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Were it, as well as the grotesque trascoro of the unhappiest artistic taste anywhere but in the centre of the church, what a splendid view would be obtained of the long, narrow, and high aisles and nave in which the old and the new were moulded together in perfect harmony, instead of fighting each other and clashing together, as happened in so many Spanish cathedral churches!
In the interior of the cathedral the nakedness of the columns is partially recompensed by the richness in sculptural design of some sepulchres, as well as by several sixteenth-century grilles. Perhaps the most interesting corner of the interior is the trascoro, or the exterior side of the wall which closes the choir on the west.
The date of the erection of the western front is doubtless the same as that of the trascoro; both are contemporaneous the author is inclined to believe with the erection of the Pillar in Saragosse; at least, they resemble each other in certain unmistakable details. Calahorra. The fourth of the cathedral churches of Upper Rioja is that of Calahorra.
The retablo of the high altar, richly gilt, is of the Renaissance period; the statues and groups which fill the niches are marvellously drawn and full of life. In the ambulatory, imbedded in the wall of the trascoro, there are six plaques in low relief; as sculptural work in stone they are unrivalled in the cathedral, and were carved, beyond a doubt, by the hand of a master.
The interior is Roman cruciform with a high and airy central nave, in which stands the choir, and on each hand a rather dark aisle of much smaller dimensions. The trascoro is the only peculiarity possessed by this church. True to the grotesque style to which it belongs, the whole surface of walls and vault is covered with paintings, the former apparently in oil, the latter frescoes.
Two of the best pieces of sculptural work in the cathedral are the retablo of the high altar, and the relief imbedded in the wall of the trascoro both of them carved in wood by Juan de Juni, one of the best Castilian sculptors of the sixteenth century.
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