San Benito is an interesting church, originally founded by the Galician settlers in 1104, and rebuilt in the late Gothic style by the Maldonado family in the fifteenth century. The tombs of several members of that family are within. The statues of Arias Perez Maldonado and his wife lie to the right and left of the chancel. The knight wears armour, and a page rests at his feet; the lady wears the costume of the age of Isabel the Catholic. Here also sleeps that haughty lord of Monleón, whose wife was so reluctant to save his life at the expense of his castle. From this church the Maldonado faction took the name of San Benito; the opposite faction, descended from Maria la Brava, affected the church of Santo Tomé de los Caballeros. There are some good tombs of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries in the church of San Isidoro, founded by the French settlers of Count Raymond. The Portuguese built the little church dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, which still preserves a triple apse and windows in the Romanesque style. The doorway is Gothic, and the tomb of Bishop de Velasco, supported by lions, obviously of the Renaissance. San Martin, built by settlers from Toro, though injured by a fire in 1854, preserves many ancient features. Some of the columns of the nave are Byzantine, and the doorway, with its triple-pointed arch, belongs to the best Gothic period. The south front is Renaissance. This is the burial-place of the Santisteban family. An architectural curiosity to which Street calls attention, is the little circular church of San Marcos, close to the wall at the north end of the city, with its three apses vaulted with semi-domes, while the rest of the edifice is roofed with wood. This odd little church was built as a chapel royal by Alfonso IX. in 1202. The only church of interest besides those enumerated above is the Sancti Spiritus, built about 1190, and granted to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in 1222. Afterwards, with the adjacent convent, it passed into the possession of an aristocratic sisterhood. Rebuilt in 1541 by Leonor de Acevedo, the portal is in the Renaissance style, and the interior in late Gothic. The lower choir has fine artesonado work and well-carved stalls. The retablo, which dates from 1659, displays fine reliefs of the life of St. James, and good statues of the apostles. Near the entrance are the tombs of the great benefactors of the convent, Martin Alfonso, natural son of Alfonso IX., and his wife, Maria Mendez, a Portuguese lady (1270). Another tomb is that of Pedro Vidal, an ecclesiastic, who died in 1363. DOMESTIC AND MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS