brilliant note to the resplendent face of the chapel. All inside maintains the same insistent look of artistic wealth. The marble altar shines like a gigantic agathe, the highly-wrought tabernacle, the bronze candlesticks, the jasper and the marvellous _retablo_ are, to my poor thinking, excessive claims upon attention. So many masters co-operated in the production of all this accumulated art that the effect of excess is not surprising: Philip and John of Burgundy, Maestre Petit Jean, Egas, Pedro Gumiel, Copin of Holland, Sebastian de Almonacid, all sculptors and artists of renown; Francisco of Antwerp and Fernando del Rincòn, famous painters and gilders. The details are innumerable, and elsewhere would merit separate and full attention. The scenes are mostly taken from the New Testament, terminating with a colossal Calvary. The fine tombs on either side are the work of Copin of Holland (1507), and the gilding and painting were done by Juan de Arevalo. They were erected by order of Cisneros for the kings buried in the old chapel. They are highly decorated and imposing monuments, worthy of the great man who commanded them and of the great artists who wrought them under his inspiration, worthy of century and temple that created and shelter them. Classical elegance and Gothic fancy, exuberant imagination and austere repose, are the complex qualities of these superb tombs. There are two figures among those of the lateral pillars that divide the vaults it is customary to bestow extra attention upon: the Alfaqui, who went out to meet Alfonso VI. on his furious return to Toledo to burn his wife and the French archbishop, to intercede on behalf of those who had so grievously injured his people, and who, in order to obtain their pardon, resigned Moorish rights to the Cathedral; and the _Pastor de las Navas_, a legendary shepherd who is supposed to have indicated to Alfonso VIII. the way of winning the battle of Navas de Tolosa. The sculpture is coarse and heavy, and indicates an earlier period than the rest of the work, Alfonso himself supposed to have been the designer of his shepherd assistant in war. The Cardinal of Spain, as Mendoza was called, won the distinction of a place in the royal chapel by order of Isabel, his friend and sovereign. To make room for his tomb, she had the wall between the two pillars near it knocked down. Ponz calls this tomb a _maquina suntuosa_, but where there is so much to admire, it may be passed by with merely a nod. [Illustration: DETAIL, TOMB OF KING, GOSPEL SIDE OF HIGH ALTAR, CATHEDRAL, TOLEDO] [Illustration: TOMB OF CARDINAL MENDOZA]