In order to enjoy and appreciate that story, you must be able to follow each installment in its original medium of expression. Hence you must be prepared to study several building languages, but I shall do my best to make that task quite easy by teaching you the very simple ABC from which each is developed.

First, let me give you a comprehensive glance at all the buildings in Spain. Notice that the styles manifest powerful Roman, Moorish, and Viking influences, and at once you see that the old Romans, the Arabs, and the Northmen have played a very active part in Spanish history. There are, moreover, indications of a pre-historic race, who piled up enormous stones into monuments that resemble Druidical remains, whilst various modifications of Roman, Moorish, and Northern building principles combine to show how many different forces have contended for supremacy on the Spanish arena.

The Romans began to gain power in Spain as early as 900 ; they gradually acquired supremacy, and their domination lasted until 414. Spain was a favourite province of the old Roman Empire, as witness the magnificent cities which were founded on this conquered soil. Those cities, scattered far and wide, have been engulfed in other civilizations; but existing Roman buildings are so splendid, even in their ruinous state, that we are justified in concluding they must originally have entered into the design of remarkably beautiful and highly cultured centres of Roman civilization.

The aqueduct at Segovia (see illustration) will give you a good idea of the science of Roman building construction. Columns and round arches form the working basis of all designs. Rigid strength is the guiding principle by which the parts are combined into a secure whole, every support being sufficiently massive to stand inert under its burden.

The principal types of Roman buildings in Spain are bridges, aqueducts, military roads, walls, towers, triumphal arches, and amphitheatres. Even if you did not know anything about ancient history, would not such buildings inspire you to conjure up a picture of the social, domestic, and military life of the Romans in Spain?

In 409 a number of Visigoths settled in the central regions of Spain. These Visigoths, or Western Goths, were a branch of the great Viking family, who played the most active part in the barbarian invasions by which the Roman Empire was eventually overthrown. Naturally you know quite sufficient about those vigorous Northern forefathers of ours to understand how it came to pass that the earliest Gothic settlers in Spain soon made themselves masters of the country.

The Gothic Empire in Spain lasted for three hundred years, during which time very little building seems to have been done; certainly there were not many monuments of an enduring nature erected. This is not surprising, seeing that the Goths had not yet settled down in the course of their career to a study of the peaceful arts, and that the particular period in question was the time when all Europe was a battlefield, on which the European nations were struggling, in the midst of dissension to be born from an alliance between conquering barbarians and conquered Romans or between different branches of the barbarian tribes. Under such circumstances, all the more remarkable are the few extant specimens of Visigothic buildings in Spain. The most perfect are the simply designed, primitively constructed little churches of San Roman de Hornija, near Toro, dating from 646, and San Juan de Banos, near Valladolid, erected about 661.

In 711 the Moors won the battle of Jerez, or of the Guadalete, and thus put an end to the Gothic rule in Spain. I have already pointed out to you the chief characteristics of the Moorish style of architecture, and shown you one of the most famous buildings erected by Moorish artists and craftsmen. I would like to explain to you now, however, that I chose the Alhambra Palace as a specimen of the style simply because I felt you must be already familiar with it by name, and for that reason you would be specially interested in it. As a matter of fact, much of the Alhambra Palace exhibits the decadent stage of Mohammedan architecture. The finest specimen of the pure Moorish style in Spain is the ninth-century mosque at Cordova. Toledo is also rich in a small mosque erected about the same time.

During the gradual Christian conquest of Mohammedan Spain many of the Moors continued to live in the captured towns. They worked for their Christian masters, and actually built some of the Christian churches. In adapting their style of architecture to meet the necessities of Christian worship they created a new building style, known as Mudejar, specimens of which are only found in the Spanish Peninsula. The conquered Moors worked for Jews as well as Gentiles, as witness some interesting synagogues in the Mudejar style at Toledo and Segovia.

The Moors were not expelled from Spain till near the close of the fifteenth century, but for some time previously they had only upheld their supremacy in the South. In the Northern districts, which had completely freed themselves from Moorish domination, Christian architecture was developed on the general lines that were being followed throughout Western Europe. The name "Romanesque" is given to the style in which Western European buildings were erected between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, because that style is generally considered to be founded on Roman building models and Roman methods of building construction. In reality, Romanesque includes the several styles of building practised by the newly-born European nations, all based on Roman art, but each with national characteristics, and all, again, striving to express new artistic ideals, and to develop an entirely new system of building construction. There are many beautiful examples of Romanesque churches in Northern Spain. Their characteristic features are highly ornamental doorways and central towers, and the situation of the choir in the centre of the nave, instead of in the more usual position to the east. The doorway of the cathedral of Santiago and the old cathedral at Salamanca are among the finest specimens of Spanish Romanesque, and the exquisite cloisters of Gerona and Tarragona are unrivalled.