Chapter V: Preface (5)

My sketch has been taken from the "Ambulatory" at the back of, and surrounding, the choir. Its dimensions, as will be at once apparent, are enormous. The arches, which separate the choir from the ambulatory, and through one of which in my sketch the high altar is seen, are of very great interest. They form the earliest examples I have ever seen (out of Italy) of artificial perspectives, "guocchi di prospettiva." The arches next to the choir are narrower and lower than those next to the ambulatory; the distance between the two, owing to the necessities of supporting and distributing the weights of the vast cupola, being very considerable. The two archways are connected by falling lines of impost mouldings and converging lines of coffering. The consequence is that, as appears in the sketch, the archways, which really occupy only about five and twenty feet in depth, look at least double that dimension.

GRANADA

THE REJA OF THE REYES CATOLICOS

MDW 1869]

PLATE LXXVI.

_GRANADA._

THE REJA OF THE REYES CATOLICOS.