Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/296

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280
SPANISH ARCHITECTURE.
Part II.

280 SPANISH ARCHITECTUIIE. Part II. It is possible that some larger and more imj^ortant churches than those we now find were erected during this period in this style ; but if so they have perished. One of the largest at Toledo, San Bartolomeo, has an apse (Woodcut No. 723), little more than 30 ft. across overall^ and others, such as Santa P^e, Santa Leocadia, San Eugenio, or Santa Isabel, are all smaller, St. Ursula alone being of about the same dimensions with St. Bartolomeo. The decor- ation of the apse of the latter will afford a fair idea of the style of detail adopted in these churches. For brick architecture it is singularly appropriate. It admits of more or less light, as may be required. It is crowned by a cornice of pleasing- profile, and the whole is simpler and better than the many -but- tressed and pinnacled apses of the Gothic architects. A more picturesque example, though not so pure as that last quoted, is found in the little chapel of Huma- nejos in Estremadura (Woodcut No. 724). As will be observed from the woodcut, there is some 13th-century tra- cery in its windows, thus revealing its date as well as betraying its origin, and but for Avhich it might almost be mistaken for an example of pure Saracenic architecture. This is even more the case in a beautiful chapel in the monastery of the Huelgas, near Burgos, which, were it not for some Gothic foliage of the 14th century, introduced where it can hardly be observed, might easily pass for a fragment of the Alhambra. The same is true of many parts of the churches at Seville. That of La Feria, for instance, and the apse of the church of the Dominicans at Calatayud, are purely 725. Tower at Ilescas (From Villa Amil.)