The author of this admirable screen was Francisco de Villalpando, whose plans and estimate were approved by Cardinal Tavera in 1540. “The reja consists of two tiers resting on different kinds of marble. Attic columns ornamented with handsome rilievi and terminated by bronze caryatides, divide these tiers into several spaces. The upper tier is formed by seven columns of ornate pattern, containing, on a frieze of complicated tracery, figures of animals and angels, and other delicately drawn and executed objects in relief. Upon the cornice are coats of arms, angels, and other decoration; and in the centre, the imperial arms of Charles the Fifth, together with a large crucifix pendent from a massive gilded chain. On the frieze of the second tier are the words, ADORATE DOMINUM IN ATRIO SANCTO EJUS KALENDAS APRILIS 1548, and on the inner side, PLUS ULTRA.” [74]
REJA OF CHAPEL ROYAL
(Granada Cathedral)
The other of the larger rejas in this temple—that of the choir—is not inferior in a great degree to Villalpando's masterpiece. It was made by “Maestre” Domingo (de Céspedes),[75] who, in his estimate of June 18th, 1540, engaged to finish it at a total cost of 5000 ducats, “he to be given the necessary gold and silver for the plating” (Archives of Toledo Cathedral, quoted by Rosell). This Maestre Domingo was aided by his son-in-law, Fernando Bravo, and both of them, says de la Rada y Delgado, were probably natives of Toledo.[76] In the same city they also made the rejas for the Baptismal Chapel, and for the chapels of the Reyes Viejos and Reyes Nuevos.
REJA OF CHAPEL ROYAL
(View from interior. Granada Cathedral)
Excellent Plateresque rejas are those of the Capilla Mayor and Coro of Palencia Cathedral—the latter from the hand of Gaspar Rodriguez of Segovia, who finished it in 1571 at a cost of 3400 ducats. In the same city is the reja of the chapel of Nuestra Señora la Blanca, finished in 1512 by Juan Relojero, a Palencian, who received for his labour 25,000 maravedis and a load and a half of wheat.
The noble and colossal gilt and painted[77] reja of the Chapel Royal of Granada Cathedral was wrought between the years 1518 and 1523 by one Master Bartholomew, whose name is near the keyhole. This was a person of obscure life though mighty powers as a craftsman. We know that he resided at Jaen, and, from a document which still remains,[78] that he petitioned Charles the Fifth for payment (sixteen hundred ducats) of this grille, because the clergy had continually refused to liquidate it. He made, besides the work I herewith describe, the reja of the presbytery for Seville cathedral,[79] and possibly, as Sentenach suggests, the iron tenebrarium, ten feet high by five across, for the cathedral of Jaen.