In the Plaza del Conde de Luna is the mean little church of San Salvador del Palaz del Rey, built by Ramiro II. as a convent for his daughter Elvira--she who ruled as regent during the minority of her brother, Ramiro III. Nothing of the original structure remains; but the site is that of one of the oldest royal residences in Leon, and of the first burying-place of her kings, before their ashes were transported to San Isidoro. THE CATHEDRAL of Leon marks the second period of the city’s history and of the architecture of northern Spain. San Isidoro stands for the infant monarchy, with its Byzantine traditions handed down from the Visigothic kings; the cathedral, for the strong, ever-expanding realm of Leon and Castile, in close touch and sympathy with the great Catholic world of the west. San Isidoro is Romanesque; the cathedral is not only Gothic, but purely French, closely resembling Amiens and Rheims. It is a magnificent exotic. It symbolised the reunion of Spain with Western Christendom, after its long night of isolation, the infusion into its art and its people of the European spirit. This beautiful cathedral--_pulchra Leonina_--occupies the site of the basilica of Ordoño II. (of which no trace remains). Planned about the first years of the reign of San Fernando, it was not completed in 1258, when an episcopal congress was held at Madrid to discuss the progress of the works and to grant an indulgence of forty days to the faithful who should assist with alms. In 1303 the Bishop Gonzalez proclaimed that the work was done, ‘thanks be to God.’ The beauty of this wonderful church consists largely in its lightness. Its supports are so slender, its walls so freely pierced with windows at every stage, its details everywhere so delicate, that the term ‘frozen music’ applied to architecture seems here indeed no mere hyperbole. ‘A mere lantern,’ Street calls the church, and blames the architect for his extreme daring and for his excessive use of windows. Though the vaults had been filled in with very light stone or concrete, the fabric was ever trembling on its fragile foundations. In 1631 the vault above the crossing collapsed, and was replaced by a dome. A hundred years later many of the arches of the aisles succumbed. Meanwhile Renaissance and Churrigueresque additions were made; but the whole was restored between the years 1850 and 1901, and now the cathedral exists in almost pristine symmetry and airiness.