I must not forget to notice the furniture of the interior of the cathedral, some of which is very fine. The Retablo of the high altar is very grand, having five sides, which follow the outline of the apse, and it is of three stages in height. The lowest stage has the four evangelists and the four doctors painted on its side panels, and SS. Peter and Paul in the centre; the next has the Transfiguration in the centre, and the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Presentation in the Temple at the sides; and the upper stage the Crucifixion in the centre, and the Agony, the Scourging, the Resurrection, and the Descent into Hell at the sides. These paintings were executed in A.D. 1508 by Santos Cruz, Pedro Berruguete, and Juan de Borgoña: and some of them are not only valuable in the history of art, but of great merit. The St. Matthew attended by an angel, who holds his ink for him, is designed with great grace; and the Adoration of the Magi, and some of the other subjects, are admirably designed and painted. The drawing is rather sharp and angular, and has more the character of German than of Italian art. The woodwork in which the paintings are framed is richly carved and gilt, but in a jumble of styles; the canopies over the pictures being Gothic, and the columns which support them thoroughly Renaissance in style.[175] The fittings of the Coro are all Renaissance, and there is a screen of the same age across the nave on its western side. To the east is the usual metal Reja, and low rails enclosing the passage from the Coro to the Capilla mayor. A flight of seven steps in front of the altar, the magnificent colour of its Retablo, and the contrast of the extremely light choir and the almost windowless aisles and chapels round it, make the pictorial effects here extremely fine; and they are heightened by a good deal of stained glass, which, though of late date, has some fine rich colour. It was executed at the end of the fifteenth century. Fine as this cathedral is, I think, on the whole, I derived almost as much pleasure from the church of San Vicente, built just outside the walls, a little to the north of the cathedral. This is a very remarkable work in many respects. [Illustration: No. 22 SAN VICENTE, AVILA. p. 170. NORTH-EAST VIEW]