The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain, Volume 2 (of 3)

by Leonard Williams

CARPENTRY AND WOOD-CARVING

The artistic carpentry of older Spain produced as its most typical and striking monuments, three groups of objects which may be included generally under Furniture. These are the celosía or window-lattice, the door of lazo-work, and the artesonado-ceiling which adorns a hall or chamber, corridor or staircase.

XVIII
CARVED ZAPATAS
(Casa de Salinas, Salamanca)

These happy and effective styles of decoration came originally from the East. Their passage may be traced along the coast of Africa from Egypt into Spain; and they flourished in Spain for the same reason which had caused them to flourish at Cairo. “When we remember,” says Professor Lane-Poole, “how little wood grows in Egypt, the extensive use made of this material in the mosques and houses of Cairo appears very remarkable. In mosques, the ceilings, some of the windows, the pulpit, lectern or Koran desk, tribune, tomb-casing, doors, and cupboards, are of wood, and often there are carved wooden inscriptions and stalactites of the same material leading up to the circle of the dome. In the older houses, ceilings, doors, cupboards, and furniture are made of wood, and carved lattice windows, or meshrebiyas, abound. In a cold climate, such employment of the most easily worked of substances is natural enough; but in Egypt, apart from the scarcity of the material, and the necessity of importing it, the heat offers serious obstacles to its use. A plain board of wood properly seasoned may keep its shape well enough in England, but when exposed to the sun of Cairo it will speedily lose its accurate proportions; and when employed in combination with other pieces, to form windows or doors, boxes or pulpits, its joints will open, its carvings split, and the whole work will become unsightly and unstable. The leading characteristic of Cairo wood-work is its subdivision into numerous panels; and this principle is obviously the result of climatic considerations, rather than any doctrine of art. The only mode of combating the shrinking and warping effects of the sun was found in a skilful division of the surfaces into panels small enough, and sufficiently easy in their setting, to permit of slight shrinking without injury to the general outline. The little panels of a Cairo door or pulpit may expand without encountering enough resistance to cause any cracking or splitting in the surrounding portions, and the Egyptian workmen soon learned to accommodate themselves to the conditions of their art in a hot climate.”[31]

XIX
CARVED ZAPATAS
(Museum of Zaragoza)

These valuable and interesting observations apply with equal justice to the decorative woodwork of the Spanish Muslims. A further point of interest lies in the fact that window-grilles and ceilings of the kind referred to, grew to be extremely fashionable through the whole Peninsula. Carried by Moorish or Mudejar craftsmen far beyond the frontiers of the Mussulman sultans of this European land, we find to-day surviving specimens in every part of Spain—most of them, it is true, in sultry Andalus; but many also in the old seigniorial mansions of Castile, or even in the cold and humid towns and cities of Cantabria.

The man who did this kind of work was not a common carpenter. Such work was largely practical and prosaic, but also it was largely decorative and poetical. Probably, both in his own and in his customer's regard, the decorative quality was set before the practical. Therefore, beyond the dry, comparatively facile details of technique, this workman studied, with an artist's reverence and zeal, the inner, subtler, sweeter mysteries of line and form; harmonies of curve and angle; patterns, now geometrical, now floral, now these two combined with magic ingenuity; steeping himself in the æsthetic sense; making, indeed, his work the literal fact or fitting of prosaic application that was indispensable; but also, and as if upon some loftier initiative of his own, a miracle of art for people of a later day to come and stand before and wonder at.

XX
ALERO AND CORNICE OF CARVED WOOD
(Cuarto de Comares, Alhambra, Granada)

Indeed, whether because Our Lord had practised it, or from some other motive, carpentry was always well esteemed among the Spaniards. The Ordinances of Seville eulogize it, in conjunction with its sister-work of masonry and building, as “a noble art and self-contained, that increaseth the nobleness of the King and of his kingdom, that pacifieth the people, and spreadeth love among mankind, conducing to much good.”[32] The same Ordinances divide these honourable craftsmen into half a dozen classes and sub-classes; carvers or entalladores, carpenters who kept a shop (carpinteros de tienda), carpinteros de lo prieto, and carpinteros de lo blanco. The latter are the class we are considering here, and these, in turn, were subdivided into lazeros or makers of lazo-work, non-lazeros or those who did not make it, and jumetricos or geómetricos. The statutory examination was severe in all these branches. Thus, the lazero-carpenters of Seville were required to make a chamber of octagonal lazo-work, including its pendentives at the corners; while the wood-carvers of the same city were required to be experienced draughtsmen and to make and carve “artistic altar-screens with decorated columns, pedestals for images, and tabernacles (i.e. the part of an altar where the cibory and the Host are kept), as well as tombs and chambranles with their covering, tabernacles of the utmost art (de grande arte), and rich choir-stalls.”

Nor was the making of artistic ceilings, doors, and window-gratings carried out exclusively by men of Moorish blood. Tutored by these, the Christians practised it with great success. Prominent among these last we find, early in the seventeenth century, the name of Diego Lopez de Arenas, a Christian-Spaniard and a native of Marchena, who held the licensed title of master-carpenter and lived for many years at Seville.[33] In a lucky moment it occurred to Lopez de Arenas to write and publish for the benefit of his fellow-craftsmen a book upon this decorative oriental woodwork that had passed into the Spanish national life. This book, Carpintería de lo Blanco,[34] appeared at Seville in 1633, and fresh editions were printed at the same city in 1727, and at Madrid in 1867. As in the Ordinances of Granada, Seville, and Toledo, Arabic terms, too copious and too complicated for elucidation here, are constantly repeated in this book.[35] Much of the general information which we gather from it is, however, of great interest. Thus, we are told that with the Spanish artists, as in Egypt, the wood most often used, no doubt as being the cheapest, was pitch pine, parcelled and put together in the most elaborate decorative schemes. Such was the characteristic alfarge[36] ceiling of the Moorish, Morisco, and Spanish-Christian carpintero de lo blanco. Its many fragments were secured upon the frame by long, small-headed nails, or by these nails combined with glue. If we observe the ceilings from close by, as when, for instance, they are taken down to be restored, the workmanship appears to be coarse, inaccurate, and hasty; the myriad pieces to be clumsily and loosely joined; the nails to be driven in without method, or even awry. Nevertheless, this false effect betrays the calculating genius of the craftsman. He planned his work for contemplation by a certain light and at a certain elevation; and therefore, as the ceiling is removed again to its appointed distance, it seems to re-create itself in proud defiance of an error of our own, and grows at once to its habitual delicacy, harmony, and richness.

XXI
“ELIJAH SLEEPING”
(Statue in wood, by Alonso Cano)

I have said that the decoration of these ceilings is sometimes floral, sometimes geometrical, sometimes a combination of the two.[37] Sometimes the wood is plain, or sometimes silvered, gilt, or painted. Sometimes it is employed alone, or sometimes variegated and inlaid with plaster points and patches. By far the commonest motive is the lazo—an ornamental scheme composed of infinite strips that turn, and twist, and intersect, describing in their mazy passage many polygons. One of these polygons determines, in a way, the scheme of the entire ceiling, which is denominated as consisting of “a lazo of eight,” “of ten,” “of twelve,” etc., from this particular. The most attractive and most frequent is the scheme “of eight.” Among the decorative details used to brighten and enhance the lazo proper are mocarabes or wooden lacery for relieving cubes and joists or surfaces, and rácimos or “clusters”; that is, hollow or solid wooden cones or prisms, disposed along the side and centre panels of the ceiling like (in Arenas' ingenious phrase) the buttons on a jacket, and contributing to the massive aspect of the whole. These clusters, too, were sometimes in the stalactite and sometimes in a simpler form, and show, both in the quantity and richness of their ornament, a limitless diversity.

XXII
SAINT BRUNO
(By Alonso Cano. Cartuja of Granada)

Magnificent Spanish-Moorish, Spanish, and Mudejar ceilings still exist in Spain. Such are the marvellous domed ceiling in the Hall of Comares (or of Ambassadors) in the Alhambra, those of the Castle of the Aljafería at Zaragoza and of the archbishop's palace at Alcalá de Henares, the Arab alfarge ceilings in the churches of San Francisco and Santiago of Guadix, that of the Hall of Cortes in the Audiencia of Valencia, that of the Sala Capitular of Toledo Cathedral, that of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit of the Cathedral of Cuenca (considered by many to be the finest artesonado ceiling in all Spain), or those of the churches of Jesus Crucificado, El Carmen, and San Pablo at Cordova. The ceiling of the Sala de la Barca, in the Moorish palace of the Alhambra, was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1890, but a good photograph had previously been taken, and I reproduce it here (Plate [viii].). One of the later artesonado ceilings is at Cordova, in the parish church of Santiago. Covered with a bóveda or vault of cane, it is in excellent preservation, and was made in 1635 by the master-carpenter Alonso Muñoz de los Ríos, who received for his labour fourteen thousand reales.[38] The artesonado ceilings which Diego Lopez de Arenas tells us in his treatise that he made for the church, the choir, and the sobreescalera of the monastery of Santa Paula at Seville, as well as a ceiling which he made for the church of Mairena, are all extant to-day. Other remarkable examples of this craft are the ceilings of the rooms constructed to the order of, and which were actually occupied by, Charles the Fifth, within the precincts of the old Alhambra. Upon these half-Italian, half-Morisco ceilings and their frieze we read the words, “Plus Oultre”; and the inscription, “Imperator Cæsar Karolus V. Hispaniarum rex semper augustus pius fœlix invictissimus.” In one of the same apartments, known as the “chamber of the fruits,” the ceiling has octagonal artesones of superb effect, though even richer is that of what is called the Second Sala de las Frutas, conspicuously influenced by Italian art, and believed by Gómez Moreno to have been designed by Pedro Machuca and executed by Juan de Plasencia.

