So stupendous a monument has naturally attracted comment from distinguished travellers and critics. All have come under the spell of its majesty and massive nobility. Théophile Gautier expressed himself as follows: “The most extravagant and most monstrously prodigious Hindoo pagodas are not to be mentioned in the same century as the Cathedral of Seville. It is a mountain scooped out, a valley turned topsy-turvy; Notre Dame de Paris might walk erect in the middle nave, which is of frightful height; pillars with the girth of towers, and which appear so slender that they make you shudder, rise out of the ground or descend from the vaulted roof, like stalactites in a giant’s grotto.”
The Italian, De Amicis, is less fantastical in his rhapsodies. “At your first entrance, you are bewildered, you feel as if you are wandering in an abyss, and for several moments you can only glance around in this vast spaciousness, to assure yourself that your eyes do not deceive you, that your fancy is playing you no trick; you approach one of the pillars, measure it, and look at those in the distance; though large as towers, they appear so slender that you tremble to think the building is resting upon them. You traverse them with a glance from floor to ceiling, and it seems that you could almost count the moments it would take for the eye to climb them.... In the central aisle, another cathedral, with its cupola and bell-tower, could easily stand.”
Lomas, who is no great admirer of the building, admits that “the first view of the interior is one of the supreme moments of a lifetime. The glory and majesty of it are almost terrible. No other building, surely, is so fortunate as this in what may be called its presence.”
The Cathedral is oblong in shape, and is 414 feet long by 271 feet wide. The nave is 100 feet and the dome 121 feet high.
The principal façade looks west. Here is the principal entrance (Puerta Mayor), and two side doors, the Puertas de San Miguel and del Bautismo. Over the central door is a fine relief, representing the Assumption, by Ricardo Bellver, placed here in 1885. This entrance is elaborately decorated, and adorned with thirty-two statues in niches.
The Puertas San Miguel and del Bautismo are decorated with terra-cotta statues of saints and prelates, the work of Pedro Millan, a fifteenth-century sculptor. Herr Schmidt thinks very highly of these fine performances. Each figure has life and distinct personality, and the treatment of the drapery harmonises wonderfully with the gestures and physiognomy of the wearers. The upper part of the façade is poor, and dates only from 1827.