Chapter XXIX: A Velón 168 (4)

If we except the vast dimensions of the common keys of houses, this branch of Spanish craftsmanship has now no quality to point it from the rest of Europe, having become, in Riaño's words, "simply practical and useful." Laborde observed in 1809 that "locks and various iron utensils are made in divers places. Locksmiths are numerous at Vega de Ribadeo in Galicia, at Helgoivar in Biscay, at Vergara in Guipuscoa, at Solsona and Cardona in Catalonia. Different kinds of iron goods are manufactured at Vergara, Solsona, and Cardona. The articles made of iron and steel at Solsona are in high estimation, notwithstanding they are destitute of taste and elegance, badly finished, and worse polished; and can by no means be put in competition with similar articles introduced from other countries."[65]

[65] Those of my readers who have visited Spain will probably have seen
the inlaid iron-work of Eibar and Toledo. The objects chiefly
manufactured in this style are brooches, bracelets, scarf and hat
pins, photograph frames, jewel and trinket boxes, watches, and
cigarette cases. The workmanship is often elaborate and costly, nor
can it be denied that the red or greenish gold has an effective
look against the jet-black surface of the polished or unpolished
iron. Upon the other hand, the taste displayed in the design is
seldom good; while in a climate with the slightest tendency to
damp, the iron is apt to rust and tarnish, and the fine inlay to
loosen.

Iron nails with ornamented heads and decorative door-knockers are other objects which reveal the influence of Mohammedan Spain. A number of artistic Spanish nails are in the South Kensington Museum. "Some doors," says Riaño, "still exist at the Alhambra, Granada, covered with enormous heads of nails of a half-spherical form with embossed pattern. These same nails are constantly to be found on old Spanish houses, to which are added in the angles pieces of iron of a most artistic order" (Pl. xix.A). In the same city, though not precisely in the Alhambra, I have seen upon the doors of private houses nails of a decorative kind which appear to consist of a single piece, but which are really formed of two--an ornamental boss perforated through its centre, and the nail proper, which fastens through it to the woodwork of the door behind. Thus, when the nail is hammered tight upon the boss, the effect is naturally that of a single piece of metal. Similar nails are on the door of Tavera's hospital at 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.

Proceeding from the same collection are a pair of ceremonial maces and a ceremonial lantern, which I also reproduce (Pl. xxi.), since the Spanish writer from whom I have just quoted pronounces them to be "excellent specimens of the iron-work of our country at the close of the Middle Ages." He says that, as we notice in the pinnacles, they show a tendency to copy architectural detail, and are otherwise characteristic of the period. Towards the fourteenth century the file replaced the hammer, and the sheet of iron was substituted for the bar. These objects, dating from the fifteenth century, duly reveal this change. Also, as was usual at the time, they are composed of separate pieces stoutly riveted. In the knockers with the figures of the saints "we notice the partial use of the chisel, which became general in the sixteenth century, at the same time that iron objects were loaded with images, forms of animals, and other capricious figures. These may be said to belong to a period of transition, culminating in the _rejas_."[66]

[66] Serrano Fatigati, in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de
Excursiones_.

The Madrid Museum contains a sixteenth-century cross of _repoussé_ iron, in the Greek form, and which is certainly of Spanish make. According to Villa-amil, it formerly had a gilded border and was painted black, which leads this writer to suppose that it was used at funerals. Iron crosses may be seen occasionally on churches and on other public buildings, and Stirling has inserted cuts of several in his _Annals of the Artists of Spain_. Crosses of large size were sometimes planted on the highway. Such was the elaborate but ugly iron cross, measuring three yards in height, made by Sebastian Conde in 1692 for the Plazuela de la Cerrajeriá in Seville, and now preserved in her Museum.

The iron balustrade or _verja_ of the marble tomb of Cardinal Cisneros is finely wrought in Plateresque-Renaissance, with elaborate designs of gryphons, foliage, urns, birds, masks, sheep's heads, swans, coats of arms, dolphins, and other ornament in great profusion. The craftsman was Nicolás de Vergara the elder. Lesser in size, though not less striking in its execution, is the railing, by Francisco de Villalpando, which surrounds the _Altar de Prima_ in the choir of Toledo Cathedral.

"Iron pulpits," says Riaño, "have been made in Spain with great success." He mentions five: two in Avila Cathedral (Plate xxii.); two at Seville; and one at the church of San Gil at Burgos. The latter is described by Street, who says: "It is of very late date, end of the fifteenth century, but I think it quite worthy of illustration. The support is of iron, resting on stone, and the staircase modern. The framework at the angles, top and bottom, is of wood, upon which the iron-work is laid. The traceries are cut out of two plates of iron, laid one over the other, and the iron-work is in part gilded, but I do not think that this is original. The canopy is of the same age and character, and the whole effect is very rich at the same time that it is very novel. I saw other pulpits, but none so old as this."

The iron pulpits of Salamanca, "covered with bas-reliefs representing the Evangelists and subjects taken from the Acts of the Apostles and the apocalypse," were made at the same time as the _reja_ by Fray Francisco de Zalamea or Salamanca, Fray Juan, and other artists. The two at Avila are stationed one on either side of the Capilla Mayor, and are of gilded iron, hexagonal in form, and measuring about ten feet in height. Gryphons or other beasts support the pulpit on its stem or column. The body of each pulpit bears the arms of the cathedral, namely, the _Agnus Dei_, a lion, and a castle--the whole surmounted by a crown--and is divided lengthways by a central band into a double tier, closed by a richly decorated cornice at the upper and the lower border. Otherwise the pulpits are quite dissimilar. In one the decorative scheme is almost purely geometrical, while in the other it consists of foliage, birds and beasts, and niches containing statuettes of saints. The stair-railings are modern; but the primitive carving still adorns the end of every step.[67]

[67] For a detailed account of these pulpits see Villa-amil y Castro's
article in the _Museo Español de Antigüedadess_.

We do not know who was the maker of these pulpits. Some believe him to have been a certain Juan Francés, to whom our notice will again be called as figuring among the earliest masters of this eminently Spanish craft, and who, on strongish evidence, is thought to be the author of the _rejas_ in the same cathedral which enclose the choir, and the front and sides of the Capilla Mayor. This is the only reason for supposing him to have made the pulpits also. One of these, however, is in the Flamboyant, and the other in the Renaissance style; so it may well be doubted whether both were produced by the same hand, or even at exactly the same period.[68]

[68] Payments made to "Master Juan Francés" are recorded by Zarco del
Valle, _Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes
en España_, pp. 320, 321.

It is, however, in the _rejas_ that the craftsmanship of older Spain attains its loftiest pinnacle. They consist, says Banister Fletcher, of "rich and lofty grilles in hammered and chiselled iron ... strongly characteristic of the national art. The formality of the long and vertical bars is relieved by figures beaten in _repoussé_, in duplicates, attached back to back, and by crestings and traceries adapted to the material, and freely employed. Few things in Spain are more original and artistic."[69]

[69] _History of Architecture_, p. 303. They possess, too, the
advantage, from their ponderous solidity and fixedness, that most
of them are still extant and in the best of preservation, although
Napoleon's Vandals rooted up the chapel _rejas_ of the Church of
Santo Domingo at Granada, and turned them into bullets; just as
their general, Sebastiani, threw down the tower of San Jerónimo to
make a trumpery bridge across the trickling stream of the Genil.
Scores of thousands of such crimes, not to forget the blowing up
of the gate and tower of the Siete Suelos, were perpetrated by the
French all over Spain; yet Washington Irving, in a strangely
infelicitous passage of his _Tales of the Alhambra_, congratulates
the invaders for their reverential treatment of the noblest
monuments of Spanish art!

The _reja_ generally was not, as many have supposed, of late invention. It existed from the earliest days of Christianity; but it was only in the Gothic and Renaissance ages that Spain converted it into a vehicle for decorative art. The growth of these ornamental _rejas_ may be traced in cities of Old Castile, together with Seville, Salamanca, Cuenca, and Toledo. Spain, it is idle to observe, was at no moment so appreciative of her craftsmen as was Italy, so that our information as to mediæval Spanish craftsmen and the process of their lives and labours is, upon the whole, deplorably deficient. Nevertheless, among the oldest of her artists known in Spanish as _rejeros_, or (a finer and more venerable term) _"reja_-masters"--_maestros de rexas_--appears Juan Francés, working in 1494 in Toledo Cathedral and, in the same capacity (for he seems to have been an armourer besides, and to have held the title of "master-maker of iron arms in Spain")[70] at Alcalá de Henares, as well as, in 1505, at Osma, in whose cathedral he made the _rejas_ of the choir and high chapel.[71]

[70] So, in Spain, does war appear to have been connected even with the
peaceful _reja_. Similarly, in 1518, the contractors for the grille
of the Chapel Royal of Granada were Juan Zagala and Juan de
Cubillana, "master-artillerymen to their highnesses." Valladar,
_Guía de Granada_, 1st ed., p. 302, note.

[71] A quaint but somewhat tautological and prosy letter
concerning matters of his craft, addressed by Francés to the
cardinal-archbishop of Toledo, is published in the _Museo Español
de Antigüedades_, article _Los Púlpitos de la Catedral de Avila_,
by Villa-amil y Castro. The _reja_ of the presbytery at Burgo de
Osma is thus inscribed: "_Izo esta obra maestre Joan Francés
maestre mayor._" The top consists of repetitions of a shield
containing five stars and supported by angels, lions, and gryphons.
Two iron pulpits project from the lower part of the grille, and a
swan of the same metal, with extended wings, rests upon either
pulpit.

Although the craftsman's name has rarely been recorded, we know that excellent _rejería_ was made at Barcelona in the fifteenth century. Also dating from the fifteenth century, and therefore prior to the Plateresque, is the _reja_, ornamented with leaves and figures of centaurs and other creatures, mythical and real, enclosing the sepulchre of the Anayas in the old cathedral of Salamanca. During the first quarter of the sixteenth century much work in decorative _rejería_ was completed in Seville Cathedral by Fernando Prieto, Fray Francisco de Salamanca,[72] Sancho Muñoz, Diego de Adrobo, and others (_vide_ Frontispiece). Taught by these, while yet belonging to a slightly later time, and linking in this way the riper and decadent Gothic with the new Renaissance and the Plateresque, were Pedro de Andino, Antonio de Palencia, and Juan Delgado. Rosell observes that without doubt these artists, excepting only Juan Francés--the pioneer of them all--were Spanish-born; and they in their turn were succeeded by other Spaniards who worked most regularly at Toledo; such as Bartolomé Rodriguez, Luis de Peñafiel, and Francisco de Silva.

[72] A Dominican friar, summoned to Seville in 1518, to make her
cathedral _rejas_. He also made the pulpits of the high altar in
1531, and was working in this city as late as 1547. Account-sheets
penned by his hand were still extant a century ago, and Cean
conveys to us some knowledge of Fray Francisco, receiving as the
wages of his labour, now a score or so of ducats, now a bushel or
two of corn. The friar, whom the canons spoke of with affection for
his many virtues, seems to have been a handy man, seeing that
between his spells of _reja_-making he put the clock of the Giralda
into trim, and built an alarum apparatus to rouse the cathedral
bell-ringer at early morning.

For the sums paid to Fray Francisco and to Sancho Muñoz for their
work, see Gestoso, _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. ii.
pp. 365 _et seq._

An excellent _rejero_ named Hernando de Arenas completed the grille of Cuenca Cathedral in 1557. Three years before, a Cordovese, Fernando de Valencia, had made the intricate Renaissance _reja_ of the Chapel of the Asunción in the mosque of that most ancient capital--a noble piece of work, which still exists. Other _rejeros_ who were either natives of, or who resided in, this city were Pedro Sanchez, Alonso Perez, Pedro Sanchez Cardenosa, Francisco Lopez, Juan Martinez Cano, and Diego de Valencia.

One of these men, Alonso Perez, a native of Jaen, contracted, on April 13th, 1576, to make the _rejas_ of the Capilla Mayor in the church of the convent of the Trinity at Cordova. He was to finish them within one year, at a cost of fifty-one _maravedis_ for every pound of iron, of sixteen ounces to the pound. Ramírez de Arellano, who has extracted these notices of Cordovese artists from the city archives[73], says that the _reja_ in question is no longer standing; but a document of the time informs us that it was of an elaborate character, and carried architraves, cornices, and the usual decorative detail of the Spanish Renaissance.

[73] Consult his valuable studies, _Artistas exhumados_, published in
various numbers of the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de
Excursionistas_.

In 1593 Pedro Sanchez agreed to make, within four years, a grille for the old chapel of the Concepción, also in Cordova, at a cost of forty-nine maravedis for every pound of iron that the finished _reja_ should contain; and a year later the same artist signed a contract for what is thought to be his masterpiece--the _reja_ of the chapel of the Holy Cross, in the nave of the _sagrario_ of the same temple. The stipulated time was two years only; but the cost amounted in this instance to one hundred maravedis for every pound of the completed _reja_.

Marvels of power and of patience are among the _rejas_ of this land. In them, obedient to the genius of the craftsman, the ponderous metal assumes the gossamer lightness of the finest gauze, now seeming to be breathed rather than built across the entrance to some side-chapel, now tapering skyward till we fancy it to melt away, like vapour, on the surface of the lofty roof. Such are the screens--which here demand a brief description--of Toledo and Palencia and Granada; that of Cuenca, where Arenas plied his master-hand; and, first in merit of them all, the peerless _reja_, royal in magnificence and faultless taste, that closes in at Burgos the no less royal-looking chapel of a Count of Haro, sometime Constable of all Castile.

The _reja_ of the Capilla Mayor of Toledo Cathedral is twenty-one feet high by forty-six in breadth. "Armies of workmen," wrote Méndez Silva, referring to this screen and to its neighbour, that of the _coro_, "were toiling at them for ten years, nor would their cost have been greater had they been of founded silver." The cost of which he speaks was more than a quarter of a million _reales_, although the workmen's daily wage was only two _reales_ and a half, or, in the case of the particularly skilled, four _reales_.

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]

[74] Rosell y Torres; _La Reja de la Capilla del Condestable en la
Catedral de Burgos_, published in the _Museo Español de
Antigüedades_.

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.

[75] He is called Domingo de Céspedes by Cean Bermudez, although, as
Zarco del Valle remarks, the surname does not appear in any of the
documents relating to this craftsman which are yet preserved in the
archives of Toledo cathedral. These documents merely tell us that
Domingo was his Christian name, that his own signature was _Maestre
Domingo_, and that he and Fernando Bravo were required to find
surety to the value of 375,000 _maravedis_ for the faithful and
expert performance of their work, which they were to complete
within two years, receiving for it the sum of six thousand ducats.

[76] Conde de Cedillo, _Toledo en el Siglo XVI_. Reply to the Count's
address, by J. de Dios de la Rada y Delgado.

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.

