The richly decorated interior of Santa Maria is most graceful; fan ribs radiate from the sculptured capitals of the tall clustered piers, and, interlacing, spread themselves over the vaulting in a geometrical network, while stone filigree fringes the central arch. The two side naves are divided from the central nave by pointed Gothic arches; each nave is covered with three separate vaults; at the head of the principal nave there is an apse of the same width, while on either side of the apse, at the head of each side nave there is a small chapel. All the vaulting is of one height. There was till quite recently a most gorgeous iconographic seventeenth-century _retablo_ behind the chief altar, but, having become rotten and dangerous, it has now been removed in fragments to the local museum. The entire inner wall of the façade is entirely covered by a series of scenes from the Old and New Testament, sculptured in bas-relief upon the granite blocks--it is so dark in that part of the church that without the aid of a candle the work is hardly visible; one or two of the Biblical scenes are difficult to identify. I do not remember seeing anything like them in any other church; it is a superfluity of sculpture, a kind of inner façade, _contrafachada_. It is composed of nine divisions in three compartments. Among the scenes represented are: the creation of Eve, Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise, and the death of Abel. The chief interest in these is the treatment of details--the houses, mills, and bridges in the background, all have interest for the antiquarian. Upon the site where _Santa Maria la Grande_ now stands there once stood a church built in the ninth century; this is proved by existing documents, and it is also known that the name of that church was also _Santa Maria la Grande_; it stood on the highest spot in the town, and was in all probability the site of a Roman temple; this eminence dominates both the sea and the _ria_. With regard to the name of the architect of _Santa Maria la Grande_ there has been a good deal of doubt; he seems to have been more modest than the _Mareantes_ who contributed the funds. Señor Villa-Amil thought that he had discovered both the date and the name of the architect when he found in a manuscript the statement that on 10th July 1517, Juan de los Cuelos, _maestro de la obra de la iglesia de Santa-maria la Grande ortogó_, etc. Murguia stated that the architect was a Portuguese,--Pedro Gonzalez,--but a local archæologist, Señor Casto Sampedro, has now proved both these statements to be erroneous, for, while reading through some ancient documents preserved in the notarial archives of the town, in the spring of 1907, he suddenly lighted upon the real name of the sculptor of the façade, Cornelius de Holanda.[253]