Herewith I end my sketch of Spanish bronzes, without delaying to describe the tasteless transparente behind the altar of Toledo cathedral, or the neo-classic, Frenchified productions of the reign of Charles the Third, such as the table-mountings of the Buen Retiro, or trifles from the silver factory of Antonio Martinez. At the Escorial, the shrine of the Sagrario de la Santa Forma and the altar-front of the pantheon of the kings of Spain, wrought by Fray Eugenio de la Cruz, Fray Juan de la Concepción, and Fray Marcos de Perpignan, are meritorious objects of their time. But the history of Spanish bronzes properly ends with the Renaissance. This material, possibly from its cost, has not at any time been greatly popular in Spain. Wood, plain or painted, was preferred to bronze in nearly all her statuary. Her mediæval and Renaissance reja and custodia makers can challenge all the world. So can her potters, armourers, leather-workers, and wood-carvers. But if we look for masterpieces in the art of shaping bronze, our eyes must turn to Italy, where, to astonish modern men, the powers of a Donatello or Ghiberti vibrate across all ages in the bas-reliefs of Saint Anthony at Padua, or in the gates of the Baptistery of Florence.
Footnotes:
[85] Le Hon reminds us, in L'homme fossile, that before the Iron Age all bronzes of our western world contained one part of tin to nine of copper.
[86] See Romero de Castilla, Inventarios de los objetos recogidos en el Museo Arqueológico de la Comisión de Monumentos de Badajoz. Badajoz, 1896. Plate xxvii. represents another of these objects.
[87] Undoubtedly the use of the Roman candelabrum was continued by the Spanish Visigoths. “Candelabrum,” says Saint Isidore, “a candelis dictum, quasi candela feram, quod candelam ferat” (Originum, book xx., chap. x.). The Spanish word candela is loosely used to-day for almost any kind of light or fire, or even for a match; but an ordinary candle is generally called a vela or bugía (bougie).
[88] “A small open lamp with a beak, and a hook to hang it, within which is another of the same make that contains oil and a wick to give light, commonly used in kitchens, stables, and inns.”—Fathers Connelly and Higgins, Spanish-English and English-Spanish Dictionary. Swinburne wrote of these candiles:—“The Spaniards delight in wine that tastes strong of the pitched skin, and of oil that has a rank smell and taste; indeed, the same oil feeds their lamp, swims in their pottage, and dresses their salad; in inns the lighted lamp is frequently handed down to the table, that each man may take the quantity he chooses.”
[89] Perhaps it is not foreign to my theme to add that the current name in Spanish for an oil lamp is quinqué, from Quinquet, the Parisian chemist who invented the tuyau-cheminée a hundred and odd years ago. The same word passes also into Spanish slang, “tener quinqué”—i.e. to be quick-witted and perceptive.
[90] Swinburne fell into a comical error concerning these. “In the centre of the court are twelve ill-made lions muzzled, their fore-parts smooth, their hind-parts rough, which bear upon their backs an enormous bason, out of which a lesser rises.”—Travels through Spain, p. 180.
[91] September 20th to October 19th, A.D. 1305.
[92] These spheres recall the four great gilded globes of bronze, tapering from the bottom to the top, that crowned in olden days the Giralda tower of Seville. According to the Crónica General the glitter of these globes “de tan grande obra, é tan grandes, que no se podríen hacer otras tales,” could be distinguished at a distance of eight leagues. On August 24th, 1395, when Seville was assailed by a frightful tempest accompanied by an earthquake, the metal rod which pierced and held the globes was snapped, and the globes themselves were dashed into a myriad pieces on the azotea, scores of yards below.