[77] The painting of a _reja_ was commonly executed by the
"image-painter" (_pintor de imaginería_). As the term implies, it
was this artist's business to gild or colour sacred furniture,
such as altars, panels, images, and decorative doors and ceilings.

[78] Archives of Simancas. _Descargos de las R.C._; _Legajo 23 prov._
Valladar, _Guía de Granada_ (1st ed.), p. 302, note.

[79] "To Master Bartholomew, _rexero_, twenty gold ducats for the days
he took in travelling from Jaen, and for those on which he was at
work upon the _reja_ of the high altar here in Seville." On
March 18th, 1524, the same craftsman was paid 13,125 _maravedis_
for making the "samples and other things belonging to the _reja_
of the high altar."--_Libro de Fábrica_ of Seville Cathedral.
Gestoso, _Sevilla Monumental y Artística_, and _Diccionario de
Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. xi. p. 362.

The _reja_ of the Chapel Royal of Granada, "of two faces, the finest that was ever made of this material," [80] has three tiers. "The first tier contains six Corinthian pilasters and a broad frieze covered with Plateresque ornamentation, as are the pedestals on which the pilasters rest. In the second tier are the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella within a garland supported by two lions, and other crowns together with the yoke and arrows;[81] all intertwined with stems, leaves, and little angels of an exquisite effect. Before the pilasters of this tier and of the one immediately above it are figures of the apostles on Gothic brackets--a style we also notice on the fastening of the gate and on the twisted railing; but every other detail of the grille is Plateresque. Upon the top are scenes of martyrdoms and of the life of Christ, the whole surmounted by a decorative scheme of leaves and candelabra, and, over this, a crucifix together with the figures of the Virgin and Saint John. The designing of the figures is only moderately good, but all remaining detail and the craftsmanship are admirable" [82] (Plates xxiii. and xxiv.).

[80] Pedraza, _Historia de Granada_ (1636), p. 40.

[81] The yoke and sheaf of arrows were the emblems of these princes--the
yoke, of Ferdinand; the arrows, of his queen. Shields of their
reign, whether employed in architecture or on title-pages, almost
invariably include these emblems and the well-known motto,
_Tanto Monta_.

[82] Gómez Moreno, _Guía de Granada_, p. 291.

Last on my list of Spanish _reja_-makers I place the greatest and most honoured of them all--Cristóbal de Andino, who, as a modern writer has expressed it, "uttered the last word in the matter of giving shape to iron." Cristóbal, son of Pedro de Andino--himself an artist of no mean capacity--excelled in architecture, sculpture, _rejería_, and probably in silver-work as well. "Good craftsmen," wrote his contemporary, Diego de Sagredo, "and those who wish their work to breathe the spirit of authority and pass without rebuke, should follow--like your fellow-townsman, Cristóbal de Andino--ancient precepts, in that his works have greater elegance and beauty than any others that I witnessed heretofore. If this (you think) be not the case, look at that _reja_ he is making for my lord the Constable, which _reja_ is well known to be superior to all others of this kingdom."

Such is the _reja_ thought, both then and now, to be the finest ever made. The style is pure Renaissance. Two tiers of equal height consist of four-and-twenty ornamented rails or balusters disposed, above, between four columns; below, between four pilasters. An attic is upon the cornice, and contains two central, semi-naked, kneeling figures which support a large, crowned shield. This is surmounted by a bust of God the Father, enclosed in a triangular frame, and raising the hand to bless. On either side of the attic are S-shaped crests sustaining circular medallions with the likenesses, in bold relief, of Christ and Mary. Along the friezes are the legends; EGO SUM ALPHA ET [Greek: omega]; EGO SUM LUX VERA; and ECCE ANCILLA DOMINI, together with the words, referring to the artist, AB ANDINO, and the date A.D. MDXXIII. The decorative scheme is spirited and delicate at once, whether we observe it on the railing, pilasters, and columns, or on the horizontal parts and members of the _reja_. The attic which surmounts the double tier and cornice is finally surmounted by a gilt Saint Andrew's cross; and the entire screen is lavishly painted and gilded throughout.

Here is a thing--almost a being--created out of iron, so intensely lovely that the eye would wish to contemplate it to the end of time; and, as we linger in its presence, if perchance the dead are privileged to hear their earthly praises echoed in the silence of the tomb, surely from his marble sepulchre Cristóbal de Andino listens to such praises at this hour. For yonder, in the neighbouring parish church of San Cosmé, beside a wife devoted and well-loved the great artificer is laid to rest, where Latin words (although of idle purport while the _reja_ of the Constable remains) are deep engraved to thus remind us of his worth:--

CHRISTOPHORUS ANDINO EGREGIUS
ARTIFEX ET IN ARCHITECTURA OMNIUM
SUI SECULI FACILE PRINCEPS
MONUMENTUM SIBI PONENDUM LE
GAVIT ET CATERINA FRIAS EJUS
UXOR HONESTISSIMA STATIM MARITI
VOTIS ET SUIS SATISFACIENDUM B
ENIGNE CHRISTIANEQUE CURAVIT URNAM CU
JUS LAPIDES SOLUM AMBORUM OSSA TEGUNT
SED ADMONET ETIAM CERTIS ANNUI HE
BDOMADE CUJUSQUE DIEBUS SACRIFICIA
PRO EIS ESSE PERPETUO FACIENDA

But if these splendid _rejas_ of her temples constitute to-day a special glory of this nation, her private balconies and window-gratings were in former times, though from profaner motives, almost or quite as notable. Between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, few of the foreigners who visited Spain omitted to record their admiration of these balconies, crowded upon a holiday with pretty women. "Il y avoit," wrote Bertaut de Rouen in 1659, "autant de foule à proportion qu'à Paris; et mesme ce qu'il y avoit de plus beau, c'estoit que comme il y avoit des balcons à toutes les fenestres et qu'elles estoient occupées par toutes les dames de la ville, cela faisoit un plus bel effet que les échaffauts que l'on fait dans les rues de Paris en semblables rencontres."

Pinheiro da Veiga, in his queer _Pincigraphia_, or "Description and Natural and Moral History of Valladolid," written earlier in the same century, and published twenty years ago by Gayangos from a manuscript in the British Museum, is more plain-spoken than the Frenchman on the various merits and peculiarities of the Spanish balconies and _rejas_. "All of these churches have the most beautiful iron balustrades and iron open-work doors (_cancelas_) that can be found in Europe, for nowhere is iron worked so skilfully as here in Valladolid. These objects are made by the Moriscos with turned balusters, foliage, boughs, fruits, war-material, trophies, and other contrivances, which afterwards they gild and silver into the very likeness of these metals. I say the same of window-balconies; for nearly every window has its balcony. There are in Valladolid houses up which one might clamber to the very roof from balcony to balcony, as though these were a hand-ladder. So too from balcony to balcony (for the distance from one to other is never greater than a palm's breadth) one might climb round the whole Plaza. By reason of this, we Portuguese were wont to say that if there were as many thieves or lovers in Valladolid as in Portugal, verily both one and other of this kind of folks would have but little need of hand-ladders. Yet here the thieves content themselves with stealing by the light of day, while as for the women (crafty creatures that they are!), they perpetrate their thefts away from home; and, having all the day at their disposal, prefer to thieve while daylight lasts, rather than pass the night uncomfortably. To this I heard a lady of Castile declare, when one of my friends, a Portuguese, petitioned her for leave to speak with her at night across her _reja_: 'That would be tantamount to passing from one _hierro_ to another _yerro_;[83] and in my house (which is also your worship's) it would not look well for you to seem a window-climbing thief.'"

[83] _Hierro_ means _iron_; _yerro_, a _fault, faux pas_. Thus glossed,
the somewhat feeble pleasantry or pun is able to explain itself.

It is curious, in the foregoing narrative, to read of Morisco craftsmen working as late as 1600, and as far north as Castile. Perhaps the notice of Moriscos doing Spanish iron-work may be traced to certain Ordinances of Granada, published about three-quarters of a century before. On October 14th, 1522, the councillors of that town confabulated very lengthily and seriously as to the damage caused by "balconies and _rejas_ in the streets, fixed in the basements and the lower rooms of houses, or projecting portals which extend beyond the level of the wall. For we have witnessed, and do witness daily, numerous mishaps to wayfarers, alike on horseback and on foot, whether by day or night, because the highways, narrow in themselves, are rendered yet more narrow by such balconies and _rejas_. Whereas in winter persons seeking to escape the filth by keeping to the wall are thwarted, or at night-time injured, by these _rejas_. Or yet in summer, when the waters swell, and conduits burst and overflow the middle of the street, then neither can they keep the middle of the way, nor pass aside (by reason of the balconies aforesaid) to its edges."

Having regard to all these grievances, the councillors decreed that "none of whatsoever order or condition shall dare henceforth to place, or cause to be placed, about the lower floors or entrance of their dwelling, _rejas_ or iron balconies, or anything projecting much or little from the level of the wall. But all projections shall be set three yards, not any less, above the street. If not so much, they shall be set within the wall, on pain of a fine of ten thousand _maravedis_, and five thousand _maravedis_ to the mason and the carpenter that shall repair their fixing. Further, we order that all balconies and _rejas_ now at a height of less than the aforesaid three yards be taken away within three days from the crying in public of these Ordinances."[84]

[84] These laws affecting balconies were not, or not as time went on,
restricted to Granada. "Nobody," prescribes the general Spanish
code in force in 1628, "shall make a balcony or oversailing part
to fall upon the street, nor yet rebuild or repair any that shall
fall."--Pradilla, _Suma de Todas las Leyes Penales, Canonicas,
Civiles, y destos Reynos_.

For this deplorable state of things a double influence was to blame; namely, the oriental narrowness of the street, and also the elaborate ornamentation, proceeding very largely from a northern Gothic and non-Spanish source, of these annoying yet impressive gratings. Some of them, sweeping the very soil, and boldly and fantastically curved, may yet be seen at Toro. Those of Granada are no more. Indeed, not only have the _rejas_ of the Spanish private house long ceased to show the decorative cunning of the craftsman, but even in their present unartistic form are largely limited to Andalusia. Yet even thus, they seem to guard a typical and national air, mixed with a subtle, semi-Mussulmanic poetry. Across them, while the term of courtship lasts, the lover whispers with his mistress, oblivious of the outer world, fixing his gaze within, until his sultaness emerges from the gloom, and holds his hand, and looks into his eyes, and listens to his vow. Therefore, in "April's ivory moonlight," beneath the velvet skies of Andalusia, one always is well pleased to pass beside these children of romantic Spain, warming the frigid iron with the breath of youth, and hope, and happiness, and telling to each other a secret that is known unto us all--at once the sweetest and the saddest, the newest and the oldest story of all stories.

BRONZES

The earliest objects of bronze discovered in this country are comparatively few. As in other parts of Europe, they consist mostly of weapons, such as spear-heads and hatchets (which will be noticed under _Arms_), or bracelets, necklaces, and clasps or brooches. Earrings (_inaures_), brooches (_fibulæ_), and other objects of a similar purpose dating from the Roman period have been discovered in Galicia, while plates of the same alloy[85] which imitate a shell were used as personal ornaments by the men and women of the ancient Spanish tribes.

[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.

The province of Palencia is a fertile field for archæological discovery. Here have been found some curious clasps, intended, it would seem, to represent the old Iberian mounted warrior, sometimes brandishing the typical Iberian lance. The following is a sketch in outline of an object of this kind, fashioned as clumsily and crudely as the cheapest wooden plaything of our time:--

Two parts--the figure of the horseman, and a four-wheeled stand on which the warrior's steed is resolutely set--compose this comical antiquity. The rider's only article of clothing is a helmet; while the horse, without a saddle or a bridle, is completely nude. This toy, or table ornament, or whatever it may be, was found not far from Badajoz, where other prehistoric bronzes are preserved in the museum of the province;[86] and Mr E. S. Dodgson says that in possession of an Englishman at Comillas he has seen another bronze rider of primitive workmanship, with the head of a wild boar under his left arm. Those who are interested in the meaning of these early bronzes should consult an article, _El jinete ibérico_, by Señor Mélida, published in Nos. 90-92 of the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_.

[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.

We know that the use of Roman lamps grew to be general in this land--a fact which justifies my noticing the specimens preserved in the museum of Madrid; and more particularly so because their shape and general character have been perpetuated through the Spanish Moors and Christians of the Middle Ages till this very moment.

The Roman lamp, shaped somewhat like a boat by reason of the _rostrum_ or beakish receptacle for the wick, consisted of an earthenware or metal vessel with a circular or oblong body and a handle, together with at least one hole for pouring in the oil. The commonest material was earthenware, and next to this, bronze. The lamp was either suspended by a chain or chains, or else was rested on a stand. Plato and Petronius tell us that the stand was borrowed from the rustic makeshift of a stick, or the stout stem of a plant, thrust into the ground. As time went on, the stem or stick in imitative metal-work was rendered more or less artistic and ornate. But there was more than a single kind of lampstand. The _lychnuchus_ ([Greek: lychnouchos]), invented by the Greeks, held various lamps suspended from its branches, while, on the other hand, the Roman _candelabrum_ supported but a solitary lamp upon the disc or platform at its top extremity.[87] The island of Egina was famed for the production of these discs, and Pliny tells us that the decorated stem or _scapus_ was chiefly manufactured at Tarentum.

[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_).

The Roman lampstands also varied in their height. When the stem was long they stood upon the ground--a fashion we have seen revived in recent years, and even where electricity replaces oil. When, on the contrary, the stem was short, the stand was known as a _candelabrum humile_, and rested on a table or a stool.

The Madrid Museum contains a remarkable bronze lamp in the form of an ass's head adorned with flowers and with ivy. The ass is holding in its mouth the _rostrum_ for the wick. The hole for the oil is shaped like a flower with eleven petals, under one of which is the monogram M[dagger]R. The back of this lamp consists of an uncouth human male figure, in a reclining posture, wearing a Phrygian cap and holding the ass's head between his legs.

Other lamps of bronze, including several of an interesting character, are in the same collection. One of these represents a sea-deity; another has its handle shaped like a horse's head and neck; and in a third the orifice for the oil is heart-shaped, while the handle terminates in the head of a swan.

There is also a series of three pensile lamps--two in the likeness of the head and neck of a griffin, and the third in that of a theatrical mask; as well as a candelabrum fourteen inches high, terminating beneath in three legs with lions' claws (foreshadowing or repeating oriental motives), and above in a two-handled vessel on which to place the lamp. This vessel supports at present a fine _lucerna_ in the form of a peacock.

Probably no people in the world have kept extant, or rather, kept alive, their oldest forms of pottery or instruments for giving light more steadfastly or more solicitously than the Spaniards. Their iron _candil_[88] and brass _velón_ of nowadays (Pls. xxviii. and xxix.)--the one of these the primitive lamp that hangs; the other, the primitive lamp that rests upon a table or the ground--are borrowed with but a minimum of alteration from the lighting apparatus of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and possess, for all their coarse and cheap and unpretentious workmanship, a subtle interest and elegance attributable only to the inspiration of antiquity.