XXIII
SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST
(San Juan de Dios, Granada)

Marvellous in conjunction with the thousand lighted lamps which served to manifest its beauties, must have been the primitive ceiling (as-sicafes) of the mosque of Cordova, of which an Arab poet sang; “Look at the gold on it, like the kindled flame, or like the lightning-stroke that darts across the heavens.”[39] Our notices of this ceiling, barbarously hacked to pieces by Christian architects, are neither numerous nor clear. We are told, however, that it was nearly finished in the reign of Abd-er-Rhaman the First, and terminated altogether by his son Hixem. New ceilings were added on the enlarging of the mosque by Abd-er-Rhaman the Second, while fresh additions were made by Al-Hakem the Second and Al-Manzor. Ambrosio de Morales gives a quaint description of the earliest, or an early, ceiling of this temple. “The roof of the whole church, made of wood painted and adorned in divers ways, is of incredible richness, as will be seen from what I am about to say. It is of larch throughout, odorous, resembling pine, which is not found in any part but Barbary,[40] whence it is brought by sea. And every time that a part of this temple was thrown down for new constructions to be added, the wood removed was sold for many thousand ducats for making guitars and other delicate objects. The ceiling was built across the church upon the nineteen naves thereof, and over it, covered likewise with wood, the roofs, nineteen in number also, each with its ridge atop, drooping to one and other side.”[41]

Three pieces made of common pine, and which are thought to have belonged to the original ceiling of this mosque or to an early replica, are now in the National Museum at Madrid, but the carving of these fragments is so simple that in the opinion of Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos the decoration of the wood itself was purposely subordinated in this instance to the richness and variety of the painting.

XXIV
CHOIR-STALLS
(Santo Tomás, Avila)

Three types of decorative doors were made in older Spain. In the earliest and simplest (lacería en talla), the lacería or lazo-work is carved directly on and from the solid plank which forms the body of the door. In the second type, the carver's art is delicately blended with the joiner's—lazo-work with ensamblaje. In the third type the lazo-work is sobrepuesta—that is, attached to, not elaborated from, the planking.[42]

As in the case of ceilings, many and excellent examples of these doors exist to-day in Spain. Among the most remarkable are several in the Moorish palace of the Alhambra, such as the two (dating from the end of the fourteenth century or early in the fifteenth) belonging, respectively, to the famous Hall of the Abencerrajes (Pl. [ix].), and to the Hall of the Two Sisters (Pl. [x].). Apparently it was the former of these doors which Bertaut de Rouen wrote of in the seventeenth century as “une porte aussi grande et aussi épaisse comme celles de nos plus grandes églises. Elle s'ouvre des deux costez, et est toute de pieces rapportées, et d'un bois de differentes couleurs, comme les beaux cabinets et les belles tables qui coustent si cher.”[43]

An early Mudejar door proceeding from the church of San Pedro at Daroca in Aragon is now in the National Museum. This door, which is of larch, and measures nearly fourteen feet in height by nine in breadth, is of a simple design and represents a horse-shoe door described within the door itself. It was originally painted vermilion, with other decorative painting of a simple character in black, white, and red, and is fortified with massive iron braces. It is believed to date from earlier than the fourteenth century.

XXV
CARVED CHOIR-STALL
(Toledo Cathedral)

The mighty doors of the “Hall of Ambassadors,” in the mediæval royal residence of Seville (Plates [xi]. and [xii].), are quite the finest to be seen in Spain. Although a widespread superstition assigns their manufacture to a period close upon the Moorish conquest, it has been proved conclusively that they were made by Mudejar craftsmen of Toledo at the time when the whole Alcázar was erected more or less upon the ruins of the old, by Pedro the First of Castile, denominated, according to the prejudice with which we view his character, “the Cruel,” or “the Just.”[44]

These doors, which under a pretence of restoration have been mutilated more than once, are made of larch, and measure sixteen feet in height by thirteen feet (including both the leaves) in width. The upper part of either leaf consists of geometrical and floral ornament in exquisitely tasteful combination, executed in the scheme known technically, from the angles at the central polygon, as lazo de á doce—“lazo-work of twelve.” The decoration of the lower part is more minute, and in the scheme of lazo de á diez—“lazo-work of ten.” Inscriptions in Arabic and Latin, many of which are quoted from the Psalms, are distributed on both sides of the woodwork, and confirm our other evidence that the doors were made during the reign and in obedience to the orders, of Don Pedro.

The Plateresco sixteenth-century doors of the Capilla de los Vargas at Madrid (Plate [xiv].) are attributed by Cean Bermudez and by Ponz to an artist named Giralte, who carved them in walnut with various military and other scenes from Scripture, alternating with shields and floral ornament; the whole surrounded by an exquisitely delicate and tasteful border. Lampérez remarks that the errors of perspective recall the similar productions of Ghiberti.

XXVI
CHOIR-STALLS
(Burgos Cathedral)

The celosía or decorative wooden window-grating, imported by the Mussulman conqueror from Egypt and the East, extended to all parts of Christian Spain, and was particularly used in convents. These gratings, identical in form and workmanship with those of Cairo,[45] were attached to projecting windows, so that the women of a household could look into the street without themselves being seen, a custom which the Spanish woman still recalls to us by peering, for hours at a time, between the lowered persiana of her balcony.[46] By the seventeenth century, which may truthfully be called the age of Spanish jealousy, and when the “Othello-like revenge of the Moor” had eaten into the very entrails of society, the celosía had become as indispensable to houses as the door or window. “La,” wrote Bertaut de Rouen of a residence on the outskirts of Madrid, and obviously alluding to these gratings, “il y avoit bien des Dames dans l'appartement d'enhaut qui y demeurerent cachées, se contentant de nous voir promener dans le jardin par les fenêtres.”

We know from the stone coat of arms which is carved above the doorway of the “House of Castril at Granada” that in the olden time the balconies of the Hall of Comares in the Alhambra were fitted with projecting wooden celosías; and Contreras says that in the Torre de los Puñales of the same palace there used to be “a kind of wooden mirador or menacir, covered with celosías like those of Cairo, and many of which were still to be seen in Granada early in the nineteenth century.”

I am not aware of any Moorish celosía remaining to this day outside a Spanish building. In such exposed positions weather and the natural delicacy of the woodwork seem to have destroyed them all. As an interior ornament, a single one (Pl. [xvi].) exists in the Alhambra. Nevertheless, I hesitate to call this celosía purely Moorish. Perhaps it is the work of a Morisco, or even of a Christian-Spaniard, for we know that decorative wooden fittings for the Alhambra were made in the sixteenth century by Antonio Navarro and other craftsmen. The grating, which is well preserved, covers a window over the archway leading from the Hall of the Two Sisters into the Sala de los Ajimeces and the Mirador de Daraxa, and consists of minute prisms and turned pieces in the typical Egyptian style.

XXVII
CHOIR-STALLS
(San Márcos, León)

Other fittings for a building, wrought in wood by Moorish artists and by these communicated to the Christian-Spaniards, were balustrades and cornices, aleros (decorative bands beneath the eaves of a roof, Plate [xvii].) and zapatas (gargoyle-looking figures, often in human form, used to support a roof or gallery). In the so-called “Patio de las Asas” of the convent of Santa Catalina de Zafra, at Granada, exists an interesting Moorish balustrade[47] that seems almost untouched by time. I reproduce an outline of it as the tailpiece to the present chapter, and am glad to append the little sketch in question, copied from a photograph I took upon the spot three years ago, because it is almost impossible to obtain admission to this convent. Beautiful or uncouth and quaint zapatas may be seen in the Casa de los Tiros at Granada, and in many other places (Plates [xviii]. and [xix].). Much of the Moorish woodwork of the palace of the Alhambra was destroyed by the fire of 1590, but there yet remain the ample cornice and carved alero of the façade of the Cuarto de Comares (Plate [xx].), which is often called in error the Court of the Mezquita. This alero bears the following inscription, allusive to the Sultan Mohammed the Fifth:—“I am the place where the crown is guarded, and on my doors being opened the regions of the west believe the east to be contained within me. Algami Billah charged me to keep guard upon the doorway.”

XXVIII
DETAIL OF CHOIR-STALLS
(León Cathedral)

Other remarkable aleros are in the Generalife and in the Court of Lions of the Alhambra, while, also in this last-named mansion, genuine Moorish woodwork of elaborately inlaid ebony and larch is in two niches near the entrance to the Sala de Embajadores.

SACRED STATUARY, SILLERÍAS OR CHOIR-STALLS, AND RETABLOS

The genius of the wood-carvers of older Spain is manifested chiefly in three groups of objects—sacred statuary, choir-stalls, and retablos. Among this people, and probably by reason of its cheapness, plain, or gilt, or polychrome painted wood has always been a favourite material for the statues of their temples, whether such statues were employed alone, or as an accessory to a larger article of sacred furniture, such as a pulpit, or a sillería, or an altar-screen. So powerful, in fact, has been the vogue of this material here,[48] that even to-day the Spanish people, making, in Symonds' happy phrase, “representation an object in itself, independently of its spiritual significance,” attempt to elevate the most remarkable of their wooden, and by preference their coloured wooden, statuary (typically defended by Pacheco's indigested tome), to rank beside the noblest and the purest monuments of bronze and marble; denoting, by this reckless and uneducated partiality, a positively national misconception of the true domain of art.

