The Chapel of Santa Tecla is the strangest structure imaginable. The object both of architect and sculptor seems to have been to crowd as many ornaments as possible into the least space, and they have completely succeeded; for I defy the greatest advocate of ornament to find space enough in the whole chapel for a single rose or a single flower more. It is the most wonderful and most charming specimen of the richest description of bad taste. It is one mass of twisted spiral columns, surrounded by vine-shoots, of endless volutes, of cherubim's heads and shoulders with a pair of wings sticking out like the ends of a neck-tie, of large masses of clouds, of flames rising from censers and blown about by the wind, of rays spread out in the shape of a fan, and of endive-plants in full bloom and most luxuriant growth, all gilt and painted in natural colours with the pencil of a miniature-painter. The flower-work of the drapery is imitated thread for thread, and point for point, with frightful accuracy. Santa Tecla, who is tied to the stake with the flames rising around her on all sides, and a number of Saracens in extravagant costumes exciting them, is represented as raising towards Heaven her beautiful enamel eyes, and holding in her flesh-coloured hand a large holly-branch, twisted after the usual Spanish fashion. The roof is ornamented in the same style. The rest of the chapel is occupied by other altars, which, although smaller, are quite as elaborate as that which we have described. But the whole fabric is deficient in the peculiar delicacy of Gothic art, as well as in the charming characteristics of the period of the Renaissance; richness is substituted for purity of outline; it is still very beautiful, however, like everything carried to excess, but yet complete in its own peculiar style.