Almost up to the beginning of the nineteenth century the building was continually being enlarged, modified, and repaired. Six hundred years since the first stone had been laid! What vicissitudes had not the country seen--and how many art waves had swept over the peninsula! Gothic is traceable throughout the building: here it is flamboyant, there rayonnant. Here the gold and red of _Mudejar_ ceilings are exquisitely represented, as in the chapter-room; there Moorish influence in _azulejos_ (multicoloured glazed tiles) and in decorative designs is to be seen, such as in the horseshoe arches of the triforium in the chapel of the high altar. Renaissance details are not lacking, nor the severe plateresque taste (in the grilles of the choir and high altar), and neither did the grotesque style avoid Spain's great cathedral, for there is the double ambulatory behind the high altar, that is to say, the _transparente_, a circular chapel of the most gorgeous ultra-decoration to be found anywhere in Spain. Signs of decadence are unluckily to be observed in the cathedral to-day. The same care is no longer taken to repair fallen bits of carved stone; pigeon-lamps that burn little oil replace the huge bronze lamps of other days, and no new additions are being made. The cathedral's apogee has been reached; from now on it will either remain intact for centuries, or else it will gradually crumble away. Seen from the exterior, the cathedral does not impress to such an extent as it might. Houses are built up around it, and the small square to the south and west is too insignificant to permit a good view of the ensemble. Nevertheless, the spectator who is standing near the western façade, either craning his neck skyward or else examining the seventy odd statues which compose the huge portal of the principal entrance, is overawed at the immensity of the edifice in front of him, as well as amazed at the amount of work necessary for the decorating of the portal. The Puerta de los Leones, or the southern entrance giving access to the transept, is perhaps of a more careful workmanship as regards the sculptural decoration. The door itself, studded on the outside with nails and covered over with a sheet of bronze of the most exquisite workmanship in relief, is a _chef-d'œuvre_ of metal-stamping of the sixteenth century, whilst the wood-carving on the interior is among the finest in the cathedral. The effect produced on the spectator within the building is totally different. The height and length of the aisles, which are buried in shadows,--for the light which enters illuminates rather the chapels which are built into the walls between the flying buttresses,--astonishes; the _factura_ is severe and beautiful in its grand simplicity.