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278 278 SPANISH ARCHITECTURE. Pakt 11. having, a vault, and consequently forced the architects to work and think — the very difficulty of the task being thus the cause of it» success. The Saracens in Spain, on the contrary, never attempted either a vault or a dome, but were always content with an easily constructed wooden roof, calling for no ingenuity to design, and no thought how to convert its mechanical exigences into artistic beauties. The Moorish architects could j^lay with their style, and consequently produced fascinating elegances of detail ; the Gothic architects, on the contrary, were forced to work like men, and their 722. Sta. Maria la Blanca. (From Villa Amil.) result ap2:)eals to our higher intellectual Avants ; though in doing so they frequently neglected the polish and lighter graces of style which are so pleasing in the semi-Asiatic art of the South of Spain. The other synagogue — del Transito — we know was completed in 1366. It is merely a large room, of pleasing ]iroportion, the walls of wdiich are plain and solid up to about three-fourths of their height. Above this a clerestory admits the light in a manner singularly agree- able in a hot climate. The roof is of wood, of the form called Artesi-