to afford one of the finest types from every point of view that it is possible to find. It produces in very marked degree an extremely effective internal effect, without being on an exaggerated scale, and combines in the happiest fashion the greatest solidity of construction with a lavish display of ornament in some parts to which it is hard to find a parallel.” Roughly speaking, it may be described as Romanesque, with adornment of the Gothic period. The delicacy and richness of the later style has relieved the crudeness of the earlier, while the severity of the original plan has kept in check the tendency to be profuse of ornament. Schemes were on foot to rebuild the church at the end of the eleventh century and Street thinks the oldest part--that is, the eastern apse--may date from 1131, though the greater portion of the fabric (including the nave and its aisles and the cloister) seems to have been executed at the end of the twelfth and during the first half of the thirteenth century; and it is very possible, therefore, that the brother Bernardus, who died in 1256, may have been the architect of the larger part of the existing fabric, both of the church and its cloister. The west front is striking; it was begun in 1278, but not completed for another hundred years. The lower half is occupied by a deep-set portal of four orders, rising to a point. The jambs are occupied by figures of saints under canopies, and these are continued round the two buttresses which flank the doorway and end in pinnacles. The shaft is formed by a statue of the Madonna upon a pedestal, the sides of which exhibit in relief the scenes of the Creation and Fall. “These subjects are very fitly placed here, the Fall in the centre coming just under the feet of her who bears Our Lord in her arms, and thus restores the balance to the world.” (Street.) The tympanum is pierced with rich geometrical tracery. Over and behind the cross surmounting this grand doorway is an enormous rose-window. The whole is surmounted by a gable, the central portion of which has disappeared, giving a somewhat ruinous appearance to the church when seen from a distance. Flanking this, the front of the nave, are the round-arched entrances to the aisles, with round windows above, betraying Norman influence. Ford states that the great rose-window is Norman work.