Throughout all the glazed wall surfaces we find evidence of the anxiety that overtook their reckless projectors. All but the upper cusps of the windows of the side aisles have been filled in by masonry, painted with saints and evangelists in place of the translucent ones originally placed here. The lower portions of the triforium lights have been blocked up and also the two outer arches of the clerestory. The light, clustered piers and slender, double flying buttresses could not accomplish the gigantic task of supporting the great height above. Nor could the ingenious strengthening of the stone walls (consisting of ashlar inside and out, facing intermediate rubble) by iron clamps supply the requisite firmness. It seems doubly unfortunate that the choir stalls should occupy the position they do here, when there is such liberal space in the three bays east of the crossing in front of the altar. The stone of their exterior backing is cold and gray beside the ochre warmth of the surrounding piers. The classic Plateresque statues and bas-reliefs, as well as the exquisitely carved, Florentine decoration, seems strangely out of place under the Gothic loveliness above. The trascoro itself is warmer in color, but of the extravagant later period. Its pilasters, spandrels, and band-courses are filled with elaborate and fine Florentine ornamentation, while the niches themselves, with high reliefs representing the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Adoration of the Magi, are not quite free from a certain Gothic feeling. Above, great statues of Church Fathers weigh heavily on the delicate work and smaller scale below. The carving of the double tier of walnut choir stalls is at once restrained and rich. Beautiful Gothic tracery surmounts in both tiers the figures that fill the panels above the seats. Below are characters from the Old Testament,--Daniel, Jeremiah, Abel, David busily playing his harp, Joshua "Dux Isri," Moses with splendid big horns and tablets, Tobias with his little fish slit up the belly. Above stand firmly full-length figures of the Apostles and saints. With the exception of some of the work near the entrance, which is practically Renaissance in feeling, all this carving is late Gothic from the last part of the fifteenth century and executed by the masters Fadrique, John of Malines, and Rodrigo Aleman. Two of the stalls, more elevated and pronounced than the rest, are for the hereditary canons of the Cathedral, the King of Leon and the Marquis of Astorga. Excellent as they are, these stalls are not nearly so rich in design nor beautiful in execution as the Italian Renaissance choir stalls, in the Convent of San Marcos directly outside the city walls, carved some decades later by the Magister Guillielmo Dosel.