None of the original Moorish glass of the Alhambra has survived till nowadays. Most of it was destroyed by the explosion, in the year 1590, of a powder factory which lay immediately beneath the palace and beside the river Darro. In the Alhambra archives, particular mention is made of the circular glass windows or “eyes,” only the corresponding holes of which remain, in the baths of the same palace. This glass, which may have been in colour, was also destroyed by the explosion, as were the windows, “painted in colour with fancy devices and Arabic lettering,” of the Sala de Embajadores,[106] those of the Hall of the Two Sisters, and certain windows, “painted with many histories and royal arms,” belonging to the church of the Alhambra.

Excellent glass, reported by some authors to have equalled that of Venice, was made at Barcelona from as early as the thirteenth century. An inventory of the Crown of Aragon, dated A.D. 1389 and quoted by García Llansó, mentions as manufactured here, glass sweetmeat-vessels, cups, and silver-mounted tankards blazoned with the royal arms. The guild of Barcelona glassmakers was founded in 1455, and later in the same century Jerónimo Paulo wrote that “glass vessels of varying quality and shape, and which may well compete with the Venetian, are exported to Rome and other places.” Similar statements are made by Marineus Siculus and Gaspar Barreyros.

Other centres of Spanish glass-making were Caspe in Aragon, Seville, Valencia,[107] Pinar de la Vidriera, Royo Molino (near Jaen,) El Recuenco (Guadalajara), Cebreros (Avila), Medina del Campo, Venta del Cojo, Venta de los Toros de Guisando, and Castiel de la Peña in Castile. The glass-works of Castiel de la Peña were founded by the intelligent and indefatigable Hernando de Zafra, secretary to the Catholic sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. “It has been calculated,” says Riaño, “that about two tons of sand were used at these glass-works every month.”

More important than the foregoing was the famous factory of a village in Toledo province called Cadalso, or sometimes, from the nature of its only industry, Cadalso (or Cadahalso) de los Vidrios. The glass made here is mentioned in terms of high praise by various writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Marineus Siculus and Mendez Silva. The former of these authors says in his work upon the Memorable Things of Spain: “Glass was produced in several towns of Castile, the most important being that of Cadalso, which supplied the whole kingdom.” Ewers and bottles of Cadalso glass are mentioned in the Alburquerque inventory. Mendez Silva says that the number of ovens was originally three, and that their coloured glass was equal to Venetian (Plate [lxxiv].). This was towards the middle of the seventeenth century. Larruga tells us that by the end of the eighteenth this local industry was languishing. One of the three ovens had been abandoned. The other two produced inferior glass, as well as in diminished quantities.

LXXIV
VESSELS OF SPANISH GLASS
(South Kensington Museum)

The glass of Cataluña maintained its ancient reputation all through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and part of the seventeenth, and at this time was still compared with the Venetian by observant travellers (Plate [lxxv].). Besides the capital, the principal glass-works in this province were at Almatret, Moncada, Cervelló, and Mataró. In 1489 a Barcelonese, by name Vicente Sala, and his sons applied to the City Council for leave to construct an oven at Moncada “in order to pursue the craft of glass-making, lo qual a present aci se obre axi bellament e suptil com en part del mon (seeing that the glass we manufacture in this neighbourhood competes with any in the world for subtlety and beauty).”

A document is extant from which we learn that the City Councillors of Barcelona made strenuous efforts to prevail upon Ferdinand the Catholic to abolish a certain monopoly or other form of exclusive privilege which he had conceded to a local glass-maker. The result of this appeal is not recorded. In 1503 Ferdinand presented his consort with two hundred and seventy-four glass objects made at Barcelona, and Philip the Second possessed a hundred and nineteen pieces proceeding from the same locality.