That _auto da fe_ was of the greatest possible distinction;
the Infanta Juana presided, and the universal interest was so great that
people paid a dollar and twenty-five cents a seat; money then worth five
or six times as much as now. Philip himself came to another _auto_ when
thirteen persons were burned in the same place, and he always liked
Valladolid; it must have pleased him in a different way from Escorial,
lying flat as it does on a bare plain swept, but never thoroughly
dusted, by winds that blow pretty constantly over it.
While the Inquisition was purging the city of error its great university
was renowning it not only throughout Spain, but in France and Italy;
students frequented it from those countries, and artists came from many
parts of Europe. Literature also came in the person of Cervantes, who
seems to have followed the Spanish court in its migrations from
Valladolid to Toledo and then to Madrid. Here also came one of the
greatest characters in fiction, for it was in Valladolid that Gil Blas
learned to practise the art of medicine tinder the instruction of the
famous Dr. Sangrado.
IV
I put these facts at the service of the reader for what use he will
while he goes with us to visit the cathedral in Valladolid, a cathedral
as unlike that of Burgos as the severest mood of Spanish renaissance can
render it.
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