Toledo Cathedral

Image: Wikimedia Commons

In 1226, King Ferdinand III laid the first stone of a Gothic cathedral over what had been Toledo's Visigothic basilica and then its Great Mosque, and for more than two centuries the Primate Cathedral of Spain rose in five naves of stone and light. Its treasures read like the story of Spain itself: El Greco's Disrobing of Christ, the theatrical Transparente of Narciso Tomé that pierces the vault to pour heavenly light onto the tabernacle, and the great Monstrance of Arfe, a ten-foot tower of gilded silver with 260 tiny statues, made partly, tradition says, from gold Columbus brought back from the Americas, and carried through the streets each year in the beloved Corpus Christi procession. Most remarkably, Mass is still celebrated daily in a side chapel according to the ancient Mozarabic rite, the liturgy Christians kept alive under Muslim rule, preserved here by Cardinal Cisneros five centuries ago and sung to this day.