[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."

More than the shape of these old objects seems to have passed to modern Spain--if any phase at all of Spanish life can ever justly be accounted modern. The ancients had an almost superstitious reverence for a lighted lamp, and were accustomed to declare that "_lucerna, cum extinguitur, vocem emittit, quasi necata_"; "a lamp, on being put out, utters a sound as though it were being murdered." Now, it may be a coincidence--although I cannot but regard it as distinctly more than a coincidence--that even at this day a large proportion of the Andalusian people are markedly averse to blowing out a kindled match; nor do they think it of good augury to be in a room where three lights--candles, matches, or whatever they may be--are simultaneously aflame. I have noticed, too, that, whether from utter carelessness or whether from ancestral superstition handed down from Rome, one rarely sees upon the staircase or the doorstep of a Spanish public building a vesta that has been (if I may be allowed the term) extinguished _artificially_.[89]

[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.

In the Madrid Museum are several military bronze _signa_ which were found in Spain and date from the Roman era, as well as a _vexillum_, or one of the T-shaped frames on which the warriors of that people used to hang their standards. One of these _signa_ is in the form of a wild boar; another in that of a saddled and bridled horse. Beneath this latter is the word VIVA and a cross, which shows that the object dates from a period not earlier than the reign of Constantine.

It is strange--or rather, would be strange in any country that had been less constantly afflicted both with civil and external warfare--that hardly anything remains of all the bronze artistic objects manufactured by the Spanish Moors. Poets of this race have sung of gold and silver fountains, door-knockers, and statues that adorned the buildings of Cordova. In many of these instances the hyperbolic gold and silver of the writers would undoubtedly be bronze. Al-Makkari quotes an Arab poet who extols in passionate terms Almanzor's dazzling mansion of Az-zahyra. "Lions of metal," sang this poet, "bite the knockers of thy doors, and as those doors resound appear to be exclaiming _Allahu akbar_" ("God is great"). Another bard describes the fountains of the same enchanted palace. "The lions who repose majestically in this home of princes, instead of roaring, allow the waters to fall in murmuring music from their mouths. _Their bodies seem to be covered with gold_, and in their mouths crystal is made liquid.

"Though in reality these lions are at rest, they seem to move and, when provoked, to grow enraged. One would imagine that they remembered their carnage of past days, and bellowing turned once more to the attack.

"When the sun is reflected from their _bronze_ surface, they seem to be of fire, with tongues of flame that issue from their mouths.

"Nevertheless, when we observe them to be vomiting water, one would think this water to be swords which melt without the help of fire, and are confounded with the crystal of the fountain."

Figures in bronze, of eagles, peacocks, swans, stags, dragons, lions, and many other creatures were set about in garden and in hall, to decorate these splendid palaces of ancient Cordova.

A specimen of this class of objects is a bronze lion of small dimensions (Plate xxx.) found not many years ago in the province of Palencia, and believed to date from the reign of Al-Hakem the Second of Cordova. It belonged for some time to the painter Fortuny--a diligent and lucky hunter of antiquities,--and was subsequently purchased in 1875 by M. Piot. The modelling and decoration of this beast, especially the mannered and symmetrical curls which are supposed to form its mane, are quite conventional and strongly reminiscent of Assyrian art, such as pervades the various lions rudely wrought in stone and still existing at Granada; whether the celebrated dozen that support and guard the fountain in the courtyard of the Moorish palace,[90] or else the greater pair of grinning brutes proceeding from the ruins of the palace of Azaque (miscalled the Moorish Mint), which may be noticed squatting with their rumps towards the road, beside the garden entrance to the Carmen de la Mezquita.

[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.

This little bronze lion measures about twelve inches high by fourteen inches long. The legs and part of the body are covered with a pattern representing flowers. The mane is described by comma-shaped marks. The tail, bent not ungracefully along the animal's back, is decorated with a kind of plait through nearly all its length. The eyes are now two cavities, but seem in other days to have contained two coloured stones or gems. Upon the back and flanks is a Cufic inscription which says, "_Perfect blessing. Complete happiness._"

Mussulman historians have described, in terms of cloying praise, the "red gold animals contrived with subtle skill and spread with precious stones" which Abderrahman placed at Cordova upon the fountains of his palaces. "Rivers of water issued from the mouth of every animal, and fell into a jasper basin." The words "red gold" are patently an oriental term for bronze. In view of this, and of the fact that the lion of Palencia is hollow-bellied, with his mouth wide open for ejecting water, and with a tail of cunning craftsmanship, which would avail, on being rotated, to produce or check the current of the "liquid crystal," we may conclude that it was intended both to form a part of, and to decorate a Moorish fountain of old days, and is the kind of beast "with precious stones for eyes" so often and so ecstatically lauded by the Muslim writers.

