The northern aisle still has a few mural paintings, but the larger part of those which once illuminated the bare walls were washed off by a bigoted prelate in the fifteenth century and the present gray of the stone, as seen in the dim light, looks cold compared to the rich gold of the exterior masonry bathed in{18} sunshine. The excellence of the vaulting is such that to-day hardly a fissure or crack is visible. The old pavement consists of great rectangles marked by red sandstone borders and bluestone centre slabs, the size of a grave, with central dowels for lifting and closing. In the southern transept-arm leading to the cloisters, some of the original windows are still preserved with their fine columns, archivolts, and carved moldings. The ribs of the vaults are decorated by zigzag ornamentation, and here a few magnificent old tombs remain intact in their ancient niches.
There is, properly speaking, no exterior elevation of the whole structure. The western front is hidden by the modernization, the north and south, by the new Cathedral, the cloisters, and squalid, encumbering walls and chapels. From the "Patio Chico" alone, the old structure can be seen unobstructed. The curves of the apses bulge out like full-bellied sails, their great masonry surfaces broken by the small windows, which are cut with enormous splays and encased and arched by typical Romanesque features, the windows protected by heavy Moorish grilles. Engaged shafts run up the sides of the central apse to below a quatrefoil gallery, originally a shelter for the archers stationed to defend the building. Two fortress-towers formed the eastern angles north and south; the one to the north was removed in building the new Cathedral. A scaled turret, broken by later Gothic pediments, crosses the one remaining. Above all soars the dome, the inspiration of our greatest American Romanesque temple, Trinity Church in Boston.{19}
At the end of the twelfth century the houses of a sacrilegious Salamanca gentleman were confiscated and given to the Cathedral Chapter, who forthwith began the cloisters upon their site. They lie to the south and thus came to be planned and built into the original fabric and with Romanesque arches and wooden roof. They were practically entirely rebuilt in the fifteenth century and again restored in the eighteenth. Curious, elaborate, vaulted chapels—in one of which the Mozarabic rite, the ancient Gothic ritual prolonged under Moslem rule, is still occasionally celebrated—adjoin it to the east and south. Recently, old Byzantine niches and tombs, some of great interest, have been uncovered in the outer walls.
II
"Most Reverend Father in Christ, Lord Cardinal, our much beloved and very dear Friend; We the King and the Queen of Castile, of Leon, and of Aragon, Sicily, etc., send this to salute you, as one whom we love and esteem highly, and to show we desire God may give life, health, and honor, even to the extent of your own desire. We inform you that the City of Salamanca is one of the most notable, populous, and principal cities of our kingdoms, in which there is a society of scholars, and where all sciences may be studied, and to which people from all states continually come. The Cathedral Church of the said city is very small, dark, and low, to such an extent that the divine services cannot be celebrated in such a manner as they should be, especially during feast-days when{20} a large concourse of people streams to the Cathedral, and by the Grace of God, the said city increases and enlarges day by day. And considering the extreme narrowness of the said Church, the Administrator and Dean and Chapter have agreed to rebuild it, making it as large as is necessary and convenient, according to the population of the said city. This furthermore as the form and the fabric of the said Church cannot be rebuilt without disfigurement. And in order to build better and promptly, as the said Church has a very small income, it is necessary that our most Holy Father concede some indulgences in the form that the Bishops of Vadajos and Astorga, our agents and emissaries to your Court, will tell your Reverend Fatherhood, and we request you to beseech His Holiness to concede the said indulgences. Therefore we affectionately beg you to undertake the matter in the manner which we affectionately supplicate, because our Lord will be served, and the Divine Service increased, and we will receive it from you in peculiar gratitude. Regarding this, we wrote details to the said bishops. We beg you to give them credit and favor. Most Reverend Father in Christ, Lord Cardinal, our very dear and beloved friend, may God our Lord at all times especially guard and favor your Reverend Fatherhood.
"I, the King, I, the Queen.
Seville, the 17th day of February, in the ninety-first year."
That was the way the Catholic Kings wrote to the Cardinal of Angers to make plain to him that the plain, dark, small, old Cathedral was no longer in keeping with their glory or the times, and to begin{21} the movement for a larger edifice. The stern simplicity of the ancient Church was indeed out of harmony with the brilliance and craving for lavish display and magnificent proportions which characterize the age of Ferdinand and Isabella.
Pope Innocent VIII answered the appeal in the year 1491, granting permission for the transference of the services to a larger edifice more fitting the congregation of Salamanca, now at the zenith of its prosperity and academic renown. In 1508 Ferdinand passed through Salamanca, and was again sufficiently fired by religious zeal to issue the following order: "The King to the Master Mayor of the works of the Church of Seville. Since it has now to be decided how the Church of Salamanca may be made, in order that its design may be made as it ought, I consent that you be present there. I charge and command you instantly to leave all other things, and come to the said City of Salamanca, that, jointly with the other persons who are there, you may see the site where the said Church has to be built, and may make a drawing for it, and in all things may give your judgment how it may be most suited to the Divine Worship and to the ornature of the said Church; which, having come to pass, then your salary shall be paid, which I shall receive return for in this service. Done in Valladolid, the 23d day of November, 1509."
The famous Master of Toledo, Anton Egas, received a similar summons (served in his absence on his two maids), but neither architect seems to have been over-zealous in carrying out the royal commands, for next year Queen Juana, Ferdinand's daughter,{22} growing impatient, writes again: "I find it now good, as I command you, that immediately that this my letter shall be made known to you, without making any excuse or delay, you go to the said City of Salamanca."