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. In fact, it is the work of Herrera, the architect who made
the Escorial so grim, and is the expression in large measure of his
austere mastery. If it had ever been finished it might have been quite
as dispiriting as the Escorial, but as it has only one of the four
ponderous towers it was meant to have, it is not without its
alleviations, especially as the actual tower was rebuilt after the fall
of the original seventy years ago. The grass springs cheerfully up in
the crevices of the flagging from which the broken steps falter to the
portal, but within all is firm and solid.
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