Similar to the foregoing object, and dating from about the same period, is a small bronze stag (Pl. xxxi.) in the provincial museum of Cordova. It is believed to proceed originally from the famous palace (tenth century) of Az-zahra, and used to be kept, some centuries ago, in the convent of San Jerónimo de Valparaiso.

The museum of Granada contains some interesting Moorish bronzes, found on the site of the ancient city of Illiberis, abandoned by its occupants on their removal to Granada at the beginning of the eleventh century. The most remarkable of these discoveries are pieces of a fountain, a small temple (Plate xxxii.), an _almirez_ or mortar (Plate xxxiii.), similar to one (not mentioned by Riaño) which was discovered at Monzón, and a few lamps. The fragments of a fountain end in the characteristic Assyrian-looking lions' heads, with lines in regular zones to represent the eyes and other features. One of the lamps (Pl. xxxiii.) is far superior to the rest. Notwithstanding Riaño's assertion that all of these antiquities are "incomplete and mutilated," this lamp is well preserved, and still retains, secured by a chain, the little metal trimming-piece or _emunctorium_ of the Romans. The small bronze temple is sometimes thought (but this hypothesis seems rather fanciful) to be a case, or part of a case, designed for keeping jewellery. The height of it is two-and-twenty inches, and the form hexagonal, "with twelve small columns supporting bands of open work, frescoes, cupola, and turrets; in the angles are birds" (Riaño).

The most important object in this substance now extant in any part of Spain is probably the huge and finely decorated lamp of Mohammed the Third of Granada (Pl. xxxiv.), called sometimes "the lamp of Oran," from a mistaken belief that it had formed part of the booty yielded by this city after her capture in 1509 by Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros.

The material of this lamp is bronze, possibly provided by the bells of Christian churches taken and pillaged by the Moors. It has four parts or tiers of varying shape, delicately wrought in open-work, and reaching a height of nearly seven feet in all. The third and largest tier, corresponding to the shade, is in the form of a truncated pyramid, and shows a different design on each of its four sides. The lamp bears several inscriptions, interrupted here and there through breakage of the metal. The longest of these legends is interpreted as follows:--

"In the name of God the Merciful. (May) the blessing of God be on our lord Mohammed and his kin; health and peace. (This lamp) was ordered (to be made) by our Lord the egregious sultan, the favoured, the victorious, the just, the happy, the conqueror of cities, and the extreme boundary of just conduct among the servants (of God); the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah, son of our lord the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah, son of our lord Al-Galib-Billah, the conqueror through God's protection, the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah; (may) God aid him (praised be God)." Here is a breakage and a corresponding gap in the inscription, which continues, "beneath it, lighted by my light for its magnificence and the care of its _xeque_, with righteous purpose and unerring certainty. And this was in the month of Rabié the first blessed, in the year 705.[91] May (God) be praised."

[91] September 20th to October 19th, A.D. 1305.

The history of this lamp has been explored with scholarly care by Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos, whose monograph will be found in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_. He says that the lamp was formerly suspended from the ceiling of the chapel of San Ildefonso in the university of Alcalá de Henares. Here, too, he has discovered entries which relate to it in two separate inventories, dated 1526 and 1531, from which we gather that the lamp, excepting the lowest part or tier, which probably proceeded from Oran, was brought to Alcalá by Cardinal Cisneros from the mosque of the Alhambra of Granada.

All of the lamp (continues Amador) that properly belongs to it, is the open-work shade, together with the graduated set of spheres which we now observe on top.[92] The lowest part is clearly an inverted bell, from which project four decorative pieces. This is believed by Amador to be a Spanish bell, dating from the fifteenth century, designed for striking with a hammer, and proceeding from some monastery or convent plundered by the Moors. Indeed, one of the two inventories discovered at Alcalá mentions "a bell with a hole in it, _which used to belong to a Moorish lamp_," thus countenancing the widespread supposition that the lamps of the mosque of Cordova were made of the Christian bells of Compostela, which the fierce Almanzor caused to be conveyed upon the aching backs of Christian captives to the Moorish court and capital of Andalusia.

[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.

It is probable, therefore, that the lamp of the third Mohammed of Granada is now composed of two lamps, and that the primitive arrangement of its parts was altered by the ignorant. Eight chains would formerly suspend it, in the following order of its tiers or stages, from the dome of the _mezquita_. First and uppermost would come the shade; then, next to this, the set of tapering spheres; and, last and lowest, the saucer or _platillo_, which has disappeared. Further, and as Koranic law prescribed, the lamp would hold two lights--one to be kindled on the saucer, and the other underneath the shade.

Other articles of Spanish-Moorish ornamented bronze are thimbles, buckets, and the spherical perfume-burners which were used to roll upon the stone or marble pavement of a dwelling. Moorish thimbles, conical and uncouthly large, are not uncommonly met with at Granada. I have one, of which the above is an outline sketched to size.

Sometimes these Moorish thimbles are inscribed in Cufic lettering with phrases such as--"(May) the blessing of God and every kind of happiness (be destined for the owner of this thimble)"; or else the maker's name--"The work of Saif"; or a single word--"Blessing."