They
preferred to be cool in summer and sheltered in winter, rather than to
lay out great deserts of boulevards, the haunts of sunstroke and
pneumonia. The site of the Cathedral was chosen from strategic reasons
by St. Eugene, who built there his first Episcopal Church. The Moors
made a mosque of it when they conquered Castile, and the fastidious
piety of St. Ferdinand would not permit him to worship in a shrine thus
profaned. He tore down the old church and laid, in 1227, the
foundations of this magnificent structure, which was two centuries after
his death in building. There is, however, great unity of purpose and
execution in this Cathedral, due doubtless to the fact that the
architect Perez gave fifty years of his long life to the superintendence
of the early work. Inside and outside it is marked by a grave and
harmonious majesty. The great western facade is enriched with three
splendid portals,--the side ones called the doors of Hell and Judgment;
and the central a beautiful ogival arch divided into two smaller ones,
and adorned with a lavish profusion of delicately sculptured figures of
saints and prophets; on the chaste and severe cornice above, a group of
spirited busts represents the Last Supper. There are five other doors to
the temple, of which the door of the Lions is the finest, and just
beside it a heavy Ionic portico in the most detestable taste indicates
the feeling and culture that survived in the reign of Charles IV.
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