The question was, whether the new cathedral should be on the site of the old cathedral, or to the north or to the south of it; and among other reasons for placing it to the north, where it now is, the existence of the steeple at the west end of the old cathedral was mentioned. In fine, the church has been so placed as not to interfere at all with the steeple, but little with the old cathedral, and not at all with the cloister. The opinion of the Junta of Architects has been acted upon, in short, in everything save the shape of the head of the church, which they preferred should be octagonal, and which is, in fact, square in plan. Three days after the presentation of this report certain of the Chapter were appointed to select an architect, and their choice fell at once on Juan Gil de Hontañon for the architect, and Juan Campero for clerk of the works.[96] Whether Juan Gil really made the plans or not seems very uncertain; and I confess that to me it seems more probable that the plan made in A.D. 1509 by Egas and Rodriguez was laid before the Junta, and that they drew up their resolutions upon the data it afforded, and left to Hontañon no choice as to the proportions of his church, but only the management of its construction and the designing of its details. If this supposition be correct, I fear I can award but little credit to Hontañon; for in this cathedral the only point one can heartily praise is the magnificence of the general idea, and the noble scale and proportion of the whole work. But the detail throughout is of the very poorest kind, fairly Gothic in character inside, but almost Renaissance outside, and everywhere wanting in vigour and effect. Nothing can be much worse than the treatment of the doorways and windows, and--to take one portion--the south transept façade is spotted all over with niches, crockets, and pedestals in the most childish way; whilst every spandrel has a head looking out of a circle, reminding one forcibly of the old application of a horse-collar, and, in fact, the men were foolish who repeated, _usque ad nauseam_, so stale and unprofitable an idea!