XXIX
CHOIR-STALLS
(Plasencia Cathedral)

It is outside the scope of such a work as this to deal at any length with Spanish figure-sculpture. However, it is only fair to recognize that Spain produced a couple of score or so of admirable carvers of wood-statuary. Among the greatest of these craftsmen or imagineros were Becerra, Berruguete, Juan de Juni, author of the Mater Dolorosa (“Our Lady of the Knives”), of Valladolid; Gregorio Hernández the Galician, author of “Simon the Cyrenian,” “Santa Veronica,” and “the Baptism of our Lord”; Martínez Montañes, author of “San Jerónimo” and of the “Cristo del Gran Poder”;[49] Solis, Gaspar de Ribas, Juan Gómez, author of the “Jesus” of Puerto de Santa Maria; Pedro Roldan, with whom, according to Tubino, “the art of Seville closed its eyes”; and Alonso Cano, master of Pedro and Alonso de Mena, Ruiz del Peral, José de Mora, and Diego de Mora, and who carved the exquisite “Elijah Sleeping” (Pl. [xxi].) now at Toledo, and also (as it is believed) the famous statuette (Frontispiece to the present volume) of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The earliest centre of this branch of wood-carving was Valladolid, where lived and laboured Juni and Hernández. Nevertheless, although so popular in every part of Spain, it had a short-lived prime, originating in the two Castiles towards the reign of Philip the Second, declining steadily (with Seville for its centre now) all through the seventeenth century, and flickering out, despite the perseverance and the genius of the Murcian Susillo, in the century succeeding.

In decorative sillerías or sets of choir-stalls, Spain has produced examples worthy to be set beside the masterpiece of Vitry in the abbey of Sainte-Claude, the best productions of Dürer and his followers in Germany, or those of Donatello, Brunelleschi, Valdambrino, Vechietta, and Verrochio in Italy. Nevertheless, her most distinguished sillería-makers were at almost every moment inspired and directed by the foreigner. Germans or Flemings were her first preceptors in this craft. These artists had been sent for, or proceeded of their own accord, to Spain, and settling in this country rapidly spread the technics of their art among the Spaniards. In the Peninsula the origin of this school or movement may be traced to Burgos. Here, just as the fifteenth century was drawing to its close, and just before the breath of the Renaissance crossed the Spanish frontier at its eastern side, was gathered a small though influential group of eminent workers in more crafts than one; painters and sculptors, architects, embroiderers, carvers of wood, reja-makers, and painters of cathedral glass. Prominent among them all was a foreigner named Philip Vigarny,[50] who is described by Diego de Sagrado as “singular above all others in the art of making statuary and sculpture; a man of vast experience, general in his mastery of the liberal and mechanic arts, and no less resolute in all that is related with the sciences of architecture.”

XXX
DETAIL OF CHOIR-STALLS
(Convent of San Marcos, León)

Burgundy is said to have been the birthplace of Felipe de Borgoña, but of his early history we have no tidings. In documents which bear his signature he styles himself “imaginario, resident at Burgos.” Three such documents exist. On August 1st, 1505, he agrees, for 130,000 maravedis, to make “such images as may be necessary” for the altar of the high chapel of Palencia cathedral, “he with his own hand to carve the hands and faces, out of good smooth walnut, without painting.” This document is dated from Palencia. The other two are dated severally, Burgos, December 6th, 1506, and Corcos, September 6th, without the addition of the year.[51] We also know this craftsman to have made the great retablo of Burgos cathedral. Such, from the fragmentary semblance we can trace of him, was Philip Vigarny, the pioneer of the wood-carvers of older Spain, and who, aided by other craftsmen from abroad, communicated all the secrets of his art to Spaniards such as Gil de Siloe, Ruy Sanchez, Diego de la Cruz, Alonso de Lima, and Berruguete.

The typical sillería consists of two tiers; the sellia or upper seats, with high backs and a canopy, intended for the canons, and the lower seats or subsellia, of simpler pattern and with lower backs, intended for the beneficiados. At the head of all is placed the presidential throne, larger than the other stalls, and covered, in many cases, by a canopy surmounted by a tall spire. When the sillería belongs to a monastery, the higher stalls are for the profesos, and the lower for the novices and legos. Commonly the part that forms the actual seat is hinged and rises to a vertical position, being so contrived that when the occupant rises to his feet, there remains a narrow ledge projecting from the under surface. This ledge is called the “seat of pity” or “of patience,” because the worshipper is able to incline himself on it and give his limbs some measure of repose without appearing to be seated. There also is commonly another piece, intended for him to rest his hands upon in rising, which projects from the sides of the stall and forms a part of the decorative carving, as well as, somewhat higher still, the carved support to rest his arms while he is on his feet.

XXXI
“SAMSON”
(Carved Choir-stall of León Cathedral)

The earliest Spanish sillerías date from the fourteenth century; but it is not until the century succeeding that we find them at their very best. Gothic or Plateresco sillerías of marvellous design and workmanship are those of the Seo of Zaragoza (begun in 1412), the Cartuja de Miraflores of Burgos (1489), the monastery of Oña, Santa María de Nájera (1495), the church of Santa María del Campo, in the province of Burgos, Santo Tomás of Avila (finished in 1493), and the cathedrals of Oviedo, Segovia (1461–1497), Ciudad Rodrigo, Tarragona (1478), Tarazona, Toledo (begun in 1494), Zamora, Astorga, Barcelona (1453–1483), and Seville (finished in 1478).

The Gothic choir-stalls of the Seo of Zaragoza have lofty backs with arabesque Mudejar ornamentation, small Gothic columns, and medallions containing figures upon the arms of every stall. The material is Flemish oak. The carving was begun in 1412 by the Moors Alí Arrondi, Muza, and Chamar, who earned a daily wage of four sueldos. In 1446 Juan Navarro and the brothers Antonio and Francisco Gomar were working at the same stalls, and also, in 1449, Francoy.

The stalls of the Cartuja de Miraflores at Burgos were carved by Martin Sánchez, who received in 1486, and for the mano de obra alone, the sum of 125,000 maravedis. The material, which was presented by Luis de Velasco, Señor of Belorado, is dark walnut.

The sillería of Santa María de Nájera, the work of Maestro Andrés and Maestro Nicolás, is Gothic merging into the Renaissance. That of Santo Tomás of Avila (late Gothic) consists of sixty oaken stalls, besides two larger ones resembling thrones (Plate [xxiv].), intended to be occupied by Ferdinand and Isabella, founders of this monastery, and whose arms they bear in lace-like carving. The rest of the decoration is composed of thistles, vines, trefoils, and pomegranates. Owing to the fact that not a single cross appears on any part of the sillería (although this circumstance is not unusual in sacred Gothic woodwork), there is a superstition that these stalls were wrought anonymously by some Jew, condemned to execute them by the Inquisition as a form of punishment. This fable has no value. Although the author's name is not upon the stalls, they are identical in nearly every detail with those of the Cartuja de Miraflores at Burgos, known to have been carved by Martin Sánchez in 1486. Hence it is extremely probable that this craftsman was the author of both sillerías.

XXXII
“ESAU”
(Carved Choir-stall of León Cathedral)

On many Spanish sillerías we find most spirited reproductions of the life and manners of their time; satirical allusions to contemporary vices, allegories and caprices as fantastic, in the phrase of Vargas Ponce, as “one of Bosch's nightmares,” hunting-scenes or love-scenes, banquets, tournaments, dances, battles, sieges, and even bull-fights. Thus, on the stalls of the cathedrals of Zamora, Oviedo, Plasencia, Astorga, and León are carved such subjects as the following. A fox dressed as a friar, preaching to a group of hens but slyly abstracting their chicks (Zamora), men fighting with their fists (Zamora), a hog playing the bagpipes (León), the Devil in the garb of a confessor, tempting a penitent (León), a woman suckling an ass (León), a man armed with a lance, fighting a woman (Astorga), a bird of prey struggling with a crocodile (Astorga), card-players (Astorga), a warrior on all-fours, whipped by a woman (Plasencia), an auto-de-fé (Plasencia), swine praying and spinning (Ciudad Rodrigo), a fight between a tiger and a bull (Ciudad Rodrigo), a monkey beating a drum (Ciudad Rodrigo), and a monkey wearing a mitre (Ciudad Rodrigo).

The style of the lower stalls of Toledo cathedral is good Plateresque. They were begun in 1494 by Maese Rodrigo, one of the very best of Spain's entalladores, and portray, in each successive stall, the phases of the last campaign against Granada (Plate [xxv].); the sieges or battles of Altora, Melis, Xornas, Erefran, Alminia, Baza, Málaga (two stalls), Salobreña, Almuñecar, Comares, Beles, Montefrío, Moclín, Illora, Loja, Cazarabonela, Coyn, Cartama, Marbella, Ronda, Setenil, Alora, Alhama, Nixar, Padux, Vera, Huéscar, Guadix, Purchena, Almería, Rión, Castil de Ferro, Cambril, Zagani, Castul, Gor, Canzoria, Moxacar, Vélez el Blanco, Gurarca, Vélez el Rubio, Soreo, and Cabrera.

The upper tier of the same stalls belongs to a later period, and will, in consequence, be noticed subsequently.

