Extending to the middle of the nave is the Coro or Choir, open towards the east or High Altar. The _trascoro_ or choir-screen is faced with marbles, eight columns of red _breccia_ being especially fine. The marble reliefs are fine examples of Genoese work. Over the altar is a fourteenth-century painting of the Madonna, and there is also a picture by Pacheco, the inquisitor, representing St Ferdinand receiving the keys of Seville from “Axataf.” The side walls of the choir accommodate four little chapels, exhibiting a harmonious combination of the Gothic and plateresco styles in translucent alabaster. The Capilla de la Concepcion contains one of the finest examples of statuary in the Cathedral--the Virgin, by Juan Martinez Montañez. Ford says, “This sweet and dignified model was the favourite of his great pupil, Alonso Cano.” The choir was severely injured by the collapse of the dome in 1888. The pillars and baldachino are richly adorned with Gothic figures and stonework. The fine gilt railing is the work of Sancho Muñoz (1519). But the chief glory of the choir is its exquisitely carved stalls, 117 in number, executed between 1475 and 1548, by Nufro Sanchez, Dancart, and Guillen. Moorish influence may be traced in the patterns and the coloured inlaid work of the chairbacks. The handsome lectern bespeaks the skill of Bartolomé Morel. Till the collapse of the dome, the choir was the repository of a number of priceless missals, illuminated in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The organs are huge but inartistic. As instruments, they are beyond all praise. The older, dating from 1777, was built by Jorge Bosch, the other by Valentin Verdalonga in 1817. “Between the choir and High Altar is put up during Holy Week the exquisite bronze candlestick, 25 feet high, called El Tenebrario, one of the finest specimens of bronze work of the sixteenth century that exists (it may be seen in the Sacristy), and wrought, in 1562, by Morel; when the _Miserere_ is sung, it is lighted with thirteen candles, twelve of which are put out one after another, indicating that the Apostles deserted Christ; one alone of white wax is left burning, and is a symbol of the Virgin, true to the last. At Easter, also, the Ciro Pascual or fount candle, equal to a large marble pillar, 24 feet high, and weighing seven or eight hundredweight of wax, is placed to the left of the High Altar” (Ford).