In entering the crossing, we step into the fullness of the Gothic triumph. The vaults have been thrown into the sky to the height of 130 feet. It is early Gothic work, with its many errors and consequent retracing of steps made in ignorance. The great arches that span the crossing north and south had taken too bold a leap and subsequently required the support of cross arches. The western windows and the great roses at the end of the transepts, with early heavy traceries, proved too daring and stone had to be substituted for glass in their apertures; the long row of nave windows have likewise been filled with masonry. Despite these and many similar penalties for rashness, the work is as dignified as it is admirable. Of course the proportions are all small in comparison with such later great Gothic churches as Leon and Burgos, the nave and transepts here being merely 28 to 30 feet wide, the aisles only 24 feet wide. Avila is but an awkward young peasant girl if compared with the queenly presence of her younger sisters. Nevertheless Avila is in true Spanish peasant costume, while Leon and Burgos are tricked out in borrowed finery. The nave is short and narrow, but that gives an impression of greater height, and the obscurity left by the forced substitution of stone for glass in the window spaces adds to the solemnity. The nave consists of five bays, the aisle on each side of it rising to about half its height. The golden groining is quadripartite, the ribs meeting in great colored bosses and pendents, added at periods of less simple taste. In the crossing alone, intermediary ribs have been added in the vaulting. [Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid AVILA From outside the walls] The walls of the transept underneath the great blind wheels to the north and south are broken by splendid windows, each with elaborate tracery (as also the eastern and western walls), heavy and strong, but finely designed. The glazing is glorious, light, warm, and intense. The walls of the nave, set back above the lowest arcade some eighteen inches, have triforium and clerestory, and above this again, they are filled quite up to the vaulting with elaborate tracery, possibly once foolhardily conceived to carry glass. Each bay has six arches in both triforium and clerestory, all of simple and early apertures. The glazing of the clerestory is white, excepting in one of the bays. In this single instance, a simple, geometric pattern of buff and blue stripes is of wonderfully harmonious and lovely color effect.