XXXIII
RETABLO
(Seville Cathedral)

The sillería of Barcelona cathedral was begun in the middle of the fifteenth century by Matias Bonafé, at the same time that the German Michael Locher and his pupil John Frederic worked at the canopies. It was finished thirty years later. Upon the back (which otherwise is plain) of every stall is a coat of arms distinct from all its neighbours, marking the seat of one of the princes or nobles summoned by Charles the Fifth to the Chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece, March 5th, 1519.[52]

The splendid sillería of Seville cathedral is a mingling of the Gothic with the Mudejar and Plateresque. The material is oak and fir, and the number of the seats one hundred and seventeen. The sellia are surmounted by a graceful running guardapolvo. Each seat is carved distinctly from the rest, and further decorated in the Mudejar style with inlaid woods of various kinds and colours, imitating stone mosaic. Among this labyrinth of design are groups of people, angels, animals, and scenes from Scripture, as well as, on the lower stalls, the Giralda tower, which forms the arms of the cathedral. The sillería is further embellished with two hundred and sixteen statuettes, seventy-two of which are ranged along the canopy or dosel, the remainder being distributed between the seats.

The authors of this splendid work of art (judiciously restored some years ago by Boutelou, Fernandez, and Mattoni) were Nufio Sanchez, Dancart, and several other craftsmen, concerning whom we know but very little. Sánchez' name is carved upon the second stall of the upper row, and on the side of the Evangelist, as follows:—

The above inscription states that “this choir was made by Nufio Sanchez, entallador (God guard him[53]), and finished in the year one thousand four hundred and seventy-eight.”

XXXIV
RETABLO OF SEVILLE CATHEDRAL
(Detail of Carving)

With the dawn of the sixteenth century, the Gothic style runs rapidly into that of the Renaissance. At about this time, and as Baron Davillier pointed out, we sometimes find a triple influence, namely, the Burgundian, the Italian, and the native Spanish. Vigarny may be called the champion of the first of these, Berruguete (who studied in Italy) of the second, and Guillermo Doncel of the third. After this the purer Renaissance gives place to the decadent, as in the stalls of Santiago, Málaga, Cordova, and Salamanca.

Sixteenth-century sillerías of note are those of Burgos cathedral (Plate [xxvi].), carved by Vigarny, Avila cathedral, the Pilar of Zaragoza, the Minor Friars of the Cartuja of Burgos, Pamplona cathedral, San Marcos of León, Huesca, the alta sillería of Toledo, and the walnut stalls—carved in 1526 by Bartolomé Fernandez de Segovia, and now in the Madrid Museum—of the Parral of Segovia.

The sillería of Avila cathedral is believed to have been begun in 1527 by Juan Rodrigo, although the greater part of it was probably executed between 1536 and 1547 by Cornelis de Holanda, who took for his model the stalls of San Benito of Valladolid. The cost of the walnut wood and of its workmanship amounted to 33,669 reales.

The upper stalls of Toledo cathedral were carved by Vigarny and Alonso Berruguete in collaboration, so that we find in them the northern and Italian styles effectively and interestingly united. The Plateresque-Renaissance sillería, described as “genuinely Spanish,” of the old convent of San Marcos of León, containing statuettes of biblical personages and of fathers of the Church—Saint Isidore among them,—was finished in 1542 by Guillermo Doncel, who added the inscription “Magister Guillermus Doncel me fecit MDXLII” (Plate [xxvii].). We know, however, nothing more about this excellent Spanish artist, except that (on the unsupported testimony of Cean) he worked at the façade of this convent between the years 1537 and 1544.

XXXV
DETAIL OF RETABLO
(Late 15th century. Museum of Valladolid)

The intricate sillería of the Pilar of Zaragoza, containing almost every kind of subject—beasts, birds and fishes, allegories, incidents of the chase, or scenes of popular life—was designed by Esteban de Obray, a Navarrese, and executed by him and his assistants, Juan Moreto Florentino and Nicolas de Lobato, between 1542 and 1548. That of the Minor Friars of the Cartuja of Burgos was carved at a cost of eight hundred and ten ducats by Simón de Bueras, in 1558. That of Pamplona cathedral dates from about the middle of the century, and is the work of one Ancheta, who had visited Italy and gathered inspiration from the masterpieces of Siena. The material is English oak. The stalls of Huesca, carved from oak proceeding from an older sillería which had been removed, were begun in 1587 and finished in 1594. The craftsmen were Nicolás de Verástegui and Juan Verrueta de Sangüesa.

Seventeenth-century sillerías are those of Santiago, carved by Juan de Vila in 1603; Salamanca, in 1651, by Alfonso Balbás; Orihuela, in 1692, by Juan Bautista Borja; and Segorbe, carved in the same year by Nicolás Camarón; while dating from the eighteenth century—a period of manifest decadence in this beautiful but short-lived craft—are the stalls of Lerida, by Luis Bonifar y Masó (born in 1730), and Cordova, executed between 1748 and 1757, at a cost of 913,889 reales, by Pedro Ciriaco Duque y Cornejo, a son of Seville and a pupil of the Sevillano Roldan.

The least imperfect of these later and decadent sillerías is that of Málaga, whose author, Pedro de Mena, was, like his master, Alonso Cano, a native of Granada.

Mena's contract with two canons of the cathedral, nominated by the bishop to prepare and sign the stipulations, will be found in No. 134 of the Boletín de la Sociedad de Excursiones.

The stalls of Málaga number a hundred and one, carved in walnut, larch, cedar, and the heavy Indian wood called granadillo. As happens with many of the sillerías of this country, the costumes of the figures are of great historical value. Among the saints is San Roque, in pilgrim's garb, attended by the dog who brought him day by day a loaf of bread while men refused to succour him.

No less magnificent than these sets of choir-stalls are the carved retablos or altar-screens,[54] a gradual excrescence from the primitive and unpretentious altar of the early days of Christianity. Several kinds of craftsmen worked upon these altar-screens, such as tallistas, entalladores, imagineros, and even architects.

XXXVI
DETAIL OF RETABLO
(Chapel of Santa Ana, Burgos Cathedral)

The Golden Age of the retablo embraces the end of the fifteenth century and the whole of the sixteenth. Notable examples belonging to this period are the screens of the monastery of Santo Tomás at Avila, San Martin of Segovia, the Cartuja de Miraflores, the Colegiata of Covarrubias in the province of Burgos, the cathedrals of Avila, Toledo, Tudela, and Tarazona; several in the churches of Toledo, two in the church of San Lesmes (Burgos), two in Burgos Cathedral (Plate [xxxvi].), and three, including those of Reyes and of Buena Mariana, in the church of San Gil in the same city. Not one of these, however, has the grandeur or variety of the altar-screen of Seville (Plates [xxxiii]. and [xxxiv].), which is carefully described in Cean's monograph. “The style is Gothic; the material, undecaying larch; and the screen, which reaches nearly to the vaulting, is the largest in the country, although at first it spanned the presbytery only, not including either side. It was designed in 1482 by Dancat or Danchart, who began work upon it as soon as his sketches were approved, and worked at it till 1492, in which year he seems to have died.

“Dancat was succeeded by Master Marco and Bernardo de Ortega, whose carving reached, by 1505, the canopy or viga, and who were followed in their turn by Francisco, Bernardo's son, father and teacher of Bernardino and Nufrio de Ortega, his assistants. Some of the statues were carved by Micer Domingo. The rest of the imaginería was finished in 1526; and the gilding and painting were done by Alejo Fernández, his brother, and Andrés de Covarrubias.

“So the screen remained till 1550, when the Chapter decided to extend it, without altering the style of decoration, to the sides of the presbytery. By this time Spanish sculpture had improved, and many of our best-known sculptors lent their aid, of whom the earliest were Roque Balduc, Pedro Becerril, el Castellano, Juan de Villalva, Diego Vazquez, and Pedro Bernal. In 1553 the Chapter appointed, to inspect the work of these artists, Juan Reclid and Luis de Aguilar, both of whom lived at Jaen. Henceforth the master-craftsmen working at the screen were Pedro de Heredia, Gomez de Orozco, Diego Vazquez the younger, Juan Lopez, Andrés Lopez del Castillo, and his sons, Juan de Palencia, and Juan Bautista Vazquez. By 1564 the screen was quite concluded.

“The Gothic work is of incomparable richness. Ten groups of tall and narrow columns, resting upon two pedestals or socles, divide the retablo into nine spaces, crossed by horizontal bands of complicated carving, forming a series of thirty-six niches, in four rows. Statues a little less than life-size represent, in the first row, the creation and fall of our first parents, and the mysteries of the infancy of Christ; in the second, His preaching and miracles; in the third, His passion and death; and in the fourth, His resurrection, appearance to the disciples, and ascension; also the coming of the Holy Ghost. Upon the altar-table, and resting in its niche, is the statue, covered with silver plates, of Nuestra Señora de la Sede, presented to this temple by Saint Ferdinand. Above the viga, which has an artesonado ceiling, rises a frontispiece containing thirteen canopied niches with statues of the apostles, and in the centre niche that of the Virgin Mary. Crowning the whole retablo are statues larger than life-size, and a Calvary standing in free space.”[55]

Throughout these Spanish altar-screens the influence which predominates is that of Germany. They are essentially distinguished by a Northern art (Plates [xxxv]., [xxxvi].), not sentimental but material, not tender but robust, not (like the art of the Italians) retrospective or prospective, but prosaic, realistic, actual. Curiously enough, their presence seems incongruous in Spain, and yet they made themselves at home here; for Spanish art was ever realistic, so probably on this account two widely different nations found, at least in this particular craft, a common bond of sympathy. Certainly the Renaissance, while it seemed to cherish and encourage, really undermined and killed this branch of Spanish wood-carving. A similar phenomenon attends the art of the Alhambra. In either case the plenitude of power and of beauty is even more ephemeral than the term of human life; and thus, deluded by so brilliant and majestic a decay, we fail to apprehend, or seek to grow oblivious of, the imminence of their ruin.

