We cross the spacious plaza in front of the cathedral, with its fine marble fountain, presided over by Neptune and his Tritons, and go into the town in search of ancient buildings. Of thirteenth-century architecture there are no more examples; but the southern wall was built by Alfonso XI. about 1324, to take in a quarter which had hitherto been a suburb. The old Roman wall began at the stern, square Torre de los Ponces. The gates in Alfonso’s wall have all been restored and modernised, except that of Santo Domingo, which, with its low arch and pointed vaulting, preserves the true mediæval air. The Moneda gate carries a statue of Carlos III., erected in 1759, the year of his accession. Enrique II. (Trastamara) built a palace at Leon on the model, it is said, of the Alcazar at Seville. What was left of this structure has been converted into a prison. The Renaissance, which left everywhere in Spain so deep an impress, did not leave untouched this Gothic capital. Beside such triumphs of the Romanesque and pointed styles as San Isidoro and the PULCHRA LEONINA rises the church of San Marcos, an interesting specimen of the newer school. Founded as a chapel of the new order of Santiago in 1170, the church witnessed the election of the first prior, and received in 1184 the ashes of the first grand master, Pedro Fernandez de Fuente Encalada. Fernando the Catholic ordered the church to be rebuilt in 1514, but the work progressed very slowly and was not actually finished till 1715. The most important part of the fabric and the plans, however, we owe to Juan de Badajoz, who was working here about 1550. With the adjoining convent, first a hospice for pilgrims to Compostela, now the Provincial Museum, the building presents a very imposing appearance. The church occupies the eastern side of the block, the portal being contained within a very deep and lofty semicircular arch. On either side, in deep plateresque niches, are fine but damaged reliefs by Crozec. The ‘acroterium’ (to employ an expression used by Spanish writers), surmounting the arch, appears to be unfinished, as also are the towers or large buttresses flanking the portal. The church is large and cruciform, with some good glass, windows with plateresque traceries, and fine arabesques. The most notable accessories are the choir stalls, the upper row exhibiting admirably carved busts of New Testament worthies; the lower row, of the saints of the Old Dispensation. Grotesque and capricious masks, centaurs, griffins, and so forth, are introduced in great profusion into the decoration; they were the work, for the most part, of one Doncel in 1542, and were mutilated by a pupil of Churriguera in the early part of the eighteenth century.