His mosque had displaced the
early Christian basilica of San Vicente, which the still earlier temple
to Venus Salambo had become. Then, after the mosque was rebuilt, the
good San Fernando in his turn equipped it with a Gothic choir and
chapels and turned it into the cathedral, which was worn out with pious
uses when the present edifice was founded, in their _folie des
grandeurs,_ by those glorious madmen in the first year of the fifteenth
century.
IV
Little of this learning troubled me in my visits to the cathedral, or
even the fact that, next to St. Peter's, it was the largest church in
the world. It was sufficient to itself by mere force of architectural
presence, without the help of incidents or measurements. It was a city
in itself, with a community of priests and sacristans dwelling in it,
and a floating population of sightseers and worshipers always passing
through it. The first morning we had submitted to make the round of the
chapels, patiently paying to have each of them unlocked and wearily
wondering at their wonders, but only sympathizing really with the stern
cleric who showed the ceremonial vestments and jewels of the cathedral,
and whose bitter face expressed, or seemed to express, abhorrence of our
whole trivial tourist tribe.
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