Footnotes:

[1] Documents, quoted by the Count of Clonard, of Alfonso the Second, San Genadio, Froylan, and the Infanta Urraca.

[2] According to Miquel y Badía, the focus of the Romans is the present clar de foch of Cataluña; “a square platform of brick or stone raised somewhat from the ground, surrounded by a bench (escó), and large enough to serve for roasting beasts entire.”

Swinburne wrote from Reus in 1775;—“we here for the first time saw a true Spanish kitchen, viz., an hearth raised above the level of the floor under a wide funnel, where a circle of muleteers were huddled together over a few cinders.”

[3] The Codex of the Testaments, preserved in Oviedo Cathedral, contains some valuable illustrations of Spanish furniture of the tenth century. Greatly interesting, too, is the chair of San Raimundo (12th century) preserved at Roda in Aragon. It is of the “scissors” or folding form (sella plicatilis, Ducange), and the arms are terminated by heads of animals.

[4] The early nomenclature of the clothes and other fittings of a Spanish bed is bewildering. We find in common use the canopy (almocalla, almuzala; Arabic, al-mokalla, i.e. “haven of refuge in all winds”—not always, possibly, a judicious term in the case of a cama de matrimonio or “marriage-bed”); the cloth-lined skins for chilly weather (alifafe, alifad; Arabic al-lifafh), such as King Juan the First of Aragon provided for his daughter (“two leathers of Morocco for the bed.” Archive of the Crown of Aragon; Registro 1906, fol. 42); the parament or dosal; the galnapé or topmost of the bedclothes proper (“un lecho con guenabe”; Fuero of Cáceres, a.d. 1229); the counterpane (fatel, fatol, alfatel, facel, farele, fateye, fatiro; Arabic fatla); the linen sheets (izares, lentros, lentos, lintes, lincas, linteáminas, or lencios); and the mattress, pillow, and bolster, called, all three of them, plumazo, plumario, or plumaco. Nearly or quite identical in meaning with these last are cúlcita and almadraque. Cúlcita is corrupted into colcedra, cocedra, conzara, colotra, and other more or less barbaric variations; while almohada, almuella, travesera, almofadinha, faseruelo, and aljamar also signify a pillow or a cushion.

[5] “E due haber encara héla entegrament, ses vestitz é ses joyes é un leyt ben garnit del misllors apereylltz que sien en casa, é una escala d'argent é una cortina.” Fuero of Jaca, a.d. 1331, quoted by Abad y la Sierra and the Count of Clonard.

[6] Sanpere y Miquel; Las costumbres catalanas en tiempo de Juan I., pp. 83, 84.

[7] Miquel y Badía believes that the Spaniards abandoned the Roman usage of reclining at their meals towards the sixth century.

[8] Forks were not introduced till later. It has even been questioned whether they were known in Spain as late as the sixteenth century. But Ambrosio de Morales mentions one in 1591, while another is recorded in 1607 as belonging to the monastery of San Jerónimo de Valparaiso, near Cordova. (See vol. i., p. 84.)

[9] This kind of furniture was prohibited by a sumptuary pragmatic of 1594. “No silversmith or other craftsman, or any person whatsoever, shall make, or cause to be made, or sold, or sell himself or purchase, whether openly or privately, buffets, writing-desks, chests, brasiers, pattens, tables, letter-cases, rejillas or foot-warmers, images, or any other object that has silver fittings, whether the silver be beaten, stamped, wrought in relief, carved, or plain.” Suma de todas las leyes (a.d. 1628), p. 42.

[10] Describing how the monarch made these presents to the church when lying at the point of death, the Chronicle of the Monk of Silos says: “exuit regalem clamydem, qua induebatur corpus et deposuit gemmatam coronam, qua ambiebatur caput.”

[11] The formula is worded thus: “Quisquis ille fuerit qui talia commiserit, sit maledictus coram Deo et Angelis ejus, mendicitas et lepra prosapiam teneat suam et extraneus persistat a sancta communione, quatenus cum Juda, Christi proditore, ardendus permaneat in æterna damnatione.”

[12] To keep the dust or rain from entering these trunks, they were covered, when on the march, with stout square cloths called reposteros, which were often richly worked and bore the owner's arms or monogram. The same word subsequently came to mean the tapestried or other decorative cloths displayed in Spain on gala days from balconies of public edifices, or the mansions of the aristocracy; but dictionaries which were printed at the close of the eighteenth century still define the repostero as “caparison, a square cloth with the arms of a prince or lord on it, which serves to cover a led-horse, or sumpter-horse.”

[13] The wood-carving and decorative leather-work of older Spain will be described a little later on. As to the use of decorated leather by the Moors, in the small chamber of the Alhambra opening into the Mirador of Daraxa, and known as the Sala de los Ajimeces, is a bare space about nine feet in height, which runs the whole way round beneath the copious ornament of the remainder of the wall. Contreras says that the Moorish sultans used to hang these spaces with decorated leathers, tapestry, and armour. Sometimes the tapestry or leather would be worked or painted with hunting-scenes (tardwahsh—the chase of the lion, panther, or wild boar), or even with portraits of the sultans. Among these latter is the celebrated painting on the ceiling of the Hall of Justice, executed, as are its companions at each side of it, upon a leather groundwork with a plaster coating.

[14] I think this shows why to this day a Spaniard who professes to be an educated person will often wipe his or her mouth upon the tablecloth. Not many weeks ago I saw the elegantly dressed daughter of a Spanish member of Parliament perform this semi-oriental feat in an hotel at Granada. Montaigne would judge this señorita with benevolence; not so, I fear, my compatriots. Similarly, it is considered rude in Spain to stretch yourself; but not to spit upon the dining-room floor, or pick your teeth at table.

[15] Mr Cunninghame Graham, visiting a Caid's house in present-day Morocco, noted, as the only furniture, “leather-covered cushions, the cover cut into intricate geometric patterns; the room contained a small trunk-shaped box.”

[16] West Barbary, p. 150.

[17] Annales d'Espagne et de Portugal, vol. iii., pp. 324, 327.

[18] “Hónrale el Sr Roberto, alma del Rey, y le ha dado Silla, y le tuvo á su lado.” Lope de Vega's comedy, The Key of Honour.

[19] The covers would be fastened by a lock and key, as a defence, not against poison, but against theft. “A little afterwards Don Federico de Cardona, who had gone out to see how matters were proceeding, returned, bearing a large silver vessel, the cover of which was secured by a lock and key, as is the custom in Spain.”—Countess d'Aulnoy's Travels. As late as the year 1792, Townsend, in his “Directions to the Itinerant in Spain,” recommends (vol. i., p. 2) that the vessel to boil the traveller's meat should be provided with a cover and a lock.

[20] The purpose of these Spanish city laws was in its essence unimpeachable; namely, to guard the intensely ignorant Christian populace—the same which fugitive Moriscos of the kingdom of Valencia had readily prevailed upon to barter tons of brass and pewter trash for sterling gold and silver coin—from being imposed upon by manufacturers and merchants. But the power of discriminating between a genuine or well-made object and a piece of counterfeit or worthless rubbish is, among all peoples, better sought for and developed by experience than by legislation; and there was something noxiously prosaic in a code of city ordinances which forbade the craftsman to prepare his own design, or choose his own material, or establish his own prices. How violently, or at least how primitively, hostile to the sense of art must not have been these Christian sons of Spain to need—or think they needed—so impertinent and tyrannous a system of protection!

[21] Ordenanza de Mesoneros, titulo 54.

[22] West Barbary, p. 129.

[23] Vol. v., pp. 301–304.

[24] “Spain lays claim to the invention of the art of gilding leather; it is asserted that, after being discovered there, the secret was carried to Naples by Peter Paul Majorano.”—Laborde, vol. v., p. 231.

[25] Count of Clonard; Memorias para la historia del traje español.

[26] Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones, Nos. 101, 102; Art. Guadamacíes.

[27] The Poem of the Cid tells us of the two chests, covered with red guadamecí, which the hero filled with sand to cheat the Jewish money-lenders:—

“Con vuestro consejo bastir quiero dos archas.
Incamosla d'arena, cá bien serán pesadas,
Cubiertas de guadamecí é bien enclavadas;
Los guadamecís bermeios é los clavos bien dorados.”

Nevertheless, the “coffer of the Cid” at Burgos (see p. [12]) does not appear to have been thus fitted.

[28] The same usage obtained in Morocco. Lancelot Addison wrote in 1669 that on the first day of their “Little Feast” the Moors across the Strait “spread the floor of their Giammas with coloured leather.”—West Barbary, p. 213.

[29] An inventory of effects belonging to the Hospital of San José at Jerez de la Frontera mentions, in 1589, “clothes and trimmings for the image of Our Lady. A crown of gilded guadamecí.”—Gestoso, Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos, vol. i., p. xxii, note.

[30] A hall, says Ramírez de Arellano, would often be embellished by surrounding it with arches wrought of leather in relief and superposed on leather. As a rule the arches were gilt and silvered, and rested upon pilasters or columns. When pilasters were used, their centres would be ornamented with Italian devices such as flowers, trophies, imitated cameos, and foliage. Landscapes with a far horizon and no figures, known as boscaje or pintura verde were painted on the space between the arches, so that the general effect was that of a pavilion with arches on all sides, displaying everywhere a wide expanse of fertile country. The arches rested on a broad bordering of guadamecíes, and running round the lower part was a zócalo or socle, commonly made of tiling.

