There is a richly-sculptured monument of a bishop on the southern side of the sacrarium.

It will be seen that here, as is the case with so many other Spanish cathedrals, though the scale is not very great, the dignity and grandeur of the whole conception is extreme. The cloister, indeed, yields the palm to few that I have seen, and it is in scale only, and not in real dignity and nobility, that the interior of the church does so.

I did not discover any other old church in Tarragona, yet I should suppose there must be some in so large a city. There is a four-light ajimez window, of the type so common on this coast, in the Plaza in front of the cathedral; and in the Plaza della Pallot is an early round-arched gateway, with a coeval two-light opening above.

In the wall of a chapel to the east of the cathedral I found a fairly good example of an early headstone, perfectly plain in outline, and finished with a flat gable, in which is incised a cross under an arch, the inscription being carried across the stone in the common mode, just below the pediment.

I had not time to make excursions to any of the other churches in this district, but there are some which appear, from what I have learnt, to be so fine, that it is to be hoped others will contrive to inspect them. The monasteries of Vallbona and Poblet, and the church of Sta. Creus,[276] not far from Poblet, seem to be all of great interest. Poblet and Sta. Creus seem both to have cloisters with projecting chapels somewhat similar to that shown on my ground-plan of the monastery at Veruela.

The church at Reus, too, is interesting, from the fact that the contract for its erection is preserved, and has been published by Cean Bermudez. It dates from A.D. 1510. This town is a few miles only from Tarragona, and after seeing Poblet and Vallbona, the ecclesiologist would do well, I think, to make his way across to Lérida, instead of returning to Barcelona, as I did. But I wished much to examine the Collegiata at Manresa on my way to Lérida, and for this purpose the line I took was on the whole the best.

I bade farewell to Tarragona with a heavy heart, and with a determination to avail myself of the first chance I may have of returning to look once more at its noble and too little known cathedral.[277]

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CHAPTER XIV.
BARCELONA