DECORATIVE NAIL-HEADS
(Convent of San Antonio, Toledo)

The Ordenanzas of Granada tell us minutely of the nails which were produced there in the sixteenth century. They were denominated cabriales, costaneros, palmares, bolayques, vizcainos, sabetinos, and moriscos; of all of which I can only find that the cabriales and costaneros were used for beams and rafters, and the moriscos for fixing horse-shoes. In Spain the custom of fastening down the decorative coverings of chairs or benches dates from comparatively late; and it was probably with this innovation that iron-workers began to exercise their ingenuity upon the heads of nails.

Towards the close of the Middle Ages the city of Segovia was celebrated for her locks and keys, her knockers, and her rejas. In 1892, collections of iron objects, chiefly manufactured in this town, were shown by the duke of Segovia, Don Nicolás Duque, and Don Adolfo Herrera at the Exposición Histórico-Europea of Madrid. Segovia still preserves an old door covered with extraordinary iron spikes, that once belonged to the castle of Pedraza; many curious balconies, such as that in a first floor of the Calle del Carmen; and the grilles—proceeding from the old cathedral—of the chapel of the Cristo del Consuelo and the chapel of the Piedad.

Another interesting collection of early decorative Spanish iron, belonging to the well-known painter, Señor Rusiñol, is kept at the town of Sitjes, in Cataluña. The late Marquis of Arcicollar possessed a number of specimens of Spanish manufactured iron of the later Middle Ages, such as boxes, candelabra, locks, nails, door-knockers, braseros, and a rare and curious iron desk (fourteenth century), with leather fittings.

The collection of the late Count of Valencia de Don Juan included four door-knockers of Spanish iron, dating from late in the fifteenth century or early in the sixteenth. I give a reproduction of these knockers (Pl. [xx].). The two which occupy the centre are evidently from a sacred building; while the other pair are just as evidently señoriales, and belonged to a noble house. In the former pair, the clumsy carving of the saints, Peter and James, is attributed by Serrano Fatigati to the native coarseness of the iron.

DOOR-KNOCKERS
(15th Century)