Such is the kind of decoration which was most in vogue in Spain throughout the latter half of the sixteenth century; that which was exported to Rome; and that which was commissioned by the Duke of Arcos.

[31] The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, pp. 124, 125.

[32] “Es noble arte, complida en sí; è acrescienta la nobleza del rey y del reyno, si en ella pararen mientes, como deuen; è pone paz en el pueblo y amor entre los omes, onde es carrera para muchos bienes.”—Ordenanzas de Sevilla, Part 1, p. 141.

[33] Gestoso finds no record of him in the city archives; but from a rough portrait of Arenas prefixed to his treatise, we judge that he was born about the year 1580.

[34] Arenas himself defines a carpintero de lo blanco as “he who prepares and works upon the wood employed in building; also, he who fashions tables, benches, etc., in his workshop.”

[35] “His language abounds in Arabic words and phrases of uncertain origin, whose meaning (since he wrote for men familiar with this work) he makes no effort to explain.”—Editor's introduction to the third edition of Carpintería de lo Blanco.

[36] Arabic al-farx, a carpet, piece of tapestry, or anything that covers and adorns.

[37] This mingled decoration is extremely common; and may be studied in our country, in the carved panels at South Kensington which are believed to proceed from the pulpit of the mosque of Kusun; or in the thirteenth-century panels of the tomb of Es-salih Ayyub.

[38] Cordova was a famous centre of this craft for many centuries. Ramírez de Arellano has found and published a notice relative to Lope de Liaño and García Alonso, two artificers of this city who signed, on January 7th, 1572, a contract with the prior of the monastery of the Holy Martyrs to build a ceiling for one of the chapels of the same. The document, which is quoted in extenso in the Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones for November, 1900, abounds in technical expressions, many of them partly or entirely Moorish.

The same writer publishes the names (hitherto completely unrecorded) of thirteen other artist-carpenters who worked at Cordova in the latter half of the sixteenth century and early in the seventeenth. The craft, in fact, died hard, and ceilings of this kind, replete with Moorish detail, were made in certain parts of Southern Spain until the closing moments of the eighteenth century.

[39] That the Moors were proud of their mastery in woodwork is proved by an inscription in the Torre de la Cautiva at Granada, saying; “In the plaster and the tiles is work of extreme beauty, but the woodwork of the roof has vanquished them in elegance.”

[40] Morales was probably mistaken. “On entering Aragon one sees whole forests of ‘Spanish Cedar’ or alerce, some of the trees so thick that they measure four feet in diameter.”—Bowles' Natural History of Spain, p. 102.

[41] Antigüedades de las ciudades de España (a.d. 1575), p. 123.

[42] José Amador de los Ríos mentions, as a good example of the first of these types, a thirteenth-century door of the claustrilla in the monastery of Las Huelgas at Burgos. Other doors in the same monastery are illustrative of the second type; while all three types are represented by the doors, described herewith, which close the principal entrance to the misnamed Hall of Ambassadors in the Alcázar of Seville.

[43] Journal du Voyage en Espagne, p. 85.

[44] The following words record the date of the construction of this place and its doors, and may be read (Plate [xiii].) upon the scroll of tiles or alizares crowning the principal façade:—

☩ EL ︰ MUY ︰ ALTO ︰ ET ︰ MUY ︰ NOBLE ︰ ET ︰ MUY ︰ PODEROSO ︰ ET ︰ MUY ︰ CONQUERIDOR ︰ DON ︰ PEDRO ︰ POR ︰ LA ︰ GRACIA ︰ DE ︰ DIOS ︰ REY ︰ DE ︰ CASTIELLA ︰ ET ︰ DE ︰ LEON ︰ MANDÓ ︰ FACER ︰ ESTOS ︰ ALCÁZARES ︰ ET ︰ ESTOS ︰ PALACIOS ︰ ET ︰ ESTAS ︰ PORTADAS ︰ QUE ︰ FUÉ ︰ FECHO ︰ EN ︰ LA ︰ ERA ︰ DE ︰ MILL ︰ ET ︰ QUATROÇIENTOS ︰ Y ︰ DOS ︰

The observant Swinburne was not misled, like many travellers of to-day, into believing the Alcázar to be of purely Moorish origin. “Having read that the Moors built one part of this palace, I concluded I was admiring something as old as the Mahometan kings of Seville; but upon closer examination was not a little surprised to find lions, castles, and other armorial ensigns of Castille and Leon, interwoven with Arabesque foliages; and still more so, to see in large Gothic characters, an inscription informing me that these edifices were built in the fourteenth century, by the most mighty king of Castille and Leon, Don Pedro.”

[45] “The windows, which are chiefly composed of curious wooden lattice-work, serving to screen the inhabitants from the view of persons without, as also to admit both light and air, commonly project outwards, and are furnished with mattresses and cushions.”—Lane's Arabian Nights, vol. i., p. 192.

[46] It is strange that Ford should have confounded the reja with the celosía (Handbook, vol. i., p. 153). However, he opportunely quotes the Spanish proverb, Muger ventanera tuercela el cuello si la quieres buena (“The remedy for a woman who is always thrusting her head from the casement is to twist her neck”).

[47] Almagro Cardenas calls it “part of a celosía” (Museo Granadino, p. 79); but as it can never have been a window-grating, this term is incorrect. Gómez Moreno calls it, not too lucidly, “a wooden balustrade forming squares and rectangular figures in the manner of a celosía” (Guía de Granada, p. 421). Valladar (Guía de Granada, edition of 1906, p. 117) calls it simply a balustrade, and this, it seems to me, is the only term which truthfully describes the object.

[48] My readers are no doubt aware that every Spanish hamlet has its wooden image of the Virgin, badly executed as a rule, and rendered doubly hideous by a gaudy gown. Most of these local images are believed to hold the power of working miracles, or at least to have been fashioned and conducted to their present shrine by supernatural agency—on which account the populace and their pastors call these latter imagenes aparecidas, as distinct from manufactured images. Such are the Virgins of Montserrat, Granada, and numerous other cities, towns, or villages of this illiterate and ill-starred Peninsula. The curious may refer for every kind of detail to Villafañe's Compendious History of the Wonder-working Images of Spain, which numbered in this author's day (his book was published in 1740) one hundred and eighty-nine. But the most extraordinary miracle of all was that which is recalled, with pious gravity, by Bertaut de Rouen. Speaking of the gilt-wood image of Nuestra Señora del Pilar at Zaragoza, he says:—“On y void quantité de lampes d'argent et on m'en raconta un miracle qu'il me fut impossible de ne pas croire. C'est d'un pauvre homme qui ayant eu la jambe coupée pour une blessure, et s'estant bien recommandé à Nostra Señora del Pilar, il se trouva un jour avec sa mesme jambe qu'il avoit déja fait enterrer. Y'ay sceu l'histoire du chirurgien mesme qui coupa cette jambe et de quantité de témoins de veuë. Il n'y a que quinze ans que cela est arrivé, mais l'homme est mort depuis peu.”—Journal du Voyage en Espagne, p. 203.

[49] It is due to Martínez Montañes to mention that in many of his contracts he stipulated that the painters of his statuary should be chosen by himself, “so as not to corrupt the outline and the sentiment of the figures.”

[50] In Spanish he is called Felipe de Borgoña, but Martí y Monsó says that the proper spelling of the surname is Biguerny.

[51] Zarco del Valle, Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España, pp. 161, 162.

[52] “The stalls of the choir are neatly carved, and hung with escutcheons of princes and noblemen, among which I remarked the arms of our Henry the Eighth.”—Swinburne.

[53] This kind of parenthetical remark or prayer is one of the many Muslim phrases that have passed into the regular service of the Spanish Christian.

[54] Wood is the usual material for these altar-screens, though sometimes marble was employed, or stone, or silver. Of Genoese marble is the retablo (end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century) of the Cartuja del Paular in the Lozoya valley; of stone, those of the parish church of San Nicolás at Burgos (end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century), and of the “chapel of the tailors” in Tarragona Cathedral; while a silver retablo, in the Renaissance style, was that of the church, now demolished, of Santa María at Madrid.

[55] Descripción de la Catedral de Sevilla, pp. 27, 28.

---

[IVORIES]

The story of Spanish ivory-work is shortly told, for probably no craft, excepting glass, has been so little practised in this country. The older Spanish writers rarely mention it, although from time to time this substance may have been employed for carving diptyches and boxes, and Roderick is stated to have entered the battle of the Guadalete in an ivory car, by which is meant, perhaps, a chariot of Byzantine make or pattern, covered with ivory plates. However, properly speaking, the history of this art as exercised in Spain begins in the eleventh century, attains its prime towards the fourteenth century, and ceases altogether at the time of the Renaissance.

Among the ivory objects now preserved in Spain, and which were wrought by artists other than Mohammedan, none is more interesting or important than the consular diptych of Oviedo cathedral. Although this valuable diptych was not made in Spain, but manifests Byzantine art in all its purity, it well deserves to be described. It consists of two ivory tablets measuring sixteen inches and a half in height by twelve inches and a half across both leaves. Each leaf has a simple border of a triple form, and just inside each corner is a circular floral ornament in relief, with a lion's head in the centre. Another ornament, also circular, is in the centre of each leaf, and contains, carved within a graceful S-shaped border, a half-length portrait of the Consul, who is represented in the act of throwing down into the amphitheatre his mappa or handkerchief[56] with his right hand, while in his left he holds the sceptre (scipio imaginifer), crowned with a small bust. His hair is curled in the Byzantine fashion, and his costume is a richly decorated toga.

