There is no triforium, but a finely carved late Gothic balcony runs
around the nave and transepts below the clerestory. In the transepts,
this is surmounted by a second one underneath the small roses which
penetrate their upper wall surfaces. Both nave and side aisles are
lofty, the vaulting rising in the former to a height of about 100 feet
and, in the latter, to 80 feet, while the cupola soars 330 feet above.
The vaulting itself is most elaborate and developed. While the early
Gothic edifices have only the requisite functional transverse, diagonal
and wall ribs, we now find every vault covered with intermediate ones of
most intricate designs. Especially over the Capilla Mayor in its
ambulatory chapels and around the lantern, this ornamentation becomes
profuse,--everywhere ribs are met by bosses and roses. The general
effect of the endless cutting up of the vaults into numberless
compartments by the complicated system of lierne ribs is one of
restlessness. One misses the logical simplicity of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries and is reminded of the decadent surfacing of late
German work and the ogee, lierne ribs of some of the late English, in
which the true ridges can no longer be distinguished from the false.
Looking up into the dome over the crossing, we see that the pendentives
do not rise directly above the four arches, but spring some fifteen feet
higher up above a Gothic balustrade which is surmounted by elliptical
arches pierced by circular windows. The dome, disembarrassed of the ribs
which still cling to some of its predecessors, is finely shaped,--a
thorough Renaissance piece of work. Light streams down through the
bull's eye under the lantern.
There is considerable difference in the design as well as workmanship ofthe many
rejas. Tremendous iron rails, surely not as fine as those of
Seville, Granada, or Toledo, but still very remarkable, close the three
sides of the Capilla Mayor and the front of the choir. The emblematical
lilies of the Cathedral rise in rows one beside the other, as one sees
them in a florist's Easter windows. Rejas close off similarly all the
outer chapels from the side aisles.
Among the very few portions of the old Cathedral which remained intact
after the fury of the Comunidades, were the choir stalls and an
exquisite door. The former were placed in the new choir and the latter
became an entrance to the transplanted cloisters. It was indeed
fortunate that these stalls were spared, for they are among the most
exquisite in Spain and excelled by few in either France or Germany.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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