Though one of the most interesting countries of Europe with regard to architecture, Spain can lay claim to no style peculiar to itself, or that originated wholly within the Peninsula. It contains, however, noble specimens of art and architecture of very varied epochs and character, from the work of the unknown sculptors who carved the so-called "toros" of Guisando and erected the huge dolmens and other megalithic monuments so thickly strewed over its soil, to the architects and artists of the present day. Almost all the races which have trodden the land have left monuments upon it--the Carthaginians, perhaps, the fewest. Scarcely anywhere else does the solid, practical character of Roman architecture appear more fully than in the amphitheatres, aqueducts, and especially in the bridges of Spain. The amphitheatres, temples, and walls of Murviedro (Saguntum), Tarragona, Toledo, Coria, Plasencia; the aqueducts of Merida, Seville, and Segovia; the bridges of Tuy over the Minho, of Zamora over the Douro, Salamanca over the Tormes, of Alcantara, Garrovillas de Alconetar, and Puente del Arzobispo over the Tagus, of Merida and Medellin over the Guadiana, of Seville, Cordova, and Ubeda over the Guadalquiver, and of Lerida over the Segre, are noble relics of Roman work. Of the period when Roman art was gradually modified under Christian influences, and the basilica was transformed into the Christian church, very few remains exist. To the Vandal and Gothic conquerors belong part of the walls of Toledo, and a few chapels and small churches in the north and north-west may belong in part to this date (417-717); but the most peculiar artistic remains of this period are the jewellers' and goldsmiths' work, preserved in the metal crowns and treasure of Guarrazar (624-672), of a style which, though probably derived from the East through Byzantium, continued to influence Spanish goldsmiths' work down to the eleventh century. [Illustration: GIRALDA OF SEVILLE. _Page 197._]