An inscription runs along the top of either tablet, between the border and the circular devices carved with flowers. It says:—

Flavius Strategius Apion—Strategius Apion. Vir inlustris Comes Devotissimorum Domesticorum et Consul ordinarius.

XXXVII
IVORY BOX
(9th Century. Madrid Museum)

We gather, therefore, that this magnate was a chamberlain at court, as well as ordinary consul.

Diptyches were used among the Romans for all kinds of purposes, such as to convey love-messages, as invitations to a banquet, or to notify the celebration of feasts and games. We find the diptych also used in Christian temples from the time of Constantine, serving to record church festivals or names of saints and martyrs, as covers for a copy of the gospel (diptycha evangeliorum), or as reliquaries (thecae reliquiarum). Sometimes these diptyches were wrought expressly for the church, or sometimes they were consular diptyches that had been preserved from former ages. This latter class, when cleansed from pagan usage and devoted to the ceremonies of the Christian faith, was known as diptycha mixta.

Such early objects as were wrought in ivory by Spanish hands, consisting as a rule of circular or oblong, square or oval caskets, were principally carved by Moors or Mudejares. Among the Spanish-Moorish boxes which are still preserved are several of the greatest interest and beauty (Plates [xxxviii]., [xxxix]., [xl].). One of them, made from pieces of an older casket believed to date from earlier than the Moorish conquest, is in the National Museum. The decoration in its present form consists of Arabic inscriptions in relief, together with figures of the apostles. This casket, which proceeds from the Colegiata of Saint Isidore at León, measures seven inches in length by five in depth and six in height, and has been used as a reliquary.

Another, dating from the middle of the eleventh century and proceeding from the same temple as the one just noticed, is also in the National Museum. It was a present from the Emir Mohammed Almotamid-Aben-Abed to his second wife, Al-Badir (“the Moon”), and includes among the decoration dogs and doves, symbolic of affection and fidelity. The style of carving is what is known as Persian-Arabic. We do not know, however, whether the box was imported from the East, or whether it was made in Spain by somebody of Persian parentage or skilled in Persian art. The material is a delicate taracea of sandal, aloe, and cypress woods inlaid on larch. The box, which was used at León as a reliquary, has bronze clasps, and is inscribed along the top with sentences from which we learn that it was made by Aben-As-Serag.

XXXVIII
IVORY CASKET
(Moorish; 11th Century. Pamplona Cathedral)

In the cathedral of Pamplona is a magnificent ivory box (Plate [xxxviii].) which was originally at Sangüesa in Navarre. It measures, says Riaño, fifteen inches long by nine and a quarter inches wide. “It is completely covered with carvings in relief, within circular cusped medallions, with figures in the centres representing different subjects; men seated, hawking, or struggling with wild beasts, and numerous single figures of lions, stags, and other animals. The intermediate spaces contain an ornamentation of leaves and flowers which is accommodated to the geometrical style of Saracenic art. Round the upper part of this box appears an Arabic inscription in fine Cufic characters:—‘In the name of God. The blessing of God, the complete felicity, the happiness, the fulfilment of the hope of good works, and the adjourning the fatal period (of death), be with the Hagib Seifo daula (sword of the State), Abdelmalek ben Almansur. This (box) was made by the orders (of the said Hagib), under the inspection or direction of his chief eunuch, Nomayr ben Mohammad Alaumeri, his slave, in the year of 395 (a.d. 1005).’

“In the centre medallion, on the opposite side to the lock, is represented the standing figure of a man who is attacked by two lions. He holds on his arm a shield, upon which is engraved an inscription, with the following religious formula: ‘There is no god but God,’ or a similar one, for the characters are very illegible and confused. In the centre of this shield may be read the words, ‘Made by Hair,’ undoubtedly one of the artists who made the box. Another artist's name may be read with difficulty in a similar inscription which appears on one of the medallions on the left side; it is written on the thigh of a stag, which is attacked by a lion: ‘It was made by Obeidat.’ Three other inscriptions of a similar character appear in other parts of this box, which probably give the names of other artists, but I have been unable to decipher them.”

XXXIX
IVORY BOX
(11th Century. Palencia Cathedral)

Other interesting boxes dating from the same period are that of Santo Domingo de Silos at Burgos, and several which are in the National Museum at Madrid. The box which is preserved at Burgos is made of ivory, and measures thirteen inches and a quarter in length by seven inches and a half in width and height. The decorative work consists of hunting scenes, and also of an inscription in Cufic characters which says: “Permanent felicity for the owner (of this box). May God lengthen his days. It was made at Medina …;[57] in the year four hundred and seventeen (a.d. 1025). It is the work of his servant Mohammed-ibn-Zeiyan. May God glorify him.”

There is also in the provincial museum of Burgos a handsome ivory diptych which was formerly at the convent of Santo Domingo de Silos. It bears at each extremity—that is, four times repeated—the following inscription:—“This was ordered to be made by the Iman, servant of God, Abd-er-Rhaman, prince of believers.”

Among the rectangular boxes in the National Museum is one of carved ivory, with an inscription recording it to have been a gift from Prince Ali to one of the favourites of his harem, and another of the same material which was once upon a time at Carrion de los Condes, in the province of Palencia. This box is painted with a decorative pattern in carmine and dark green. The lid, which is imperfect, contains the following inscription in Cufic characters, standing boldly out against a green ground:—“In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. The protection of Allah and an impending victory for the servant of Allah …; and his wali Maad Abu-Temim—the Iman Al-Moez …; prince of believers (the blessing of Allah be upon him and his sons the good). (This) was commanded to be made for (celebrating) the fortunate victory. It was made by …; Jorasani.” The length of this box is eighteen inches, and its height nine inches.

A fine Moorish box (Plate [xxxix].), now in the cathedral of Palencia, is covered with elaborately engraved and perforated ivory plates upon a ground of gilt leather backed by wood, and further ornamented with enamel-work upon a copper surface. This box is fourteen inches long, and has a gable top. The decoration on the sides and lid consists of palm-leaves, birds, and men engaged in combating and chasing antelopes and lions in the characteristic manner of Assyrian art. A lengthy Cufic inscription tells us that the box was made at Cuenca (Medina Cuenca) by Abd-er-Rahman ben Ziyan, to the order of the Moorish princes of Toledo, and that it dates from the year 441 of the Hegira.[58] Vives has pointed out that Cuenca was evidently a principal centre of this industry, and that caskets executed here about this time exist in Perpignan cathedral and in the provincial museum of Burgos.

Riaño mentions seven ivory boxes of particular interest, which were probably made in Spain by Spanish Arabs, or else by Eastern craftsmen who had emigrated to this country. “On all their carving,” he adds, “the names of Spanish historical persons appear, and it is hardly possible that they were ordered in remote countries, especially as some of these objects are small and comparatively unimportant.”

XL
HISPANO-MORESQUE IVORY CASKET
(13th Century. Royal Academy of History, Madrid)

Two of these boxes are in the South Kensington Museum. The one which is cylindrical in shape and has a domed cover is thus described by Maskell in his Ivories, Ancient and Mediæval, in the South Kensington Museum:—“This beautiful box is carved throughout, except the bottom of it, with interlacing narrow bands forming quatrefoils, in which, on the cover, are four eagles. These have spread wings and stand erect; well designed and most delicately executed. A small knob serves to lift the lid.

“Round the side, each quatrefoil is filled with a star having a leaf ornament. The same decoration is repeated in the spaces between the larger quatrefoils on the cover.”

“The whole is carved in pierced work, except a band which forms the upper upright portion of the box, round the side of the lid. This band has an Arabic inscription: ‘A favour of God to the servant of God, Al Hakem al Mostanser Billah, commander of the faithful.’ He was a Caliph who reigned at Cordova, a.d. 961–976.”

The other box is oblong and rectangular. “The cover and sides are carved with scroll foliated ornament; the hinges and clasp are of chased silver inlaid with niello. Round the sides, immediately below the lid, is the following Arabic inscription in Cufic characters:—‘In the name of God. This (box) was ordered to be made by Seidat Allah, the wife of Abd-er-Rahman, prince of the believers. God be merciful and satisfied with him.’” This inscription, adds Riaño, “must allude to Abd-er-Rahman the Third, the first Caliph of Cordova who bore the title of Emir, el Mumenin. The formula ‘God be merciful,’ etc., denotes that he was dead when it was written. He died a.d. 961.”

XLI
IVORY CRUCIFIX
(11th Century. Madrid Museum)

Another Spanish-Moorish casket, also at South Kensington, and dating from the eleventh century, is described by Maskell as “richly carved in deep relief with foliage and animals in scrolls interlacing one another, and forming larger and smaller circles. The top and each side is a single plaque of ivory; the sloping lid at the front and back has two panels. On the two are two animals, like doves; a large bird stands at the back of each, attacking it with his beak. The sloping sides have, in the large circles, men on horseback, and animals fighting. The intermediate spaces are completely filled with foliage, and smaller beasts. Similar subjects are repeated in the circles on the panels forming the lower sides of the casket, and among them are two groups of men and women sitting; one blowing a horn, another playing on a guitar, another holding a cup in one hand and a flower in the other.” Riaño adds: “There is no inscription on this casket, but in one of the medallions on the lid there is a bust, which is carried on the back of a horse, and which is probably a representation of the prince for whom the casket was made.”

XLI (a)
IVORY CRUCIFIX
(11th Century. Back view. Madrid Museum)

The Letter of Testament setting forth the various objects bequeathed by Ferdinand the First and his consort Sancha to the church of Saint John the Baptist (or of Saint Isidore) at León, mentions an ivory cross (which will be noticed presently), an ivory box fitted with gold, and two ivory boxes fitted with silver, one of them containing three other silver boxes, similarly decorated.

