It is a vast and embattled pile that greets the eyes of the traveller, encircled by a crenellated wall which is pierced by a richly sculptured gate built in 1460 and so richly gilded a hundred years later as to merit the name of the Puerta Dorada. Enclosed by these outer fortifications is another line of wall twice as high as the first, which, together with its twelve towers, was built in the fourteenth century. To the right of the entrance and still in the outer ward we have the little church of San Jorge, built by Alfonso V. in honour of the patron saint of Aragon in 1541, and the chapel of Santa Catalina, believed to have formed part of the primitive building. In the outer ward may also be distinguished the remains of numerous other buildings, such as the Abbot’s house, the Hospice, and the Bridewell, reserved for female offenders against the Abbot’s jurisdiction. The inner ward is reached through a gatehouse of the Edwardine type, flanked by heavily machicolated drum-towers, and decorated with the escutcheons of Aragon and Castile. We approach the church, founded by Ramon Berenguer, but substantially the work of his son and successor. The ugly Græco-Roman façade marks the ancient west front, which is approached across an atrium called the Galilee. The church is in the form of an elongated Latin cross. The simplicity of the architecture--its absolute freedom from ornament--illustrated the early Cistercian ideals. The aisles are of seven bays, and the chapels are confined to the south aisle and apse. There were once seventeen altars in the church, of which only four were kept up by the monastery, the rest being at the charge of individuals and corporations. All these, including the high altar, have been stripped of their ornamentations and accessories, and of the once magnificent choir only a fragment of the screen remains. Piferrer, who saw the monastery in its prime, gives a detailed account of it, and enumerated the tombs it contained. He speaks of the imposing entrance to the royal mausoleum, between the chancel and the choir. On the Epistle side lay Don Alfonso of Barcelona (II. of Aragon), opposite him was the sarcophagus of James the Conqueror, near him lay Pedro the Ceremonious. In addition to these monarchs Juan I., Martin, Fernando I., Alfonso V. and Juan II. of Aragon were buried here, with eight queens, thirty-six infantes and nine infantas. Here lies Carlos Prince of Viana, the illustrious scion of the house of Navarre; here were the last resting-places of Aurembiax, Countess of Urgel and the last princess of her house; here lay the proud Cardonas and the noble knights and ladies of the Moncada and Anglesola lines. Nearly all the tombs that had not already been despoiled of their carving and marbles have been removed to Tarragona. Of those remaining, the best preserved is that of the Infanta Juana, with its figures relieved against thick blue glass.