It may be presumed that the faithful of Salamanca had suffered for a number of years on account of the smallness of their cathedral; for the demand for a new place of worship is not traceable to any immediate or special cause, nor to any particular individual. At the instance of the bishop and the municipality, Fernando and Isabel, in the year 1491, solicited and obtained from Pope Innocent VIII. authority to erect a new cathedral at Salamanca, on the ground that the old fabric no longer sufficed for the needs of the congregation. The city was then nearing the zenith of its prosperity, and all over Western Europe there was a craving for the pompous, the magnificent, and the merely big. We can imagine that the Salamancans of the new era were impatient of the plainness and masculine vigour of the little cathedral of Jeronimo. The chapter spared no pains to raise an edifice which should be as splendid as any in Spain. Nothing, however, was done till 1510, when the matter was placed in the hands of the two most celebrated architects of the kingdom, Antonio Egas, architect of the cathedral of Toledo, and Alfonso Rodrigues, master of the works at Seville. These two masters could not agree as to certain details in the plans, and the bishop Francisco de Bobadilla, son of Queen Isabel’s favourite Beatriz, summoned the nine most eminent architects of Spain to a conference. These were--Antonio Egas, Juan Gil de Hontañon, Juan de Badajoz, Alfonso de Covarrubias, Juan Tornero, Juan de Alava, Rodrigo de Zaravia, Juan Campero, and Rodrigues, who had by this time gone to the island of Santo Domingo. At this conference, held on September 3, 1512, the plan and proportions of the proposed building were decided, Juan Gil de Hontañon was appointed architect, and Juan Campero clerk of the works. The project being so far advanced, liberal donations poured in from the municipality and the citizens, and at last the foundation-stone was laid, as the inscription at the right-hand corner of the main façade records, on Thursday, May 12, 1513. De Hontañon was engaged at Seville rebuilding the dome of the cathedral, but under his occasional supervision and that of his assistant, Juan de Alava, the work was actively carried on. De Hontañon died in 1531, and was succeeded in his office by his assistant; and in 1560, his son Rodrigo being then architect, the cathedral was opened for divine worship, the event being thus commemorated on a tablet: Pio IIII. papa, Philippo II. rege, Francisco Manrico de Lara episcopo, ex vetere ad hoc templum facta translatio XXV. mort. anno à Christo nato MDLX.