One of these boxes is described by Ambrosio de Morales, and from his words we conclude it to be the one which was adorned with gold, “of which metal,” he wrote in 1572, “it has even more than of ivory,” adding that it measured more than half a yard in length, and enshrined the body of Saint Vincent of Avila. He also tells us that it bore the following inscription, carved upon a golden frieze:—

ARCULA SANCTORUM MICAT HAEC SUB HONORE DUORUM
BAPTISTAE SANCTI JOHANNIS SIVE PELAGII
CEU REX FERNANDUS, REGINAQUE SANTIA, FIERI JUSSIT.
ERA MILLENA SEPTENA SEU NONAGENA.[59]

This arca has been much mutilated, and stripped of all the precious metal. Morales' description is therefore of especial value, as are the ivory tablets (eleventh century), carved with Christian themes, which yet remain upon the body of the box.

XLII
BYZANTINE CRUCIFIX

Dating from the thirteenth century is a Moorish casket (Plate [xl].), preserved in the Academy of History at Madrid, and proceeding from the Carthusian monastery of Val de Cristo at Segorbe. It measures a foot in length by eight inches in height and four and a half inches in depth. The lid is deeply bevelled, and contains on each of the bevelled sides shields with the bars which constitute the arms of Aragon, painted upon a gold ground, together with imperial eagles painted in black upon a carmine ground. A decorative device of leaves and stems is also painted on the ivory.

Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos believes that this casket was captured in war by Jayme the First of Aragon, remaining with successive princes of his line until the reign of Don Martin, by whom it was presented to the monastery. The shields would thus be added to the primitive Moorish casket by some Christian-Spanish painter.

The ivory crucifix (Plates [xli]. and [xli]. (a)), of Ferdinand the First and Doña Sancha, made in the first half of the eleventh century, and offered by these sovereigns to the church of Saint John the Baptist (or of Saint Isidore) at León, measures twenty-one inches in length by thirteen inches and a half in height. The figure of Christ recalls the rigidness and rudeness of Byzantine craftsmanship, such as is found in ancient crucifixes still preserved in Spain (Plate [xlii].). The pupils of the enormous, expressionless eyes are made of jet. We see the wound upon each foot, with wavy marks to imitate the flowing blood, but no trace of a nail. Nails, however, transfix the hands. The arms are separate from the trunk, but the suppedaneum on which the feet are resting is of a single piece with the body of the figure.

The surface of the cross, especially about the borders, contains elaborate decoration, including animals and foliage. Above the Saviour's head is the inscription:—

IHS NAZA
RENVS REX
IVDEORVM

Above this is another figure of Christ seated, crowned with a cruciform nimbus and holding a Greek processional cross. Beneath the feet of the larger figure is Adam in an uncouth posture, turning his head to gaze upward, and at the lower extremity of the cross are carved the words:—

FERDINANDVS REX
SANCIA REGINA

The lateral arms are carved with numerous devices forming an effective whole, including animals upon a tessellated band which seems to imitate a groundwork of mosaic. Other subjects represented are the Resurrection of the Flesh, the ascent of the blessed to Heaven, and the fall of the wicked to Hell.

XLIII
“THE VIRGIN OF BATTLES”
(13th Century. Seville Cathedral)

Upon the obverse side are pairs of quadrupeds, birds, and serpents, among a maze of foliage, together with the eagle, lion, lamb, and ox, as symbols of the evangelists. The lion and the ox have wings, and at the foot of the cross is an angel.

The carving of the Saviour's form is clearly inferior to that of the decoration which surrounds it. Amador de los Ríos seeks to account for this by declaring that “the difficulty from the point of view of art increases in proportion as the size of the figure is required to be larger”—a statement with which I wholly disagree. I believe, in fact, that in this cross the figure of Christ and the surrounding ornamentation are not by the same hand, and that the carver of the decorative detail was simply the better craftsman of the two.

Many of the statuettes of the Virgin which are preserved in Spain were probably made in France. One that is typically and unquestionably Spanish is the celebrated “Virgin of Battles” (Plate [xliii].), now guarded, together with other relics of Saint Ferdinand (see Vol. I., Plate [xi]xi.), in the Chapel Royal of Seville cathedral. These statuettes, the use of which originated with the Greek emperors, and which were called by the Byzantines socia belli, consist of a seated figure of the Virgin with a small door opening underneath her throne, and served as reliquaries, and also as a kind of talisman. Boutelou says that the Spanish warriors of the Middle Ages were accustomed to carry these images to war with them, fitted upon a pin protruding from the left side of the saddle-bow. The “Virgin of Battles,” made in Spain in the early part of the thirteenth century, was thus carried by King Ferdinand the Saint, resting between his shield or rodela and his left arm, and so protected, and protecting, in the brunt of war.

XLIV
SPANISH MEDIÆVAL BACULUS

The image is of ivory, and measures seventeen inches in height. The style is primitive Gothic, not as yet emancipated from Romanic and Byzantine art; and the expression of the Madonna and her Babe is marked by an engaging sweetness. Through lapse of centuries, myriads of diminutive cracks have opened on the surface of the ivory, and this has turned, in colour, to a brightish yellow. The right arm of the Virgin was broken off at some time prior to the sixteenth century, and has been replaced by another one. Mother and Child wear crowns of silver-gilt which probably were added later, and the hair, lips, and eyes have been badly painted or repainted with discordant colouring. A four-sided hole bored deep into the ivory served for holding the image to the perno which projected from the monarch's saddle-bow.

A few elaborate baculi or pastoral staves (Plate [xliv].) exist in Spain, including one of the fourteenth century, in ivory, which belonged to the late Marquis of Monistrol, and is carved with the Crucifixion and also with the Virgin contemplating the Holy Infant as He is offered cups by angels. Another interesting Spanish baculus, though not of ivory, but copper decorated with turquoises and bright blue enamel, belonged to Bishop Pelayo de Cebeyra of Mondoñedo (a.d. 1199–1218), and has been preserved, together with that prelate's gilded shoes. In the celebrated processions of Santiago, at which Alfonso the Sixth was personally present, magnificent ivory baculi were borne, not only by the archbishop (eburnea virga pontificali decoratus), but even by the choristers.

Between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries, Spanish craftsmen produced a fair quantity of ivory boxes, reliquaries, diptyches, triptyches, combs, and other less important objects. A fifteenth-century ivory spoon, ten inches long, whose handle is carved with six crocodiles, is in the National Museum, and may be Spanish work. In the same collection are one or two ivory diptyches and leaves of diptyches, and a wooden box (fourteenth century), with figures of carved ivory representing passages from the life of Saint George upon the body of the box, and from the Old Testament upon the lid. A carved Renaissance temple of the same material, with the Virgin and Child in its interior, is probably Italian.

XLV
“A TOURNAMENT”
(Carved lid of box in ivory; 14th Century)

In the fortieth volume of España Sagrada it is stated that four ivory diptyches (quatuor dictacos eburneos) were offered in a.d. 897 to Lugo cathedral by Alfonso the Third and his queen Jimena. Other ivory diptyches were presented in a.d. 1063 by Ferdinand the Second to the church of Saint Isidore at León. José Villa-amil, in his study of an ivory statuette of the Virgin, belonging to the nuns of Allariz (Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones; nos. 76 and 77), mentions a carved ivory box (capsa eburnea) made in the year 1122 for Santiago cathedral by order of Archbishop Gelmirez; another which existed in the sixteenth century in the church of Santa María at Finisterre; and a third, used as a reliquary, which in 1572 was opened by the monks of Samos in presence of Ambrosio de Morales.

During the Middle Ages portable altars (altares portátiles) were widely used in Spain, and some were made of ivory. It was the custom to open them at the time of prayer, and as a rule they rested upon reclinatorios or hung upon the wall. The imagen abriente or “opening image” was also popular in Spain throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As the name implies, these images opened in the manner of a triptych, and were very often used as reliquaries. Specimens are preserved in many parts of Europe, but only one or two exist in Spain and Portugal. That which belongs to the nuns of Allariz dates from the end of the thirteenth century, and was a present from Queen Violante. It is described fantastically by Morales, and accurately by Villa-amil, but the quaintest account is by the chronicler Jacobo de Castro. It measures, Castro tells us, “about half-a-yard in length and is one of the fairest ever seen, since it opens downward from the neck, discovering, on plates of half-relief, the principal mysteries of Christ and of Our Lady. The devotion towards it of the people in this neighbourhood exceeds description, and God has wrought a quantity of miracles through the intercession thereof.”

A fourteenth-century triptych carved in bone with scenes from Scripture is in the National Museum. It proceeds from Aragon, and is said to have belonged to Jayme the Conqueror. The Escorial possesses a handsome ivory diptych (Plate [xlvi].) which is either Spanish or Italian—probably the former. It measures exactly a foot in height by nine inches across both leaves, and is deeply carved with passages from the life of Christ. The style is late Romanic merging into Gothic, and points to the second half of the thirteenth century.

XLVI
IVORY DIPTYCH
(13th Century. El Escorial)

Footnotes:

[56] I.e. as a signal to begin the sport. The same usage (except that the handkerchief is waved, and not thrown down) is followed at this moment in the Spanish bull-ring.

[57] At this break in the inscription Riaño professed to discover the beginning of the word Cuenca.

[58] Detailed accounts of this casket will be found in the Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones for June 1893, and in the Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, vol. xx.

[59] a.d. 1059.

---

[POTTERY]