Iglesia de San Pablo

This Dominican church in Valladolid is famous for a façade of astonishing intricacy, carved in the late-Gothic Isabelline style like a giant retable in stone. Coats of arms, saints and foliage cover the front from door to gable. Kings were baptised in the adjoining palace, and the church long served the Spanish court. A distinctive detail is the sheer density of the carved façade, in which almost no flat surface remains, an exuberance of ornament that marks the transition from Gothic to Renaissance in Spain.