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Updated: June 23, 2025
As regards the cloister, small and rather compact in its composition, it is held by many to be a jewel of the fifteenth century in the ogival style, handsome in its general outlines, and beautiful in its wealth of sculptural decoration. The approach to the city by rail from Orense is simply superb.
To conclude: The Gothic cathedral of Burgos is, with that of Leon and perhaps that of Sevilla, the one which expresses in a greater measure than any other on the peninsula the true ideal of ogival architecture. Less airy, light, and graceful than that of Leon, it is, nevertheless, more Spanish, or in other words, more majestic, heavier, and more imposing as regards size and weight.
Like the cathedral of Palencia, it lacks a western front; the apse is semicircular, strengthened by heavy leaning buttresses; the upper, towerless rim of this same body is decorated with an ogival festoon set off by means of the primitive pinnacles of the top of the buttresses.
Down this perspective, commandingly upon a height, is seen the city misty and uncertain at first, but growing clearer and clearer, as the boat nears it, until the stone-work of man and the rock-work of nature become distinct and the picture is complete in all its parts: the time-browned mass of houses on the hill-top; the tower of Philip the Fair; over all, the huge façade of Saint Maurice an ogival wonder that for centuries was the cathedral church of the Primates of Gaul.
The third story is composed, as regards the towers, of the last of the square bodies upon which the flèche reposes; these square bases are united by a light frieze or perforated balustrade which crowns the central part of the façade and is decorated with ogival designs. Last to be mentioned, but not least in importance, are the flèches.
As it is, the period which above all interests us here is that reaching from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries, embracing Romanesque, ogival, and plateresque styles.
The height of the aisles and nave is indicated by three ogival arches cut in relief on the façade; here already the mixture of both styles, of the round-arched Romanesque and the pointed Gothic, is clearly visible as it is also in the windows of the aisles, which are Romanesque, and of the nave, which are ogival in the buttresses, which are leaning on the lower body, and flying in the upper story, uniting the exterior of the clerestory with that of the aisles.
The only remarkable thing by virtue of its Renaissance style of architecture was the belfry and clock tower, although some of the old Flemish dwelling houses in the market square, projecting over an ogival Colonnade extending round one end of the square, and covering a sort of footway, were of interest, uplifting their step-like gables as a silent but eloquent protest against a posterity devoid of style, all of them to the right and left falling into line like two wings of stone in order to allow the carved front of the belfry to make a better show, and its pinnacled tower to rise the prouder against the sky.
His sepulchre is a gorgeous marble monument of Renaissance style, surrounded by a massive bronze grille of excellent workmanship, a marvel of Spanish metal art of the sixteenth century. The other sepulchre is simple in its ogival decorations, and the prostrate effigy of Carillo is among the best to be admired by the tourist in Iberia.
Opposite it, and to the west of the old transept, another high altar was constructed in the central nave, and a second transept separated it from the choir which followed. In other words, and looking at this curious monument as it stands to-day, the central nave is surmounted by an ogival vaulting of a series of ten vaults.
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