[EMBROIDERY]

The art of embroidering, and especially of embroidering with the aid of gold and silver thread, was communicated to the Spaniards by the Spanish Moors, who doubtless had derived it from the East. By about the thirteenth century, the needle of the Spanish embroiderer had become, in the picturesque phrase of one of his compatriots, “a veritable painter's brush, describing facile outlines on luxurious fabrics, and filling in the spaces, sometimes with brilliant hues, or sometimes with harmonious, softly-graduated tones which imitate the entire colour-scheme of Nature.” Nevertheless, it was not until the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries that this art attained, in the Peninsula, its topmost summit of perfection.

It is not at all surprising that embroidery should have made great progress among a people so devoted to the outward and spectacular forms of worship as the Spaniards; nor have the chasubles, copes, and other vestments of the Spanish prelacy and priesthood ever been surpassed for costly splendour[36] (Plates [x]., [xi]., [xii].). But generally where the Spanish embroiderer excelled was in the mere manipulation of the needle. In fertility of design he was far outdistanced by the Germans and Italians, and was even to a large extent their imitator; for Spanish embroidery, as occurred with Spanish painting, was influenced, almost to an overwhelming degree, firstly by northern art, and subsequently by the art of the Renaissance.

XIV
EMBROIDERED ALTAR-FRONT

These tendencies or characteristics will be found in nearly all the masterpieces of Spanish embroidery that have been preserved until to-day, of which perhaps the most remarkable specimens are the manga or case of the great processional cross presented by Cardinal Cisneros to Toledo cathedral, and the “Tanto Monta” embroidered tapestry belonging to the same temple. The manga grande, known as that of the Corpus (Plate [xiii].), is in the Gothic style, with reminiscences of German art, and consists of the following four scenes arranged in panels thirty-seven inches high, and hung successively about the handle of the cross:—

(1) The Ascension of the Virgin Mary, who is supported by six angels.

(2) The Adoration of the Magi.

(3) San Ildefonso in the act of cutting off a piece of the veil of Santa Leocadia, patron of Toledo.