The nave produces a more imposing effect than is usual in Spanish churches, owing to the absence of a choir. There is no triforium, but the nave is lighted by round-arched windows of single lights. Over the crossing rises the glorious dome or lantern, called by the Salamancans the Torre del Gallo from the weathercock on its apex. This fine work is supported on arcades, divided into sixteen compartments, and pierced with windows over each of the cardinal sides. Outside, the lantern is roofed with scaled tiles. At the four angles are rounded pinnacles with continuously moulded windows; between these and contrasting with them are pointed gables with windows, the arches of which spring sharply from capitals. In his work on _Gothic Architecture in Spain_, Mr. Street remarks, ‘I have seldom seen any central lantern more thoroughly good and effective from every point of view than this is: it seems to solve, better than the lantern of any church I have yet seen elsewhere, the question of the introduction of the dome to Gothic churches. Though the scale of this work is very moderate, its solidity and firmness are excessive, and thus only is it that it maintains that dignified manliness of architectural character which so very few of our modern architects ever seem even to strive for.’ Standing beneath the lantern, we see the fine wooden retablo, adjusted so as to fit the curving wall of the apse. Its fifty-five subjects are arranged in five rows, and enclosed each in an arched frame painted white and gold. These paintings, representing scenes from the life and passion of Christ, are more delicate and skilful than the fresco of the Last Judgment, on the semi-dome above, painted perhaps half a century later in 1446, by Nicolás Florentino. The chancel was at first reserved as a burying-place only for those of the blood-royal. Here are the tombs of the Infanta Mafalda, daughter of the King of Castile, who died here in the kingdom of Leon in 1204; of Don Fernando Alfonso, natural son of Alfonso IX., Dean of Santiago and Archdeacon of Salamanca; and of _his_ natural son by Doña Aldara Lopez, Don Juan Fernandez, surnamed the Golden-Haired, a brave warrior, who died in 1303. On the gospel side is the tomb of good Bishop Sancho de Castilla, a descendant of Pedro the Cruel, and Doña Juana de Castro, who died in 1446, and close to him his successor Vivero, a counsellor of Fernando and Isabel. The statues of the two prelates are contained in the same sepulchral arch. Here also lie the noble cavaliers, Don Diego Arias, Archdeacon of Toro (_obiit_ 1350), and Don Arias Diez Maldonado (1474), both benefactors of the cathedral, whose ashes were removed here in 1620 by order of the dean and chapter. In the chapel of St. Nicholas, on the epistle side, lies the Dominican Bishop Fray Pedro, who baptized Alfonso XI., and died in the first quarter of the fourteenth century; his effigy is enclosed by a pointed arch, above which Christ is shown as judge.