The interior is grand and impressive in the extreme, though a trifle marred by the heaviness of the pillars. There is no triforium. The pointed windows of the clerestory are filled with glass vividly coloured, much of it modern, some of it the work of Juan Guas, specimens of whose craftmanship are to be seen at Toledo. The aisles are half the height of the nave, the intervening space being pierced with small rose-windows. At festivals the arches are hung with precious tapestries, designed after the Italian fashion with scenes from the histories of Joshua, Samson, David, and Cyrus. They are believed to have been presented by some potentate to the chapter about the year 1600. While the columns are massive and plain, the bases are finely moulded and the capitals are carved with exuberant foliage. The choir screen is of marble and jasper; the stalls are plainly and chastely carved. Over the crossing rises a low, simple, but effective octagonal lantern. “The old outside roof is destroyed; but the finish of the lanterns of Lerida and of the old cathedral of Salamanca made it pretty certain that it was intended to have a pyramidal or domical stone roof.” The transepts are square, except for an apsidal recess at the east side of each. The nave and aisles end in apses--the oldest part of the edifice. The roof of the chancel apse is considerably lower than the choir’s, and the wall-space is pierced with a small rose-window. This part of the church is pure Romanesque. The high altar, however, is Gothic, and adorned with admirable reliefs, illustrating the martyrdom and apotheosis of St. Thecla, the patron of Tarragona. The centre is occupied by a colossal statue of the Virgin, covered by a very high peaked canopy of wood. To the right of the altar is the tomb of Archbishop Alfonso de Aragon, who died in 1514, and to the left a tomb older by two hundred years, that of Juan de Aragon, Patriarch of Alexandria. The remains of Cyprian, a Visigothic bishop of the see, are contained in an urn behind the reredos. The tombs are not very fine or numerous for a cathedral so ancient and so splendid. At the south side of the chancel, at its junction with the apse, is a very remarkable stone turret stair, leading up to a square tower which rises over the end of the south aisle. There was probably at one time a corresponding steeple on the north side.