NOTRE DAME DEL PILAR, Saragossa. was built in 1690 on a rectangular plan. Like much else in Spain, it was never completed; only one of the four proposed corner towers was built. Seen across the river Ebro, it is like a miniature city of clustering pinnacles and domes, enclosed inside a strong, high wall. This church, baroque in conception, is the work of Herrera. a painter by early training and subsequently an architect. He might have planned Notre Dame del Piles as a picture. Its jostling towers, its cupolas in bright coloured tiles, yellow, white and green, seen in the blinding Spanish sun, is roman tically pleasing to the pictorial eye. Later, Notre Dame del Pilar was re-built by Rodriguez who enriched it by an elaborate chapel to enshrine the sacred pillar upon which the Virgin appeared to St. James. Composed of marbles of the rarest kind, stucco and bronze this rich chapel, nevertheless, has a sombre, academic air about it. Its gigantic canopy is grand enough to take the flamboyant, ornamental details without being overwhelmed by their ext ravagancies.
Iris ConIay