The central lantern was the last great work executed in this cathedral, and its history must be given somewhat at length, as it is of much interest. In the Royal Library at Madrid[18] there is preserved a MS., from which we learn that the “crossing” of the cathedral fell on the 4th of March, 1539; and that Felipe de Borgoña, “one of the three ‘maestros’ who in the time of our Emperor came to our Spain, from whom we have learned perfect architecture and sculpture, though in both they say he had the advantage over the others,” was intrusted with the execution of the new work erected in its place. This Cimborio or lantern was completed, according to this MS., in December, A.D. 1567, Maestro Vallejo being mentioned as having wrought at the work under Felipe de Borgoña; Cean Bermudez,[19] without giving his authorities, says, that the Bishop (celebrated for the many buildings he had erected, among others San Esteban at Salamanca), on the fall of the “crucero,” summoned Felipe de Borgoña from Toledo, where he was at work with Berruguete on the stalls, to superintend the cathedral architects Juan de Vallejo and Juan de Castañeda. Maestro Felipe seems to have died in A.D. 1543, so that it is probable that after all most of the work was done after his death by Juan de Vallejo, who was sufficiently distinguished to be consulted with the architects of Toledo, Seville, and Leon about the building of the new cathedral at Salamanca in A.D. 1512, and had also, between the years A.D. 1514-1524, built the very Renaissance-looking gateway which opens from the east side of the north transept into the Calle de la Pellegria. The whole composition of this lantern is Gothic and picturesque; yet there is scarce a portion of it which does not show a most strange mixture of Pagan and Gothic detail. The piers which support it are huge, ungainly cylinders, covered with carving in low relief, and everywhere there is that combination of heaviness of parts and intricacy of detail, which in all ages marks the inferior artist. I cannot help lamenting much, therefore, the fall of the old work in A.D. 1539. There is no evidence, so far as I know, as to what it was that fell,[20] but the nearly coeval church of Las Huelgas has a fine simple lantern, and it is probable that some such erection existed in the cathedral, and that Bishop Luis de Acuña y Osorio raised it, and, by increasing its weight, caused its fall. The central lantern is so completely a feature of English buildings, or of those built in lands over which our kings also ruled, that any evidence of their early existence here would have been most valuable, seeing how close the connexion was at the time of its erection between the families of the kings of Castile and of England. [Illustration: No. 1. BURGOS CATHEDRAL P. 25 NORTH-WEST VIEW.] The groined roofs next to the lantern, on all sides, were of necessity rebuilt at the same time, and with detail quite unlike that of the original vault.