The city of Sigüenza, situated on the slopes of a hill crowned by the castle, is a village rather than a town; there are, however, fewer spots in Spain that are more picturesque in their old age, and there is a certain uniformity in the architecture that reminds one of German towns; this is not at all characteristic of Spain, where so many styles mix and mingle until hardly distinguishable from each other. The Transition style--between the strong Romanesque and the airy ogival--is the city's _cachet_, printed with particular care on the handsome cathedral which stands on the slope of the hill to the north of the castle. Two massive square towers, crenelated at the top and pierced by a few round-headed windows, flank the western front. The three portals are massive Romanesque without floral or sculptural decoration of any kind; the central door is larger and surmounted by a large though primitive rosace. The height of the aisles and nave is indicated by three ogival arches cut in relief on the façade; here already the mixture of both styles, of the round-arched Romanesque and the pointed Gothic, is clearly visible--as it is also in the windows of the aisles, which are Romanesque, and of the nave, which are ogival--in the buttresses, which are leaning on the lower body, and flying in the upper story, uniting the exterior of the clerestory with that of the aisles. (Compare with apse of the cathedral of Lugo.) The portal of the southern arm of the transept is an ugly addition, more modern and completely out of harmony with the rest. The rosace above the door is one of the handsomest of the Transition period in Spain, and the stained glass is both rich and mellow. The interior shows the same harmonious mixture of the stronger and more solemn old style, and the graceful lightness of the newer. But the hesitancy in the mind of the architect is also evident, especially in the vaulting, which is timidly arched. The original plan of the church was, doubtless, purely Romanesque: Roman cruciform with a three-lobed apse, the central one much longer so as to contain the high altar. In the sixteenth century, however, an ambulatory was constructed behind the high altar, joining the two aisles, and the high altar was removed to the east of the transept. What a pity that the huge choir, placed in the centre of the church, should so completely obstruct the view of the ensemble of the nave and aisles, separated by massive Byzantine arches between the solid pillars, which, in their turn, support the nascent ogival vaulting of the high nave! Were it, as well as the grotesque _trascoro_--of the unhappiest artistic taste--anywhere but in the centre of the church, what a splendid view would be obtained of the long, narrow, and high aisles and nave in which the old and the new were moulded together in perfect harmony, instead of fighting each other and clashing together, as happened in so many Spanish cathedral churches!