[118] So, at least, I was assured by the superintendent of the works at the cathedral. Some of the material I saw was no doubt tufa; but some of it seemed to me to be an exceedingly light kind of concrete. The vaulting of Salisbury Cathedral is similarly constructed. I do not know whether at Beauvais the same expedient was adopted to lessen the weight.
[119] The three crucifixes at the entrance to the cemetery at Nuremberg will be remembered by all who have ever seen them; and such a group would have made a fitting centre for such a cloister as this at Leon.
[120] This conceit is illustrated more elaborately than I have elsewhere seen it in a palace near San Isidoro, where the angle windows are designed and executed in a sort of perspective, which is inexpressibly bad in effect.
[121] Not a crucifix.
[122] Witness Mr. E. Burne Jones’s beautiful picture over the altar of S. Paul, Brighton, and Mr. D. G. Rossetti’s at Llandaff.
[123] Teatro Ecclesiastico, i. p. 365.
[124] “Hic requiescit Petrus de Deo, qui superædificavit Ecclesiam hanc. Iste fundavit pontem, qui dicitur de Deus tamben: et quia erat vir miræ abstinentiæ et multis florebat miraculis, omnes eum laudibus prædicabant. Sepultus est hic ab Imperatore Adefonso et Sancia Regina.” Esp. Sag., xxxv. p. 356. G. G. Dávila, Teatro Eccles., i. p. 340. Dávila adds the words “servus Dei” before the name of the architect.
[125] See Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Esp., i. p. 14.
[126] The whole of this deed of endowment is interesting. I quote a few lines only, which have some interest, as bearing, among other things, on the Gothic crowns found at Guarrazar, and mentioned at p. 212. “Offerimus igitur” “ornamenta altariorum: id est, frontale ex auro puro opere digno cum lapidibus smaragdis, safiris, et omnia genere pretiosis et olovitreis: alios similiter tres frontales argenteos singulis altaribus: Coronas tres aureas: una ex his cum sex alfas in gyro, et corona de Alaules intus in ea pendens: alia est de anemnates cum olivitreo, aurea. Tertia vero est diadema capitis mei,” &c. &c.—Esp. Sag., xxxvi., Appendix, p. clxxxix.
[127] “Sub era millesima centesima octuagesima septima, pridie nonas Martii, facta est Ecclesia Sancti Isidori consecrata per manus Raymundi Toletanæ Sedis Archiepiscopi, et Joannis Legionensis episcopi,” &c. &c.—Teatro Eccl., vol. ii., p. 243. See also the similar inscription on a stone in San Isidoro.—Esp. Sag., vol. xxxv. p. 207.